How to furlough employees and directors using the '80% salary scheme'

We are guiding many clients through the process of ‘furloughing‘ employees. In addition, as we have previously indicated, company directors are also eligible to be furloughed – and we are guiding our clients through this process too.

An update has been made by the Government to the Job Retention Scheme (or ‘80% scheme’) which you can see here and officially confirms:

company directors are eligible to be furloughed.
the minimum period for each employee to be furloughed is 3 continuous weeks (the word continuous is part of the updated legislation).
employees can be furloughed multiple times, but each claim is for a minimum of 3 continuous weeks.

The information required by an employer in making a claim on the HMRC portal is:

your ePAYE reference number
the number of employees being furloughed
the claim period (start and end date)
amount claimed (per the minimum length of furloughing of 3 consecutive weeks)
your company bank account number and sort code
your contact name
your phone number

There are still some questions that the update doesn’t answer. Specifically, these are:

when the online portal for making a claim will be ‘live’ – HMRC guidance still refers to ‘the end of April’, but is not specific.
whether the 3 continuous weeks (requirement) can span a month, so that employees can return to work for short periods of time, but employers can continue to claim furlough.
how quickly payments for furlough will be made.

Do you need more help in furloughing staff?

We are looking at launching a new specific service to help clients make their furlough claims in the correct way. If this is of interest please email Murray Patt now so that we can assess the level of demand – and then provide the necessary resource in-house to support you.