Unpaid leave whilst on furlough

mrslove90

Prior to furlough being announced my employer asked staff whether they were able to take some unpaid leave whilst the business was struggling to protect cash flow for the rest of the financial year. At this point we didn’t know how hard the pandemic would hit and how long this would go on for.

I offered to take some unpaid leave in March and April to help out. My unpaid leave began on Friday the 20th March however on Tuesday 24th March I received a call to advise I would instead be placed on furlough.

In August I was made redundant. My notice period is 2 months so my employer is paying me 100% of my wage for this period plus my remaining annual leave allowance. I have now received an email from my employer to state that they had only been able to deduct two days of the unpaid leave I took in March (20th and 23rd) and April from my pay due to furlough arrangements so they would instead be deducting this from my final pay. 

 Am I correct in thinking this is wrong? I agreed to the unpaid leave because of the pandemic to protect my job and the cashflow of the business. As furlough came in on the 24th March my wages have since been paid by the government and as I’m already losing 20% of my wage I surely shouldn’t now have unpaid leave taken from me 6 months later? I would imagine that the company claimed the full 80% from the government so does this mean they will be making a profit from my furlough if they do go ahead and deduct the unpaid leave from my final pay? I would imagine this is against the law. I've replied to argue this and not yet received a response almost 3 days later. Would be good to know if anyone else has experienced this and what the outcome was? 

epm-84

The Chancellor back dated furlough to 1st March so any unpaid leave/short term lay off since 1st March could have been changed to be covered by furlough.  Obviously since 1st August the employer have had to contribute towards furlough but for anything from 1st March to 31st July there's no reason for anyone to have not been paid at least the 80% rate, as long as they were on payroll by the cut off date.

The problem is if you agreed to the unpaid leave then your employer doesn't have to cancel it and put you on furlough instead, as it was at the employer's discretion who did and didn't go on to furlough.

Your employer will have to put what you were paid on your P45 if you leave work or on your P60 if you're still there at the end of the tax year.  If it doesn't match what you've been paid complain, if it matches then HMRC will question it if they don't think it's right.

Jeremy535897

It is not surprising that they chose to bring your unpaid leave to an end. The original Treasury Direction issued in May 2020 stated:
"6.5 No claim to CJRS may be made in respect of an unpaid sabbatical or other period of unpaid leave of an employee beginning before or after 19 March 2020 (whether agreed or otherwise arranged conditionally or unconditionally on, before or after that day)."
Whilst to them there was no difference in claiming under CJRS and paying you the net wage after tax, pension contribution and NIC, or paying you nothing and claiming nothing, obviously it made a lot of difference to you. If they (not the government, who never paid people's wages) paid you furlough pay from 24 March though, you can't have been on unpaid leave, because you were paid. They will have reclaimed that pay under CJRS, and one of the basic rules of CJRS is that they must pay you no less than 80% of your reference salary, or they can't claim anything for you.

Apart from anything else, the deduction would be an illegal deduction from wages.