When does Flexible Furlough start?

Yes, but your claim will be limited to any enhanced contractual payments you make to employees who qualify for the relevant family related pay.

All maternity and parental rights remain in force for anyone in this category who is furloughed. However you may need to calculate average weekly pay differently if the employee was furloughed and then started family related leave on or after 25 April 2020.

Furlough pay cannot be claimed for the period that an employee is receiving Maternity Allowance. An employee can agree to accept furlough pay but they must contact Jobcentre Plus to stop their Maternity Allowance payments for this period.

The ICO is providing new guidance to organisations regarding data protection and coronavirus, which can be accessed here: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/data-protection-and-coronavirus/

Information about the Covid-19 health status of individuals is special category data under the GDPR. This means it is high risk which has implications for how you use it, store it and keep it secure.

You will already hold health data about your employees as this is necessary to provide a safe, accessible place to work and to make reasonable adjustments to the workplace. You now need to make sure that the information you gather about your employees, visitors to your sites, customers and suppliers about Covid-19 is processed in accordance with data protection laws.

If you are eligible you will get a taxable grant of 80% of the average profits from the following tax years (where applicable):

2016-2017

2017-2018

2018-2019

HMRC will add the total profit in each of the three tax years (if applicable). This will then determine the monthly payment, subject to the cap of £2500.

The Government has introduced legislation to expand the list of those who can register deaths to include Funeral Directors who are dealing with the funeral arrangements and who has been authorised by a relative of the deceased to register the death. Also, the medical cause of death certificate can be emailed to the Registrar’s office and arrangements made to have a telephone appointment to provide the Registrar with information to register the death. The requirement to attend the Registrar in person to sign the Register has been relaxed so that this is not necessary. It will however still be necessary to register the death within 5 days.

Homeworking can cause work-related stress and affect people’s mental health and being away from managers and colleagues could make it difficult to get proper supervision and support.

Encourage your employees to keep in touch. Put procedures in place so you can keep in direct contact with home workers and can recognise signs of stress as early as possible. Use group chat and video chat tools imaginatively.

Have an emergency point of contact and share this so people know how to get help if they need it.

People are much more anxious than usual and may be less productive as a result – recognise this and try to be patient.