Furloughed worker refusing to stop working - advice needed!

Hollywood_29

Slightly strange situation.  We have a live in worker - occupies a property above their place of work.  They have been informed of furlough and obligations and have agreed to this.  Despite their acceptance of furlough they are refusing to relinquish all of their work responsibilities and insist on still dealing with queries, sorting post, checking on premisis, generally performing their previous role albeit scaled back. They are also refusing to give access to the premesis to others to allow regular security checks. We are adamant that they are not to fulfil any of their work responsibilites whatsoever.

How might this be viewed in the eyes of HMRC/Government if audited?

Is our only course of action a disciplinary one?  Terminate contract for gross misconduct and require that they vacate premisis immediately?

As an employer we want to ensure we are not leaving ourselves open to any possible action for misuse of furlough scheme. 

Advice would be v useful!

Thanks

BrassicWoman

normal disciplinary policy, yes.

Jeremy535897

There are two issues to consider. The first is that if they are continuing to carry out duties, you cannot claim CJRS. Go back to them and explain this. Get them to agree not to do anything else. The way a lot of employers protect themselves is to include a clawback of wages in the furlough agreement in the event a CJRS claim fails, but I'm not sure this helps as you can't make the claim in the first place.

The other issue is that they are in job related accommodation. There is quite a bit of Government advice on this situation at 1.9 in this document, where the occupant loses the job:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/876500/Consolidated_Landlord_and_Tenant_Guidance_COVID_and_the_PRS_v4.2.pdf

Hermann

They've made an agreement with their employer to do no work during furlough.

They are therefore in breach of their current employment contract so treat it as such.

Ashworks

I agree, if they won't stop working then start following your disciplinary procedure.

Hollywood_29

Thanks very much all - super helpful and probably as I thought.