The End Of Furlough

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Sitting at my laptop at midnight on Monday 22nd March 2020 learning about “furlough” provisions for the first time felt so surreal as an employment lawyer. The idea that you could ask your employees to go home and they would get paid (albeit reduced pay) was so novel. It was unclear when the Government would implement a method for employers to recoup the salaries paid at that time. Now we are rapidly approaching the end of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) introduced by the Government to pay furloughed workers and employees.

The whole purpose and intention of the CJRS was to assist employers to preserve as many jobs as possible so redundancies were not made. However, the added incentive of the Job Retention Bonus where the Chancellor originally announced in July 2020 that there would be £1,000 bonus paid to employers per every employee brought back was withdrawn when CJRS was extended. Similarly, the Job Support Scheme that was previously intended to replace CJRS has been “postponed”. It is not clear at this time what will happen with either.

Any claims under CJRS for September 2021 pay must be claimed by no later than 14th October 2021 by employers.

What are the likely consequences now the CJRS is ending on 30th September 2021?

  • We may see an increase in redundancies. Redundancy is a permitted fair reason to dismiss but only if there is a genuine redundancy situation and the employer makes the decision to dismiss for that reason fairly.
  • Employers may seek to keep an employee/worker’s pay the same as whilst on furlough – whether they can do this will depend on the wording of the contract of employment and any written Furlough Leave Agreement that was put in place. In most situations, however it is likely to result in a breach of contract/constructive dismissal claim by the employee.
  • Employees being asked to reduce hours – again, this is unlikely to be permissible unless the employee gives express consent.

The Chartered Institute of Personal Development (CIPD) carried out a survey that showed that 22% of employers had made changes to their employee’s terms and conditions since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. The most common changes were to workplace, hours and pay.

Whether you are an employee facing changes to your employment circumstances; or an employer wondering what to do next, and more importantly, what the law will permit you to do, then please get in touch with us for specialist employment law advice.

enquiries@adams-harrison.co.uk

Jennifer Carpenter
Solicitor – Employment law specialism
Managing Partner