Flexible Furlough Scheme Quick Guide

• From 1st July 2020, employers can bring back to work employees who have been furloughed for at least three consecutive weeks between 1st March 2020 to 30th June 2020.
• If you flexibly furlough an employee, you’ll need to make sure that you agree this with the employee (or reach collective agreement with a trade union) and keep a new written agreement that confirms the new furlough arrangement.
• There are two different calculations to use to work out employees’ usual hours, depending on whether they work fixed hours or variable hours. Details of how to perform the calculations can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/steps-to-take-before-calculating-your-claim-using-the-coronavirus-job-retention-scheme#usual-hours
• To calculate the number of furloughed hours for a claim period, start with your employee’s usual hours and subtract the number of hours they actually worked in the claim period – even if this is different to what was agreed.
• If an employee is flexibly furloughed and the hours that they work in a particular week are less than their usual hours, the employer will pay the employee in full for the hours worked plus at least 80% of the employee’s regular wage, up to a maximum of £2,500 per month, for the hours not worked (i.e. furloughed).
• Employers will need to keep records of how many hours employees work and the number of hours furloughed (i.e. not working) for at least six years.

At the time of writing this blog (1st July 2020), the following are some of the new features that you will come across when making a claim:

• You will no longer need to specify the start date of the claim.
• If this is your first claim in the month, the start date will be the 1st of the month. If this is not your first claim in the month, then the claim will start the day after the last claim ended.
• You will not be able to make a claim that covers more than one month.
• If you are making multiple claims in a month, each claim period must be at least 7 days long.
• If you are unable to make a claim of at least 7 days at the end of a month, then your claim must be split across the end of this month, and the beginning of the next month. In this case, you can make a claim for less than 7 days, but only if the claims are made in consecutive order.
• For the period commencing 1st July, the claim period cannot be less than 7 days i.e. Wednesday 1st July 2020 to Sunday 5th July 2020 is not valid, unless a claim for the period up to 30th June has been completed.
  
• You will be asked if any of the employees included in the claim are on flexible furlough.
• For each individual employee included in the claim, you will be asked if that employee is on flexible furlough. If the answer is yes, you will be asked how many hours the employee would have usually worked during the claim period, followed by what hours the employee actually worked in the claim period.