The Government has announced that the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, which was due to close on 31 Oct 2020, will remain open until Mar 2021.
The eligibility criteria will change from Nov 2020 and to qualify, employees must have been included on a PAYE RTI return before the end of Oct 2020. Broadly this means that the employee will qualify if they were employed before 30 Oct 2020 and a salary payment was processed by that date.
There is no requirement to have used the CJRS scheme before.
The flexible working, which is currently permitted in the CJRS, will be retained. Therefore, employers will be allowed to have employee working (for any number of hours or shift pattern) and the employer will be responsible to pay for these actual hours worked at the employee's normal pay rate.
For hours not worked i.e. normal hours less actual hours worked, employees will receive at least 80% of their normal salary (capped at £2,500) and this will be paid by the employer and reclaimed from the government in the same way as it is currently.
However, the reclaim period has been reduced and the window is now only 14 days for the reclaim month.
Therefore, this is an improvement over the reclaim amount for Oct 2020, which was 60% of normal salary for unworked hours.
Employers must continue to cover the associated employer's NIC and pension contributions.
The Government has confirmed that the Job Support Scheme, that was due to start on 1 Nov 2020, has been delayed until the furlough scheme ends.
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