As the situation surrounding COVID-19 develops, employers are starting to think about what they need to do as the economy gets back on its feet. Some will be looking to recruit but many will need to be more cautious. If you want to minimise cost, protect employee relations and your employer brand, you need to understand the pitfalls. Can you make employees redundant on furlough? Do you have to consult? If so, how? Will HMRC help with the cost? In this webinar, we will be looking at some of the key issues and concerns that employers need to consider.
Transcript
Jonathan Chamberlain: Good morning and thank you very much for joining. I would say welcome and of course you are very welcome, it's just that I don't suppose that you are looking forward to the subject matter of this webinar.
And that's because the CJRS furloughing has become known in recent days as the redundancy deferral scheme and perhaps the moment when those redundancies can be deferred no longer is fast approaching. We know that the Chancellor is working out ways to wind the scheme down and ultimately turn off the cash.
And with me to discuss the implications for employers of that, and in particular what that's going to mean in terms of the size and shape of the workforce are my partners and indeed my friends Jane Fielding.
Jane Fielding: Hello everyone.
Jonathan: Jane has recently returned from sabbatical so "welcome" to you Jane in particular and also Martin Chitty.
Martin Chitty: Good morning everybody.
Jonathan: Now what we are going to be covering is shown on the slide which is just about to appear on your screen. What we are going to do is answer your questions, some questions which we've already been answering in practice but also we hope questions that you yourselves will ask in the course of this webinar. Please do use the Q&A button that's at the bottom of your screen. We're much more likely to see questions that are entered there rather than in the chat function.
We can't promise to get to every question, we'll be dealing with some in the body of the webinar, I will be asking panellists those questions and we've got a few minutes at the end to wrap up but even so, we may not be able to get to everyone.
How we're structuring the webinar, you will see from the slide, as really it's in two parts.
Firstly we're going to be talking about what a compliant redundancy process looks like. That is to say what is the existing law, because this is a really crucial point. Nothing in the CJRS, nothing in the government guidance, nothing in the COVID-19 Act has changed what the existing law on redundancies actually is. It remains the same.
It's only its application that is particularly difficult, and it's the unique circumstances that we find ourselves in that is new. But before we can get into the weeds on that, clearly we need to understand what the basics are.
So with that in mind, Jane if I can turn to you. What does a compliant redundancy process look like?
Jane: So there are potentially two aspects to this depending on how many redundancy dismissals are being proposed. So in all cases employers need to carry out an individual consultation process, so on the basis of hoping for the best but planning for the worst, what we are aiming for is a process that will persuade a Tribunal that the redundancy dismissal that results have been a fair one.
And what they will expect to see is a fair and objective process being carried out before final decisions are taken as to decide which employees are made redundant, which are dismissed through redundancy and so that means before decisions are taken about individuals they have to understand that they are at risk, understand why they are at risk, have the opportunity to put forward ideas for either avoiding the redundancy or saying it shouldn't be them, it should be somebody else, but all of that needs to be explored and usually it will take at least two meetings to have those discussions.
If there is an element of selection of individuals from a group of employees who are at risk, then you are likely to need at least another meeting so that they can understand why they have been scored and selected and have the opportunity to challenge that. So generally you are looking at around three meetings. And obviously if their redundancy is confirmed then their notice entitlements need to be honoured, such as they are and any redundancy entitlement also needs to be honoured so whether that's statutory redundancy pay, or their employer actually enhances redundancy, all of that needs to be honoured as well.
If the numbers are such then collective consultation can also be triggered so that is triggered where the employer is proposing to dismissive as redundant 20 or more employees at one establishment and a very short term for that would be a particular site or workplace within a period of 90 days or less and the reason it's collective consultation is that that has to do with appropriate representatives of the employees affected.
And just to unpick that a little bit, if the workplace is unionised, so there's a recognised union for either all of it or part of it, then the employer has to consult with the union, but if that's not the case and there are some staff or all staff not represented by a union, then the employer has a choice and they can either invite the affected staff to elect representatives specifically for this redundancy process or if there is an existing staff body which has the remit to consult about redundancies, then the employer could choose to use that staff body.
