So when will furlough be paid then?

penners324

The company pays 80% of salaries as normal and claims it back under the furlough scheme.
If the company haven't got enough cash (or a big enough overdraft) to cover 1 month of staff salaries I'd suggest the company will be in administration pretty soon.

peachyprice

penners324 said:

The company pays 80% of salaries as normal and claims it back under the furlough scheme.
If the company haven't got enough cash (or a big enough overdraft) to cover 1 month of staff salaries I'd suggest the company will be in administration pretty soon.

Or were on the brink of it even without Covid-19.

warby68

Our accountant says that yes, the wages should be paid pending reclaim of the furlough amount.
However the employer won't be refusing to pay you, they will be unable to pay you on time and will owe you the money.
This is not a situation which has been tested before but bear in mind the government takes the view this is about longer term job preservation rather than individual rights just as the moment. When companies are struggling for other reasons it isn't all that unusual for wages to be paid late.
Things could change quite quickly when Banks get their funding schemes up and running more fully - huge ask, short time to set policy and get moving so far. Once they are up to speed I would expect requests simply to bridge wages with a government 'guarantee' on the out to be the simpler ones.
Force the issue, force the failure  - company may opt to sack everyone as they no longer see any possibility of recovery and the environment for corporate failure has been made friendlier too. You have to be realistic. Businesses may have pockets no deeper than yours.

Andy_L

PacketofCrisps said:

But that still doesn't answer the question,
Can an employer refuse to pay you while you're furloughed and still qualify for the job retention scheme? Yes or No? 

Legally, they have to pay you. However:
1. The furlough agreement may include a clause to let them delay until the cash comes through & if you don't agree they make you redundant instead
2. As SaveySue daid, if they do not have the money to pay you what can they do. Semantically, they aren't refusing: just unable to do so

bap98189

PacketofCrisps said: I understand that, I've just been trying to ascertain whether an employer can refuse to pay you while you're furloughed and still qualify for the job retention scheme, it's a simple question that nobody seems to know the answers to, I've had business owners and accountants tell me that if your furloughed you should still be paid, and if you are not your employer won't be able to claim wages back because you haven't been paid any.

We have been following the government information on this pretty closely, and our accountants have kept us up to date with what they are hearing from people they know in the civil service. Essentially nobody knows for certain but the whipsers are that the system will require employers to pay their staff and then claim the money back from the government online. An online portal is rapidly being developed to facilitate this, and it will likely require employers to upload details of employees each month and the claims will then be verified against the PAYE database before being paid out.

There was an initial idea that employers would have to upload PAYE data and bank account data for all employees, and that the money would then be paid directly from the government to the employees, but this idea has been shelved as it would be too complicated and too prone to errors.

So to answer your question, yes employers can refuse to pay you in the same way that any employer can at any time. However, it looks like they are going to be unlikely to be able to claim anything from the government unless they have already paid you.

That said, this could all change in the next few weeks as the system isn't expected to go live until the end of April.

BrassicWoman

PacketofCrisps said:

But that still doesn't answer the question,
Can an employer refuse to pay you while you're furloughed and still qualify for the job retention scheme? Yes or No? 

There’s zero case law. So we are all having an educated guess. Even the lawyers.
obviously they can refuse to pay you. We just don’t know what the recourse is; or when the courts will be able to help us find out.

andyg187

Hopefully someone can answer this. I have been back to work for the last two weeks after being furloughed. I am on annual leave as of Monday 17th August for 2 weeks and have learnt my employer is putting me back on flexible furlough for this period. Is this legal?

Masomnia

andyg187 said:

Hopefully someone can answer this. I have been back to work for the last two weeks after being furloughed. I am on annual leave as of Monday 17th August for 2 weeks and have learnt my employer is putting me back on flexible furlough for this period. Is this legal?

Essentially yes, you can be on annual leave and be on furlough at the same time. There's nothing in the rules to state that you can't.

Some might argue that it's an abuse of the system when you would have been working were it not for the annual leave, but it's really not your problem and worse case scenario is that down the road if HMRC decide that your employer shouldn't have claimed for the time you were on leave they'll ask your employer to pay that money back. Nothing to do with you. 

KP20

andyg187 said:

Hopefully someone can answer this. I have been back to work for the last two weeks after being furloughed. I am on annual leave as of Monday 17th August for 2 weeks and have learnt my employer is putting me back on flexible furlough for this period. Is this legal?

You also need to be paid your full rate for the time you're on holidays.