Which charities will benefit from this funding and when – local charities?

If you do not have a justifiable reason for insisting that your employees have the vaccine (see FAQ above) your employee could resign and bring a claim of constructive unfair dismissal if they have more than 2 years’ continuous employment. This would be on the basis that you have breached trust and confidence.

If the vaccine includes pig gelatine (as many do), and the employee refuses on religious or because they are vegan, you may face a claim for discrimination under the Equality Act 2010.

Obtaining an employee’s Covid-19 test result will amount to processing personal data for the purposes of the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (GDPR) and information about an employee’s health is a special category of data (sensitive personal data under the Data Processing Act 2018 (DPA)).

In accordance with the GDPR and DPA, there must be lawful grounds for processing such information. Most employers rely on employees’ consent to obtain medical information and process sensitive personal data and if the employee is unwilling to give consent, you will not normally be entitled to the information.

Special category data can be processed lawfully if it is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the data controller. Employers may be able to require an employee to disclose their Covid-19 test if there is a substantial public interest, such as ensuring that the employee self-isolate if they have a positive test. However, there is a risk that this measure could be considered disproportionate particularly if it is enforced on all employees as a blanket measure.

Employers had the ability to furlough extremely vulnerable employees who needed to shield.

If your employee is on sick leave or self-isolating as a result of Coronavirus, including as a result of track and trace, they’ll be able to get Statutory Sick Pay, subject to other eligibility conditions applying.

There is no special exemption for them, so they would need to meet the usual requirements to be placed on Flexible Furlough after 1 July 2020. i.e. They had to have been placed on furlough for at least 3 weeks before 1 July. Otherwise, they could not be furloughed.

The General Medical Council (GMC) have published guidance online for doctors during this time of uncertainty.

Alongside this, their website displays guidance for temporary registration to approximately 15,000 doctors, who left the register or gave up their licence to practise in the last three years.

These clinicians have been contacted to assist with the growing pandemic, outlining the process they would follow and informing them of their right to opt-out. The Secretary of State for Health can ask the GMC to grant such registration under Section 18a of the Medical Act 1983, in an emergency.

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.