Redundancy & being able to stay employed while furlough is in place

pascoej

My partner is in the middle of his redundancy consultation. He has asked if he can be kept on furlough until his company has to start making a contribution to his wage, but his boss has said that if his job is at risk, he can't keep him on furlough as the government will see it as deliberately taking money from the furlough scheme knowing that they are possibly going to put him out of work. Is this right? 

Semple

It's kind of irrelevant now anyway, as there's only a couple more weeks until employers have to start making a form of contribution. At which point i would guess your partner would be on notice period anyway (assuming they get made redundant).

sharpe106

Although they technically can it is agaisnt the idea of the scheme. But it is up to them, it still costs them, It also might cost them more in payments if it takes you into the next year of service.

pascoej

Thanks for your comments, however, we're still confused as to whether it's actually against the law. Surely they can just keep him on furlough until the end of July and then once they have to start paying his NI and pension contributions, they can make him redundant then? Seems a bit poor that he could potentially be out of a job in a couple of weeks when he could be being paid for another six weeks or so. It's not costing his employer anything until the 31 July and it would help us out while he looks for another job.

Grumpy_chap

It is probably not against the law, but it will cost the company.

It is likely that the company want to get the consultation done and serve notice by 30th June.  Standard 4 weeks will then run out end of July and the majority of the notice pay is covered by the CJRS grant.

mobilejo

pascoej said:

Thanks for your comments, however, we're still confused as to whether it's actually against the law. Surely they can just keep him on furlough until the end of July and then once they have to start paying his NI and pension contributions, they can make him redundant then? Seems a bit poor that he could potentially be out of a job in a couple of weeks when he could be being paid for another six weeks or so. It's not costing his employer anything until the 31 July and it would help us out while he looks for another job.

Against the law? Technically I don't believe so - but some employers feel that it is at least morally wrong if not against the letter of the law. As the boss said, the scheme was designed to keep jobs open for those who would have a job to come back to. As soon as the employer knows that there isn't a job for your husband to return to, he feels it is the right thing to do to stop using the scheme. The employer would be claiming designed for one purpose and using for another.

Ultimately, if the employer has made his mind up, I don't think that being against the law would help you.

sharpe106

No its not against the law as the government have even said people can access it for that. But they did not point out it would cost companies. So then employees can blame companies rather then the government, clever of them. 

rosiesposies

Furlough does cost the company as holiday is still accrued, so his redundancy pay would be more costly the longer the company keeps him employed. 

Tammykitty

rosiesposies said:

Furlough does cost the company as holiday is still accrued, so his redundancy pay would be more costly the longer the company keeps him employed. 

 correct - and depending on length or service additional redundancy pay may also be due