CJRS Grant Extended to March 2021 -

CJRS Grant Extended to March 2021

1. Employers who can claim under the CJRS extension

Employers do not need to have used the CJRS previously.

Employers across the UK can claim, whether their businesses are open or closed.

The government expects that publicly funded organisations will not use the scheme, as has already been the case for CJRS, but partially publicly funded organisations may be eligible where their private revenues have been disrupted. All other previous CJRS eligibility requirements also apply to these employers.

HMRC will publish details of employers who make claims under the extended CJRS scheme, starting from December. Full details will be included in full guidance which will be published on 10 November 2020.

2. Employees furloughed under the CJRS extension

2.1 Core employee eligibility criteria

Employers can claim for employees who were employed and on their PAYE payroll on 30 October 2020. The employer must have made a PAYE Real Time Information (RTI) submission to HMRC between the 20 March 2020 and 30 October 2020, notifying a payment of earnings for that employee.

Employers will have flexibility to use the scheme for employees for any amount of time or shift pattern, furloughing employees on either a full-time or part-time basis, and will be able to vary the hours worked in agreement with the employee.

As under the current CJRS rules, employees can be on any type of employment contract.

2.2 Employees not claimed for previously under CJRS

Employees do not need to have been furloughed under the CJRS previously.

For employees that meet the eligibility criteria, and were previously furloughed, employers must use the same calculations for calculating reference pay and usual hours as CJRS.

For an employee who meets the criteria of the extended scheme but was not previously eligible for CJRS, the alternative calculations of reference pay and usual hours must be used. For all other employees, employers must use the CJRS calculations for calculating reference pay and usual hours.

Employer contributions during the CJRS extension until January will be the same as in August 2020. This means that for hours not worked by their employee, employers will only be asked to cover National Insurance and employer pension contributions. The government will review the policy in January to decide whether economic circumstances are improving enough to ask employers to contribute more.

Employers will have to pay the employee’s wages for the hours they work as normal, as well as employer National Insurance and employer pension contributions.

2.3 Employees whose health has been affected by coronavirus or other conditions

Employees can be furloughed where they are unable to work because they:

are shielding in line with public health guidance (or need to stay at home with someone who is shielding)
have caring responsibilities resulting from coronavirus, including employees that need to look after children

The CJRS is not intended for short-term sick absences. If, however, employers want to furlough employees for business reasons and they are currently off sick, they are eligible to do so, as with other employees.

Furloughed employees who become ill, due to coronavirus or any other cause, must be paid at least Statutory Sick Pay (SSP). As under the CJRS previously, it is up to employers to decide whether to move these employees onto SSP or to keep them on furlough, at their furloughed rate.

2.4 Employees re-employed by their employer

Employees that were employed and on the payroll on 23 September 2020 who were made redundant or stopped working for their employer afterwards can be re-employed and claimed for. The employer must have made a PAYE Real Time Information (RTI) submission to HMRC from 20 March 2020 to 23 September 2020, notifying a payment of earnings for those employees.

Similarly, an employee who was on a fixed term contract, on payroll on 23 September, and that contract expired after 23 September can be re-employed and claimed for, provided that the other eligibility criteria are met.

2.5 When employees are on furlough

As under the CJRS previously, during hours which employees are recorded as being on furlough, they cannot do any work for their employer that makes money or provides services for their employer or any organisation linked or associated with their employer.

Employees can:

take part in training
volunteer for another employer or organisation
work for another employer (if contractually allowed)

2.6 Maintaining employee rights

Employees will retain their rights at work, including:

SSP
annual leave
maternity and other parental rights
rights against unfair dismissal
redundancy payments
to be paid at least statutory National Minimum Wage for hours worked

In addition, as with the current CJRS:

the Working Tax Credits working hours easement will apply for the period of this CJRS extension
for employees on statutory parental leave, there will be no change from CJRS