Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme extended until September 2021

Following on from the Budget that was delivered by the Government yesterday, Wednesday 3rd March, it has now been confirmed that Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) will be extended until September 2021.

The scheme will apply for the whole of the United Kingdom.

Extension of CJRS

The key points following the announcement from the Chancellor are as follows:

• The CJRS will operate as per the how scheme previously did and will taper off from July 2021.
• For the period July 2021, CJRS claims will cover 70% of employee’s usual wages for hours not worked, up to a cap of £2,187.50.
• For the periods August and September 2021, the CJRS claim will cover 60% of employee’s usual wages for hours not worked, up to a cap of £1,875.00.
• Employers will need to continue to pay furloughed employees 80% of their usual wages for the hours they do not work, up to a cap of £2,500.00. This means from July through to September; employers will need to fund the difference between this and the CJRS claims.
• Employers will still have to maintain their PAYE and pension liabilities.
• From May 2021 onwards, you can include newly eligible employees who were employed from 2nd March 2021, as long as a payment of earnings was reported on a Real Time Information (RTI) Submission between 20th March 2020 and 2nd March 2021. This includes employees on fixed term contracts and TUPE Transfers.
• Both Full and flexible Furlough will still be allowed during the scheme extension
• Claim can continue to be made in advance (within 14 days of the end of the pay period) and will be paid within 6 days of the claim being submitted.
• The CJRS is open to all employees, meaning that you don’t need to have already benefited from being in the scheme either in Phase one (Pre July 2020); Phase two (Post July 2020) or Phase three (Pre April 2021)

Who is eligible?

Employers

• As previously, all employers with a UK bank account and operational UK PAYE schemes are able to claim the grant.
• The Government expects that publicly funded organisations will not use the scheme, as has already been the case for CJRS, but partially publicly funded organisations may be eligible where their private revenues have been disrupted. All other eligibility requirements apply to these employers.

Employee

• You can be on any type of employment contract, this includes full-time, part-time, agency, flexible or zero hour contracts.
• To be eligible for the scheme, for periods ending on or before 30th April 2021, employers can claim for employees if you were employed on or before 30th October 2020, as long as they made a successful RTI submission between 20th March 2020 and 30th October 2020. This may differ if you were made redundant or stopped working for your employer on or after 23rd September 2020 and then they re-employed you.
• For periods on or after 1st May 2021, your employer can claim if you were employed on 2nd March 2021, as long as they have made a successful RTI Submission to HMRC between 20th March 2020 and 2nd March 2021.
• Employers will be able to agree any working arrangements with employees
• Employers can claim the grant for the hours their employees are not working, calculated by reference to their usual hours worked in a claim period.
• When claiming the CJRS grant for furloughed hours, employers will need to report and claim for a minimum period of seven consecutive calendar day
• Employers will need to report hours worked and the usual hours an employee would be expected to work in a claim period.
• For worked hours, employees will be paid by their employer subject to their employment contract and employers will be responsible for paying the tax and NICs due on those amounts.

Claims

• The monthly deadlines for claiming CJRS have been published up to September 2021.
• Claims must be submitted by 11:59pm 14 calendar days after the month you’re claiming for. If this falls on a weekend of bank holiday the claims should be submitted on the next working day.
• Ensure you keep records that support the amount that you have claimed for CJRS, in case HMRC require this to check them.

Any future changes in regards to the CJRS will be communicated as they become available.

For further information, or if you have any questions, please contact Brian Robb or your usual Anderson Anderson & Brown contact