What are the data protection implications of holding Covid-19 health data?

HM Treasury have no current plans to pause the collection of apprenticeship levy payments from employers, therefore levy-paying employers must continue to make payments. There is also no plan to extend the 24 month period allowed to spend levy funds.

Employees will be reluctant to take unpaid leave or a sabbatical but when faced with the alternative prospect of redundancy may give it some serious consideration. This would remove the cost of that employee from the employer’s business for an agreed period of time. This is an option which can be offered to employees but again, imposing it without agreement creates significant risk.

• Integration:
  • Is the individual held out as being employed by the business by having a company email address, uniform, how would they introduce themselves to customers?
• Exclusivity:
  • Is the contractor restricted from working for other organisations without the consent of the end user client?
• Length of engagement:
  • Is the contractor engaged to work on a specific project for a defined period? Or are they engaged for an indefinite period with no reference to a specific task or project?
• Pay:
  • Are there regular fixed payments or is payment on completion of specific task or commission based? Is the contractor entitled to benefits or bonuses?
• Facilities:
  • Does the contractor provide their own equipment and materials to provide the services?
• Financial risk:
  • Is the contractor personally responsible for any loss arising from their work in performing the services? Will they have to rectify unsatisfactory work at their own time and expense? Will they have the opportunity to profit from the success of a project?

Where a couple is not married, they have limited rights in relation to each other’s assets and these mainly relate to rights over property assets. There is complex Trust law which governs whether or not your partner could claim an interest in your property and it generally relates to where someone has invested in renovations on the property or promises have been made. If this is something you are concerned about, you and your partner could enter in to a Cohabitation Agreement. These Agreements can set out various matters, including who will pay the bills and where each of you would live if you separated. Most importantly, they can record your intentions about who owns the property and exclude any rights your partner would have against your property.

To be eligible for CBILS, the British Business Bank has confirmed that businesses should be able to answer YES to the following points:

• Your application must be for business purposes
• You must be a UK-based SME with an annual turnover of up to £45m. This includes sole traders, freelances, body corporates, limited partnerships and limited liability partnerships. For sole traders to be eligible it is expected that sole traders will need to have a business account with its funders and not be operating via a personal account
• Your business must generate more than 50% of its turnover from trading activity
• Your CBILS-backed facility will be used to support primarily trading in the UK
• You wish to borrow up to a maximum of £5m.

Businesses meeting these criteria from all sectors can apply save for Banks, Building Societies, Insurers and Reinsurers (but not insurance brokers), the public sector including state-funded primary and secondary schools, employer, professional, religious or political membership organisation or trade unions which are not eligible.

Your borrowing proposals must be considered viable by the relevant lender under normal circumstances aside from the Covid-19 outbreak, and the lender believes the provision of finance will enable the business to trade out of any short-to-medium term difficulty. Lending decisions are delegated to the accredited lenders and lenders will need further information to confirm eligibility.

The eligibility criteria for CBILS does not require lenders to take into account other forms of Government support that SME’s may already be benefiting from, most notably business rate relief.

We understand that ownership structure is not taken into account when confirming eligibility and that businesses back by a PE funder or a subsidiary of an overseas entity can be eligible if it meets the other criteria.

An update on eligibility – 3 April 2020

Previously, for facilities above £250,000, the lender must establish a lack or absence of security prior to businesses using the Scheme. The requirement for insufficient collateral has been removed allowing those SMEs who are considered to have sufficient collateral to access the Scheme. We would expect that where security is available, a lender will seek to take security over the relevant assets.