Welcome to our August Newsletter.
Mini Budget Announcement
The Chancellor Rishi Sunak unveiled a number of schemes in his summer ‘mini budget’ announcement on 8th July 2020 re: ‘Plan for Jobs’. Referencing both Gov.uk Business Update and HMRC Business Help we have summarised some of the main points below.
Job Retention Bonus
The package includes a one-off payment of £1,000 to UK employers for every furloughed employee who remains continuously employed through to the end of January 2021.
To be eligible, employees will need to:
- earn at least £520 per month (above the Lower Earnings Limit) on average for November, December, and January
- have been furloughed by the employer at any point and legitimately claimed for under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
- have been continuously employed by the employer up until at least 31 January 2021.
Employers will be able to claim the bonus from February 2021 once accurate RTI data to 31 January has been received. Full guidance will be published in the Autumn.
Work Placements
The Chancellor announced a "Kickstart scheme" to create more jobs for young people. The fund will subsidise six-month work placements for people on Universal Credit aged between 16 and 24, who are at risk of long-term unemployment.
For each "kickstarter" job, the government will cover the cost of 25 hours' work a week at the National Minimum Wage.
Traineeships
The government will fund employers who provide trainees with work experience at a rate of £1,000 per trainee and expand eligibility for traineeships to those with Level 3 qualifications and below.
Please find a link below that will take you to the news story on the government website:
Chancellor's Plan for Jobs to help the UK's recovery published on 8th July 2020 from HMRC and the Chancellor.
Redundancy - Notice payments being paid at normal wages
On 31st July a new law was passed to ensure that furloughed employees receive statutory redundancy pay based on their normal wages, rather than a reduced furlough rate, meaning employers will have to top up employees notice pay to 100% of their salary and not the furlough payment 80%.
The changes will aid those furloughed under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme by ensuring they are not short-changed if they are made redundant. The changes will also apply to statutory notice pay and other entitlements. Employees must be given a notice period before their employment ends, varying from at least one week’s notice up to 12 weeks’ notice, depending on how long they have worked for their employer. During this notice period, employees must be paid.
Advice on how to manage employees who are self-isolating due to returning from a trip abroad
Last month, Spain and its islands were removed from the Government’s exemption list of countries which do not require self-isolation on return, meaning that anyone returning to the UK from any of these places must self-isolate for a period of 14 days to effectively ‘quarantine’. The list is ever changing and may differ between England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. There are also exemptions for certain groups of employers.
If this has impacted you as an employer, you may now have members of your teams who are required to take an additional two weeks’ absence from work to self- isolate. It is advised that you take a consistent approach across the business as to how you will categorise this time off and communicate to all employees how this will impact their pay should they find themselves in this position.
Reminder Re: The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (Furlough)
- From 1 September 2020 employers will start contributing to the wages of their furloughed employees as well as employer contributions. Grants will be for 70% of usual wages in September, but furloughed employees will continue to be entitled to receive at least 80% of their usual wages. Employers will have to make up the difference from their own resources.
- From 1 October 2020 the Government will pay 60% of wages up to a cap of £1875 for the hours the employee does not work. Employers will pay employer contributions and 20% of wages to make up 80% total to cap of £2500.