Very importantly on collective consultation there's an extra obligation which carries a criminal offence if it is not done and that is to serve an HR1 form on the government which effectively is used to notify local job centres that a group of people are going to be coming because they are at risk of redundancy potentially, and as I say it's really important to do because it's a criminal offence if it's not done and generally it's done around the same time as the reps are informed about the redundancy situation.
Jonathan: So the key point there it seems to me Jane, is that you're saying there are no shortcuts here? It's the same as it ever was?
Jane: Yes, nothing about the current furlough scheme, other than the elements around pay on furlough and the requirements to qualify for it, affects other underlying employment rights.
Jonathan: So Martin, Jane touched on collective consultation. What's the timing on that? What's the trigger for starting that process?
Martin: Well as Jane has mentioned, one of the issues is how many people are involved, but there are a couple of others which I'd like to talk about a little bit.
One is, when did you actually decide that this needed to happen? In fact have you made that decision at all because there are two slightly conflicting strands of law on this. One is about, under English law when are the redundancies proposed, that's the initial trigger. Once you have reached that point you have got to start to talk to staff reps or the union about it. Under European law it's slightly wider and slightly earlier. It talks about when is that decision, when are dismissals contemplated, and contemplation of something comes before it's proposed generally speaking.
But let's concentrate on the English law position. When are those dismissals proposed? When have you reached that decision? Now if you're sitting there thinking well actually we know even though furlough might be extended, that our business is not going to come out of this in the same way that it went in, and we will not need as many people, whatever interim funding might be available from the government. If you know that is your position then you have already reached the point where the redundancies are proposed. You may not know how many there are but you've reached the point where they are definitely proposed. In the same way, if you're a subsidiary controlled by a head office and they have made that decision for you, then the obligation has also been triggered. We might come back to that in a different context at a later stage.
So how far down the line are you in terms not of if, but of how many people are going to be made redundant? So on the one hand that's an immediate issue to think about.
The second is driven by the numbers of people involved. If you know you're going to have to do something but it's not going to affect 20 people, so it's one to 19, then there is no collective obligation. But if you're above that figure then there is an obligation and the extent of the obligation is only a question of how long is that collective consultation going to last for? Is it going to be 30 days where it's up to 100 or is going to be 45 days where it's more than 100? So those are the issues and the only way possibly of avoiding that collective obligation is if across the business as a whole you've got more than 100 people let's say, but on any one site you don't actually go over 20, or you don't reach 20 in fact.
So there are those three things, establishment, the number involved at each establishment and when is that decision being made.
Jonathan: The point that I'm taking out of that Martin is that there will be people on this call who as employers have already unwittingly triggered the duty to consult.
Martin: That's highly likely, I think based on conversations all three of us are having with clients already there are people who are certainly in that position. They're looking at when they're going to implement the decision and the decision to make people redundant is one they've already taken. They might not know whether it's me or you or Jane, but it's certainly going to happen.
Jonathan: You mentioned the timing of this process in terms of how long it's going to take. Jane can I ask you to expand on this, I mean both in law and in practice, how long do these processes take?
Jane: Well on the collective side of things, that's the one where the limitations on time are clear in the legislation but it varies as Martin said depending on how many dismissals are proposed. But realistically it takes at least a month to do and for reasons which I'll explain, most likely a little bit longer than that.
So if the proposal is to dismiss as redundant 20 to 99 employees, then the consultation must be done in good time, that's in all cases, but also at least 30 days before the first dismissal takes effect and as Martin mentioned earlier that 30 days is extended to 45 days if the number of potential redundancies is 100 or more and the overriding provision is in good time and so if there are lots of things to talk about and the 30 days or the 45 isn't enough then you've also got to show that overall it was in good time and it started in good time, so that's where Martin's point about are you proposing or contemplating comes in.
It's important though to bear in mind that generally consultation, it doesn't have to be conducted for the full 30 or 45 days with the reps, the employer can conclude a little bit earlier that there is nothing else to discuss or they can agree with the reps that there's nothing else to discuss. But we need to bear in mind that the employer's obligation is to consult with a view to reaching agreement and what that means is it's not quite negotiation but it's certainly a sort of enhanced form of consultation because the employer needs to show that it's gone into it with good faith, it's listened to, taken on board any comments/points made by the reps and that there's a paper trail that those points have been taken away, looked at and the rationale explained for why they've been accepted or rejected.
