Can charities furlough their employees?
Hopefully, further guidance will provide additional clarification on this, but it is difficult to see how a charity whose operations have been significantly curtailed because of the Covid-19 restrictions, cannot furlough employees and access the scheme, in particular where they have several different income streams. For example if a charity’s retail or fundraising operations have been significantly curtailed due to the restrictions, then it would appear unfair for it not to able to rely on the furlough scheme to assist in the funding of the employment costs associated with this part of the charity.
However, it might be prudent, where there are services that are publicly funded and employees working within those services cannot undertake their normal work, to consider if they can do different roles to work on Covid-19 activities. If there is no such work available then the guidance does appear to allow the furloughing of employees and such organisations to access the scheme.
In our experience, the funding streams and work undertaken by the organisations that could fall into the third category identified above can be exceptionally diverse and we would strongly recommend that you take advice before making such decisions about furloughing employees.
Related FAQs
Yes. Government guidance now confirms that employers can be required to take holiday during a period of furlough, so long as they are given minimum notice to do so. The notice required is double the length of the holiday.
Employers are also able to cancel employees’ holidays (or require them not to take holiday) if they are on furlough, for example if they are not in a position to pay the additional 20% top up to their normal wages (or more where they earn in excess of the £2,500 monthly cap on furlough payments). Again, employers are required to provide a minimum period of notice of cancellation, which in this case, is the length of the planned holiday.
Employers can ask employees to take or cancel holiday with less notice but they would need to get their agreement to do so.
Government guidance has been updated to state that “Employees should not be placed on furlough for a period simply because they are on holiday for that period.” If a period of furlough happens to coincide with an employee’s holiday then you should ensure that there are business grounds to support furlough being used in that instance so that it isn’t just being used as a means to fund holiday utilisation.
Schools should be considering both Youth MHFA training and Adults MHFA training so that there are people within every school who have the skills and knowledge to support the mental health needs of students and teaching staff.
The Coronavirus pandemic will have impacted businesses in many different ways, but some of the most likely impacts that could have a legal implication are as follows:
- Services were not performed in accordance with contract during the period of disruption. This could be a reduction in volume of services performed, a suspension of services, or performance in a way that does not comply with contractual KPIs
- Late delivery or non-delivery of goods because of factory closures, or disruption in the supply chain
- Changes being agreed between parties to contracts to deal with the consequences of the Covid-19 outbreak
Employers will be collecting and sharing health information. Health information is sensitive and higher data protection standards apply. Here are a few key pointers.
- Update privacy notices to cover the new collection and sharing of employees’ information and provide these to the workforce. Be transparent and fair.
- Identify the legal basis and condition for use of this information and put any required paperwork in place. The ICO guidance will help. For some conditions such as the employment condition, an Appropriate Policy Document (APD) will be required. The ICO has an APD template.
- Only use the information for the purpose of managing the workforce during the pandemic.
- Only collect or share information if it’s necessary – if it’s a targeted and proportionate way of achieving your purpose.
- Make sure any health information collected and shared is accurate – there may be serious consequences if it’s not.
- Work out how long the information must be kept for. Keep a record of that period and act on it at the appropriate time.
- Security is very important – there may be malicious actors trying to trick employers and employees. Make sure employees know how to identify a genuine NHS Test and Trace contact. Keep the information secure. Use the ICO’s data sharing checklists** and keep a record of the disclosures made and why. Control external disclosures – only certain authorised members of staff should make them.
- Make sure individuals can still exercise their data protection rights – that’s also very important. Keep data protection records up-to-date and ensure any exports of personal information outside the UK are compliant.
- Before introducing employer-led testing like taking temperatures, thermal imaging or other potentially intrusive tests, work out if a data protection impact assessment (DPIA) is required. It will be if the intended processing is ‘high risk’. If it is, then carry out a full DPIA. It will help address the issues systematically and mitigate risks.
- All this demonstrates ‘accountability’ – it shows affected individuals and the ICO that the employer is complying with data protection requirements.
If you need further help, please visit the ICO’s data protection and coronavirus information hub or ask our data protection team.
** Please note that this link is to the ICO’s existing checklists and data sharing code of practice. We will update the link to the ICO’s new checklists after they are published.
As the project progresses, it is important to continually monitor the contractor’s performance. Any one or more of the items below can be early warning signs that the contractor is in financial difficulty, and that further actions may be necessary:
- Decrease in labour or contractor’s personnel on site, and/or rapid turnover of contractor’s personnel
- Slowdown in progress on site
- Plant, equipment or materials suddenly disappearing from site for no apparent reason – unpaid subcontractors may unilaterally decide to remove items from site regardless of their contractual rights to do so
- An increasing number of defects and reduction in the quality of the contractor’s work
- The contractor seeking changes in the payment arrangements, and in particular early payments
- The contractor making spurious claims or contra charges
- The contractor seeking assignment of its benefit of the building contract
- Late filing of accounts by the contractor at Companies House
- Unsatisfied court judgements against the contractor
- Subcontractors and suppliers not being paid or being paid late
- Rumours in the press, in the industry, on site or elsewhere regarding the solvency of the contractor
- Unusual visits to site, for example from the contractor’s senior management or other personnel who had not previously been present or are not expected to be present
- Increasingly aggressive behaviour by the contractor
- The contractor’s parent company or another company within the contractor’s group displaying any of the above signs