Today, 5^th November 2020, the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, announced another extension to the furlough scheme. The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), aka furlough, has now been extended to the end of March 2021.

This means that the Job Support Scheme that was announced on 24^th September 2020 has been further postponed.

What’s new?

• Employees will be eligible for the extended furlough scheme as long as they were on your payroll by 23:59 on 30^th October 2020
• Your employees can be placed on furlough even if you haven’t accessed the scheme before
• Your employees do not need to have been on the furlough scheme before
• Employees will receive 80% of their usual salary for hours not worked, up to a maximum of £2,500 per month
  • The percentage may decrease in February 2021
• There will be no employer contribution to wages for hours that the employee does not work (this will be reviewed in 2021)
• • Employers only need to pay the National Insurance and Employer pension contributions for hours not worked
• Employees are still allowed to use the scheme flexibly, meaning that your employees can work some hours;
• The Job Retention Bonus will NOT be paid in February, as previously announced.
• At this time there are no further details on when this will be paid.

Self-employed?

For the people in the UK who are self-employed, there’s also been a change to what they can claim. The Self-Employed Income Support Scheme will help those who have seen a reduced demand for their services or who cannot trade due to Coronavirus

The third self-employed grant, which covers November to January will be increased from 40% to 80% of trading profits. The government believes that this level of support is now equivalent to employees receiving furlough.

Bounce back loan scheme

The deadline for applications for the bounce back loan has been extended to the end of January 2021, which means that the government have added a 2 month extension to the deadline.

Also, if you’ve already applied for this scheme but not borrowed the maximum amount, you can now top-up your load. This means that from next week you can increase the amount you’ve borrowed up to the maximum.

Please note that you can only do this once.

More information

The government is due to publish full guidance on the chances next week, on 10^th November 2020.

If you’d like to read what’s currently available, just follow this link

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-extends-furlough-to-march-and-increases-self-employed-support

If you need specific help or have any queries, please don’t hesitate to contact us.