And so sometimes we will see reps cooperate with carrying that process out in a timely fashion because they think it's best for the people they're representing if the thing is drawn to a close quickly, they can move on, they can try and secure other employment. But in the current economic climate our view is that it's unlikely that reps are going to be amenable in that way, they're much more likely to find things or indeed genuinely have things to talk about before the full consultation period so we think at the moment it's going to be extremely unlikely to be able to shortcut those timeframes.
And what that means is if you are in a 45 day process potentially you really need to be cracking on with that this week if you want to have your redundancy process consultation dovetail with the current length of the furloughing scheme of 30 June. Of course, that may well change later today with the Chancellor's announcement but we can't know that for sure.
And the other two points I would make on timing in the collective situation are if the employer is going to invite staff to elect reps because there isn't an existing staff forum to use and there isn't a recognised union, then that process usually takes about a week but it could take longer if you've got a very large or diverse workforce in terms of shift patterns and locations, so that needs to be factored in as a first step before you can even start the consultation. And some employers, if they are doing that and the reps are new to the role, will also want to give them some training before they start consulting just to make the whole process run a bit smoother because they understand the remit of the role and their obligations to the people they represent.
Jonathan: So I just want to come back to a point that you mentioned there Jane. Out of these extraordinary times we are used to seeing deals done with reps, normally in terms of an increased cash payment on redundancy for the people who are going to be leaving and in exchange for that the reps will formally agree that consultation is over, but you don't think that's very likely in the current scenario?
Jane: Well there aren't that many job opportunities out there in many sectors so the incentive to try and argue for people to be released early isn't necessarily there as much. People are much more likely to try and extend employment for as long as they can and also given that many of these difficult decisions about restructurings and making redundancies are driven by financial reasons, the ability of many employers to top up and do that deal is also going to be limited.
Jonathan: And what you've just set out is a pretty lengthy process. Martin, you have given some indication of how demanding it can be. Martin, what are the consequences if an employer, or the potential consequences, if an employer gets this wrong? What is at stake here?
Martin: Well putting it very bluntly, a lot of money. There is a regime which many people on the webinar will have heard of called the Protective Award regime. So if you go through the collective consultation process and you don't do what you should have done, so if you don't disclose all the information, if you're not seen to engage in good faith, if you're seen actually to be basing your whole rationale for doing this on a fundamental misrepresentation of your business, then all of those things can be challenged and can result in a claim before the Employment Tribunal for what's known as the Protective Award.
Now the Protective Award historically, I mean and I'm talking here very historically, tended to be described as some form of compensation to the workers for the wrong done to them for the inappropriate way in which the consultation process had been done or if it had not been done at all. I think we've all come to accept it for what it is and the course as well, it's effectively a penalty or a fine but for going about it in the wrong way. How much is that going to cost? Well, 13 weeks gross actual pay for each person affected. So, however many people you've got, that's 25% of their actual wage cost, and it is a relatively straightforward equation, you can take a commercial decision of course that you're not going to consult, it doesn't invalidate the redundancies which ensue, but it does mean that you're faced with this risk of a pretty substantial fine and some adverse publicity as well.
Now there are employers from time to time who will take that very conscious decision, because they feel either that they don't want to on the one hand or they simply don't have time or can't do everything that they need to do. Now there is the availability of what's referred to as a special grounds, special circumstances defence against a claim by the union or the employee reps and it sounds on the face of it as though, you know these are extraordinary times, there are special circumstances but the Tribunals to this point at least have been very very narrow in the way they've interpreted that. So as an example, even in positions of insolvency or impending insolvency where owners of businesses have tried everything they can to reduce costs, possibly to allow the business to survive or even to get a sale away, the Tribunals have been really really very strict in applying the special circumstances defence in the sense that they don't find that that's a good enough reason.
So if any doubt in this situation, even if you're faced with a really dire position, our advice would always be do whatever you can, even if it's something quite limited over a very short period, doing something is almost always better than nothing because the way in which the Tribunal works is not to say how much should we award and work up from nought to 13 weeks, but to start at 13 weeks and then discount effectively for good conduct or trying the best that you could in the circumstances, so it's always better to do something than nothing.
