How often do MHFA qualifications need updating?

Many will have worked collaboratively with their suppliers and customers to deal with the immediate public health crisis. This will have meant offering flexibility as to contractual arrangements, whether in delivery dates, volumes of goods or services supplied, or even in the specification of what has been delivered.

If this is the case, it is important that businesses now do their legal housekeeping and make sure they have a proper record of what has been agreed. Unfortunately, our experience shows that many legal disputes arise out of amendments to contracts, typically where the parties to the contract each have a different view about what exactly they agreed to change.

We would therefore advise businesses to review any amendments that they might have agreed either verbally, by email, or otherwise, and consider whether they need to be captured in a more formal way which will make clear exactly what has been agreed to be varied, and (where appropriate) how long that variation will remain in force.

It’s also important to remember that some contracts contain provisions that set out specific requirements about how amendments are to be made. For example, they might require that amendments are made in writing (rather than verbally). These “No Oral Modification” clauses are commonly found in commercial contracts, and the courts have recently shown that they are willing to enforce them.

Failing to deal with amendments in accordance with contractual requirements could therefore have a serious impact on businesses as they recover from the disruption caused by the lockdown. If they end up in dispute with a customer or supplier, a business could find that the contract has not actually been amended in the way that they think – potentially leading to legal costs and liabilities at the worst possible time.

You will claim a pro rata’d amount of 80% of salary, based on the proportion of hours not worked out of the employee’s normal working hours (their “usual” hours).

There are 2 ways to calculate an employee’s usual hours, depending on whether they have fixed or variable hours/pay:

• For those with fixed hours/pay, you take the number of hours worked in the pay period before 19 March 2020.
• For those with variable hours/pay, you take the higher of:

1. the average number of hours worked in the tax year 2019 to 2020 or
2. the corresponding calendar period in the tax year 2019 to 2020.

If employees are paid per task or piece of work done, you should work out the usual hours for these employees in the same way as for other employees who work variable hours, if possible.

When you calculate the usual hours, you should include any hours of leave for which they were paid their full contracted rate (such as annual leave) and any hours worked as overtime (but only if the pay for those hours was not discretionary).

If it is not possible to find work for the employee to do at home, you do have the option of putting the employee on furlough.

Business operators such as travel operators, hotels and restaurants remain vulnerable to claims of failure to protect against contracting the virus. There is a high chance of claims from employees, clients and members of the public. These are likely to be covered under public liability and employer’s liability insurance.

Because they all have devolved governments, when there are changes to spending levels in England, the Government makes adjustments to the amount of public expenditure allotted to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.  In this case £60 million will be made available for all of the devolved administrations as a result of the £370 million funding allocated to charities in England. This is broken down as follows:

• £30 million for the Scottish Government
• £20 million for Welsh Government
• £10 million for the Northern Ireland Executive

There may be further allocations, dependent on the final projects funded, through the £360 million direct grant pot.