Furlough - am I excluded if redundancy payment has been made by employer?

Poppy710

Can anyone help please ? I was made redundant officially on 19th March and received statutory redundancy pay a couple of days ago so have no ties with my recent employer. Does this mean that I cannot qualify for furlough? 

Jeremy535897

You can ask them to rehire you as you were on their payroll at 28 February 2020, but you would probably have to pay the redundancy back.

What_the_Dickens

Hi Poppy, apologies for jumping on the back of your post, but I am in the same boat as you.  I received my redundancy payment on 20th March, although today is officially my last day.  My redundancy was not  as a result of the virus, however, friends are encouraging me to seek advice as they believe I may be entitled to the Furlough payment?  My job is not on hold, it no longer exists, and I was given 2 months notice.  It just so happens that this is dreadful timing for us as it is not a great time to be out of work!   I think I am correct in assuming that I am only entitled to contribution based JSA, but if anyone out there thinks differently, then I would be very grateful for their advice - thank you in advance.

comeandgo

I understood the payments were to keep people in jobs.  If employee has been made redundant, P45 issued etc then employee would have to be re employed.  All well and good so far.  But there are very little guidelines, if any, from government regarding their auditing of payments.  So HMRC will see P45 issues, employee re employed and I assume another P45 when all this blows over.  I think the employer would be at risk here.

Poppy710

Yes unfortunately this is not clear - it would be really useful to get some clarity on this but like many, don’t know where to start. The UK Gov. website doesn’t cover this but understandably we are in uncharted territory. Thank you all for your comments - Jeremy53897’s response would be the ideal one but ‘comeandgo’, think there is some validity there too. My redundancy like ‘what the dickens ‘ is also not corona related.  Hoping someone will be able to shed more light on this. Good luck and stay safe. Thanks. 

SuperWizard

@Poppy710 The retention scheme has only been designed with the impact of coronavirus in mind. If you were going to be made redundant anyway, even if this pandemic had not occured, then you're probably not eligible for the scheme in the spirit of things. Your employer could choose to bring you back on, but then they're playing a (theoretically) dangerous game with HMRC.

If you were bought back on, my understanding is that you'd have to pay the redundancy money back to the employer. It's worth asking them if they'll take you back but they're not obliged to.

@What_the_Dickens Again, it's worth asking your employer if you can come back and be furloughed but it is not an automatic entitlement; the employer can say no, especially if your job was eliminated for reasons other than the impact of coronavirus. Regarding your eligibility for state benefits, it is worth making a new thread about that specific issue.