And just finally on this point, there is a need for transparency in this process. One of the key elements in all of this is about explaining the why, of why this is happening. So if you give a reason which is fundamentally wrong and particularly where you're misrepresenting why this is happening, then that is going to enhance the risk of a claim for a Protective Award, so our advice would be if in doubt always be direct and open with the workforce about what underpins all of this.
Jonathan: And that's a really interesting point Martin because, I mean, we know, but a lot of businesses are saying well we're going to restructure but actually we would have done this anyway, we're just going to use COVID-19 as a cover for it. Be very careful about that because if you're found out during that, that may give you problems in terms of a Protective Award later.
Now I think that wraps up the first section of the webinar on what the basics are. We've had a lot of questions coming through effectively on what constitutes an establishment around triggers of employees and particular locations and I'll try and come back to those when we wrap up at the end but I really want now to get onto the current circumstances and we're already starting to see questions coming through on the Q&A about that and I know that Jane is primed to answer one of those head on, because Jane, is it possible to carry out these consultation processes whilst employees are on furlough?
Jane: So obviously this is all new law and in terms of law it's pretty scant because we just have one fairly short direction and then various iterations of guidance for employers and employees but our view, in short, is that yes you can without jeopardising the furlough funding and the reason for that is because the guidance to employees has always been clear that the employer could make you redundant while furloughed and as we touched on earlier it's also been clear from the outset that it doesn't affect usual employment rights and redundancy rights, so why say that if consultation and the redundancy process can't be carried out while furloughed?
There has been some debate and there continues to be some debate in the context of disciplinary and grievance processes as to whether participating in this sort of process would constitute working and therefore breach the furlough scheme, so if you're the employee being put at risk and consulted with, or if you are a rep would that constitute working, but the government guidance in the context of redundancies is that it won't and our view is that's got to be right because it's very hard to see how you can construct an argument if you are being put at risk of redundancy and being spoken to about that while fulfilling a different role from your normal employment duties to represent such people, how that is providing services or generating revenue which is how the furlough scheme describes working which will take you out of the scheme.
So, our view is that you can do it without jeopardising the furlough funding. I guess what I would say from an employee relations perspective, touching on a point that Martin was making earlier about being transparent and open with staff, because obviously you need to bear in mind what you've said to the staff already about proposals, because if you gave any sort of commitment or guarantee that redundancies wouldn't be looked at until furlough was over, then that will come back to bite you and that's more of a concern for the people that won't leave on redundancy or as much of a concern for people who won't leave because in these processes assuming you're not closing completely, you'll always need to think about the impact of how you treat the people who leave and the people who stay.
Jonathan: So in principle we can consult with employees who are on furlough and their representatives, but Martin how is this actually working out in practice? This is legislation which is designed around big factories where there are permanent union presence and people can hold mass meetings on shop floors, but all of that is gone. So how is this actually working in practice? How should it work in practice?
Martin: Yes, I think that poses a very immediate and obvious problem on a day to day basis as you say. So the normal rules still apply, so if you're going to consult with individuals about how this is going to be dealt with, you need to make them aware of the overall position, the why and more particularly the how. How are they going to be selected, how are they going to be placed at risk? So, that's going to require some form of communication.
Normally you would sit down with people. That would be the expectation. There might be some prior correspondence with them about the overall scheme but that would kick off with a face to face meeting and an explanation, possibly confirmed in writing about what's happening, how the process is going to run, what the scoring matrices are going to be and where they've been placed, how have they got to the point where they have been placed at risk.
But obviously at the moment as you said, they're not in the workplace, so how do we do that? And I think that does become difficult. The idea of simply writing to someone to say well we're going to be making some redundancies and I'm sorry but you have been placed at risk, does seem too blunt and abrasive. It would be worse still I think if you did it by text or by WhatsApp message and I'm not saying that facetiously because there have been redundancy and dismissal exercises in the past which have been done on exactly that basis, a dismissal by mass email and things like that.
So I think we've got to think about how this presents with the individuals. It also connects back with Jane's point about the reaction of those who do stay, about how their former colleagues have been treated. So I think we approach it in this way. I think we have to start by writing to people to explain the broader position. That probably also includes some explanation of the scoring system which we're going to apply and will probably extend to explaining to them what the timeline is going to be. How long is the consultation process going to last?
