Further changes were made to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme guidance on 07 August 2020. Detailed below are the specific sections which have been updated.
Check if your employer can use the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
- A new section has been added called ‘if you’re a supply teacher’. This says that supply teachers (in school holiday periods) are no different from any other employee and the employer can make a claim if the normal eligibility criteria is met.
- In the section ‘while you’re on furlough’ a line has been added to make clear that if the employee is made redundant, the statutory redundancy pay is to be calculated on the pay that would have normally been paid, not the reduced contractual pay if the employee had not been paid at 100% whilst on furlough. This is in recognition of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (Coronavirus, Calculation of a Week’s Pay) Regulations 2020 and the announcement from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). Read more about this in our recent article here.
Check which employees you can put on furlough to use the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
The changes to this section mirror the guidance above, i.e. about:
- Supply teachers
- Statutory redundancy (and other statutory payments) being calculated on normal pay
Calculate how much you can claim using the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
This updated section reads:
Page updated with a new section on how to calculate your claim for fixed pay employees who have worked enough overtime (in the tax year 2019 to 2020) to have a significant impact on the amount you need to claim.
This is to help employees work out how much you can claim as a grant if the employee is on a fixed salary but the amount of overtime they were paid in 2019/20 was enough to have a ‘significant effect’ on their earnings. If it was significant (see examples in updated guidance), the reclaim is to be made as if the worker had pay that varies (rather than pay that is fixed).
Claim for wages through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
This update is about employees that do not have a National Insurance Number. HMRC’s systems can no longer accept claims for under 100 employees where National Insurance Numbers are missing. The update says that HMRC is only to be contacted ‘if your employee has a temporary number or genuinely has never had one’. Temporary NINOs should not be used.
Therefore make every effort to get the employee’s correct NINO before making the claim and contact HMRC if you cannot get it. A claim for the Coronavirus Job Retention Bonus, payable from February 2021, is dependent on CJRS claims being accurate, as well as RTI submissions.
As the guidance changes on a regular basis, ensure to keep a copy of the latest guidance.