On 5 November 2020, the Chancellor announced that the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme will now run until 31 March 2021.

He has also stated that further guidance will be given on the 10th November 2020.

Payments Pro will support its workers by continuing to support the Job Retention Scheme until the time that HMRC brings it to an end.

Supporting Our Workers

We have supported our workers from the beginning of the Job Retention Scheme ensuring that we provided help where we could in line with HMRC guidance.  This was done despite many umbrellas refusing to support the scheme after concerns were raised over what contributions the umbrella could be held accountable for.

In addition to this it was stated that umbrella’s would not be able to charge a fee for their service despite the fact that running the scheme involved additional processing outside of the standard payroll (depending on the payroll software provider).

Job Retention Scheme Details

The most important change to furloughed workers is the reinstatement of the 80% of current salary with the calculations of standard or usual hours worked expected to follow the previous scheme.

  • The entitlement of 80% of the current salary for hours not worked up to a maximum cap of £2,500 per month has been reinstated.
  • To qualify, employees must be on the employer’s payroll meaning HMRC must have received an RTI submission reporting a payment on or before 23:59 on 30 October 2020 to be eligible for support.
  • The Government also confirmed that if employees were on an employers’ payroll on 23 September 2020 (i.e. an RTI submission on or before 23 September) and stopped working for them afterwards, they can also qualify for the scheme if their employer re-employs them after 30 October.

We will continue to monitor the updates from HMRC and will inform our workers as and when we have more information.

Stay safe and take care.