Then I would suggest that we engage with them directly. Either by telephone or preferably and if it's available, either Zoom or another platform so that you can actually see people and talk to them and engage with them. That's the next best thing to actually seeing them face to face in a meeting. And that's the point at which you explain to them how the scoring has been applied and where that leaves them and consequently why they're at risk.
Now the next stage normally would be a gap to allow them to digest that, to consider it and to come back to you and that's when you arrange a second call or second Zoom meeting. So it's the same pattern that you would adopt as Jane talked about earlier, two or three meetings over a period of a couple of weeks in which you hear back from them at the second meeting and then possibly a third meeting which you feedback on any proposals they've made, any issues they've raised about the adequacy, or the accuracy, or the validity of the scoring mechanism and you have to be seen to engage with that. You can't just do this on a cookie cutter exercise where I tell you Jonathan, you're at risk, I tell you Jonathan, you have been selected, I tell you Jonathan, that you are going and that's the end of it.
There's got to be some engagement, that's the essence of consultation.
A couple of other things to think about, normally in those situations you as the manager responsible would have somebody in the meeting with you possibly to take notes. There's no reason why you can't have somebody sitting in overtly making notes on a Zoom call as we are here, or alternatively and it's possible with Zoom and most other platforms, actually to record the conversation, but I would advise very strongly that if you are going to record it, do disclose to the individual that that's what's happening because covert recording, although you can use it evidentially is not seen as a good thing of itself and there are some data protection issues there.
So, it's a way of taking what you would normally do and simply adapting circumstances but you're not going to get any leniency in my expectation from the Tribunal simply because of the current circumstances. You've got to be seen to be trying to run it as close as possible to the process which you would otherwise have run.
Jonathan: And that I think is a really crucial point to draw out Martin thank you, because the more sophisticated workforces are ironically going to be the ones with whom it's easier to consult. If you have people who are used to remote working, who are equipped with the technology, then clearly they are going to be able to participate in this more easily. It is the more vulnerable employees where it's going to be harder. They may not even have email addresses, you may still be communicating with them simply when they clock on to work or via post and those workers are likely to be found in sectors like catering and hospitality which are the most badly affected and I think what you have to remember is that Tribunals will be looking at this process months down the line, they won't have in their head the same sense of crisis that employers have now. All this will be looked at retrospectively, so I think it's right isn't it Martin, that it's trying here, you will get marks for effort to put it crudely, won't you?
Martin: I don't doubt that for one moment. I think what you also need to anticipate is that it's going to take a bit longer than it would otherwise have taken. Just to take your example, if you're dealing with an environment where everybody's on email and people are working from home for instance, or where people are furloughed but routinely check in to see what's going on, then that's one thing. But if you're going to have to start the process off by writing to people and getting them to come back to you, you've got to allow more time. If you're seen to rush the process, it is going to look as though you're not consulting properly and that you never intended to because you're just banging through the process as quickly as you possibly can.
So do allow a bit more time and if in doubt be seen to allow a bit more time as well, for that extra stage, that extra round of meetings.
Jonathan: OK, well time of course is money, literally in these circumstances. So let's look at money in a bit more detail.
Some tricky questions around redundancy payments. Can you use furlough money? What about pay during the notice period? How do you calculate a PILON? Jane can I ask you to give an overview of that and then we'll perhaps drill down into some of the detail?
Jane: Sure. So it's been very clear from the start in terms of the legislation and the guidance that employers cannot use the furlough grant to fund redundancy payments and that's whether they're statutory redundancy payments or enhanced redundancy payments.
So there's nothing specific in the guidance or the direction about notice monies on the other hand. It's silent on that. And as I said before this is all a new area and as you touched on, some of this will be looked at further down the line, when HMRC are looking perhaps to try and recoup some of the money that has spent on this, because the true cost of it obviously isn't going to be apparent until later on, but our view is that because, as I talked about earlier, the guidance says clearly you can be made redundant while you're furloughed, that in terms of notice monies you can, if somebody is otherwise eligible for the furlough scheme, recover monies for notice that is served.
