Do voluntary redundancies count as a dismissal?

The Flexible Furlough Scheme was introduced from 1 July 2020 and is due to come to an end on 30 September 2021.

Be careful, there is now a cap on the number of employees you can have on furlough at one time.

The number of employees you can claim for in any claim period starting from 1 July cannot exceed the maximum number of employees you claimed for under any claim ending by 30 June 2020. So this cap is going to be specific to each employer.

It may catch out, in particular, employers who had been rotating employees on furlough.

Yes, but only for work purposes and where it is unreasonable to do so from home. Work colleagues cannot meet to socialise.

The CLC has also prepared a template letter that firms may adopt and issue to their workforce regarding travel to work. This can be accessed at download document.

The CLC’s current advice to those carrying out works on site is to carry out your own risk assessment on each site and determine whether or not it is safe to continue to work in accordance with the Public Health England instructions and the CLC Site Operating Procedures.  If it is not possible to work in accordance with the above they should not work.

The obvious option to reduce the cost of your workforce is redundancy. However, that also reduces the number of employees and therefore your capacity.