Furlough Extension to those Returning from Family Related Leave
Under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (“furlough”), employers are entitled to furlough employees and currently reclaim 80% of their salary, or £2,500.00 whichever is lower. There was an announcement last week by Rishi Sunak that the scheme was subject to change to the new Flexible Furlough Scheme ("FFS”).
The new FFS scheme is set to enable employees to return to work at times, and hours agreed between the parties, and employers can still claim the 80% grant for the employees normal hours not worked. The new scheme will see a tapered contribution from employers and reduction of the Government contribution to enable the UK economy to return to some form of normal. The full guidance in respect of FFS is yet to be published, however, this is expected any time now.
The new FFS scheme is due to start on 1st July 2020, which meant that the cut off date for enrolling new entrants was 10th June 2020, so that the eligibility requirement of a 3 weeks' continuing period of furlough, was met. This left many employees who were currently on family related leave in a worrying and difficult position having to decide between returning to work, or caring for their families and being financially disadvantaged once their leave had ended.
There has been a lot of confusion over recent weeks in respect of the rights of those employees on family related leave. It is unfortunate that an announcement was made late in the day on 9th June 2020, the day before the last day for furloughing employees, that those workers would be exempt from the limitation despite many employees having ended their entitlement to leave early.
On 9th June 2020, the Government announced that the new Flexible Furlough Scheme will be open to employees returning to work from family related leave, and the 'cut off’ date of the 10th June 2020 will not be applicable to them. The announcement stated 'that parents on statutory maternity and paternity leave who return to work in the coming months after a long period of absence will be permitted to be furloughed. This will only apply where they work for an employer who has previously furloughed other employees.’ Therefore, the eligibility appears too have changed for those employees currently on maternity leave, where such leave is due to end prior to the expiration of the scheme in expected in October 2020. The only caveat being that to qualify, an employer must have previously furloughed other employees in the company.
The Government Announcement can be found here.
