Furlough: what the updated guidance clarifies, and what it doesn’t

Our Head of Employment, Linky Trott was quoted in Personnel Today’s analysis of the UK Government’s guidance on their Covid-19 furlough scheme (6th April 2020).

It’s one of the most commonly used words in our expanding coronavirus lexicon, but perhaps also one of the more confusing. Furlough, the term used to describe the government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, now attracts more than 23 million results in a Google search and makes a daily appearance in the business headlines.

This weekend (4 April), the government announced updated guidance to the scheme, clarifying that organisations can re-employ people who were made redundant after 28 February 2020 so they will be eligible to receive 80% of their former salary. This also means that those who left to start a new job after this date can ask their previous employer to re-employ them so they can qualify for furlough support.

But despite some clarification, many employers remain confused about how the scheme will work in practice – from the situations in which furlough is appropriate to how the money will be reclaimed from HMRC. Below we outline some of the key elements of the scheme and what is known so far:

Read the full article at Personnel Today

Read Linky’s blog on the Covid-19 Furlough scheme.