The Edwin Coe LLP Employment team advises both employers and senior executives on a full range of employment and partnership related disputes and non-contentious matters. The team’s clients include large multinationals, start-ups, SMEs, senior executives, accountants and insolvency practitioners.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the team has been focused on responding to the changes and announcements in relation to the Job Retention Scheme as businesses of all sizes furlough staff. The complexities of furlough leave, and how to prepare for any future challenge, are discussed in the below articles and blogs. The team will continue to monitor and report on the situation as it develops.
The UK’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), commonly referred to as the furlough scheme, has been designed and made operational in a matter of weeks with quite a lot of thinking by Government ‘on the hoof’. Thus, the guidance has fallen in a piecemeal fashion, making it challenging for employers to liaise with staff and take appropriate action.
Those operating in an environment highly regulated by health and safety requirements (construction and the NHS for example) will be familiar with Section 100 of the Employment Rights Act 1996. For office-based workers however Section 100 is a little known provision which, before the pandemic, rarely came up in practice.
On 13 April 2020, in the first ruling of its kind, the High Court provided much needed clarity on the application of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (the Scheme) for companies that have entered into administration. The Court expressed a willingness to assist with the policy objectives of saving jobs, and this may be the first in a series of authorities curbing traditional vested interests in favour of collective processes.
When we published our blog on 15 April 2020, we stated rather boldly that the issue of the Treasury Direction on 15 April 2020 was likely to the definitive guide on how the Job retention Scheme (JRS) works. Friday’s flurry of updates however disproved that. Further guidance has been issued.
The Government has released further guidance on the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (the JRS), this time in the form of a Direction to HMRC under powers conferred by the Coronavirus Act 2020.