And when I say that they are still qualified for the furlough scheme, you need to be thinking about things like a handover. Now they may have done their handover before they went on furlough because at that point there really was no visibility in the short term for them to come back, but many employers like us are furloughing to some extent by rota and in that situation it may be that there does need to be some sort of handover. And our view is that handover is clearly providing a service to your employer because it's helping them with the continuity of the business.
So if you do need people to be on handover you need to factor that in, because that would mean rendering those services would drop them out of the furlough period, the furlough funding scheme.
Jonathan: So what about using pay during the notice period? What about pay during the notice period? How is that calculated because there's a really odd quirky section in the Employment Rights Act isn't there on this?
Jane: Yes. So it's complex and that bit of the Employment Rights Act that you're thinking about is one that we generally only refer to, if we have at all, in the context of people that are off sick and have run out of sick pay and therefore there's something at stake for them to challenge what they're being paid, they don't want to have nil pay. But the same provision applies here so the basic position is that if somebody is entitled only to statutory notice, so that's a one week per full year of service up to a maximum of 12 weeks, so if somebody has got three years' service they're only going to get three weeks' statutory notice, if that's what they're entitled to then this quirky provision that you talk about means that they are entitled to notice at their normal rate of remuneration. That in itself is a complicated calculation potentially under the Employment Rights Act but its basically normal pay, not furlough rate, if an employer has reduced the rates during furlough. So that's where there's potential additional cost there.
If an employee is entitled to at least a week more than their statutory notice, so in the case of a person with three years' service they're entitled to receive a month's notice from their employer, then that rule doesn't apply, so you would then look to the furlough agreement and potentially less likely the employment contract because it's not likely to cater to furlough so it's probably going to be silent on this so the furlough agreement, if that says that the furlough rate can be used, then you can use the furlough rate for notice. But if it's at all ambiguous or silent, then you're going to have to pay the full notice, the normal remuneration and of course for any period after furlough ends and notice continues to be served then that will be the normal rate.
Jonathan: There's no rhyme or reason to that section. We think it's a hangover from 1960s/1970 days of lay-offs in manufacturing and it's just laying on the statute book and as Jane said not really being used much except in situations of illness, for 30 or 40 years, but now of course it's tremendously relevant.
Most redundancy situations end, not with people working out with their notice, but by employers making a payment in lieu of notice. How is that going to be calculated in these circumstances? How is that going to work in practice here Jane?
Jane: Well in practice you will only be making a PILON once somebody has left employment and of course one of the absolute requisites of the furlough funding scheme is that the person is in employment. So if you are making a PILON after they've left, then our view is that you wouldn't be able to argue that you could use the reduced rate that had been paid during furlough because they are no longer furloughed. They are, of necessity, not furloughed and therefore the full normal rate should apply and I would also touch here on the point that we discussed earlier about how is it going to look and impact on your trust levels with employees that are going to remain with you, because although I think many employers will want to try to have one process, take one hit and be able to move on with their business and survive, I think given how uncertain the times are at the moment, employees will be concerned whether that really is the end of the cuts that need to be made and the restructurings that need to happen. So I think people who are safe for now, if you like, and they keep their job, will be looking at how their colleagues are treated and things like how much they are paid with an eye to the future.
Jonathan: OK, thank you. Now that covers the formal, if it's been at all formal, presentation if you like, and we've left five minutes as we said we would for questions at the end.
Now I've been keeping an eye on the questions as they've been coming in. There are some very very specific ones which will be quite difficult to get to but if there's one type of question we have more than any other, it's around this issue of establishment, back to the basics if you like. We're talking about, for example, businesses with multi-sites, construction, shops, or a sales workforce that all works remotely from home.
How does this work? Now, Jane or Martin, which of you would like to pick that up?
Martin: I'm quite happy to dive in feet first as always. As you say, there's a complicated issue because it's an unusual term to start with. We don't tend to talk about an establishment do we? We tend to talk about where we work. We also tend to be guided by case law as well, so one of the points to think about here is what does the case law say and unfortunately not very much. There's one or two very old cases by looking at them retrospectively which aren't really on point. Most recent guidance comes from the litigation surrounding the closure of Woolworths which eventually having bounced around the system got to the point of saying well, the obvious approach is to say where do I work, and there you're looking at what does my contract say about where I work? What is the location I would normally associate with going to work and doing my work? And that as a shorthand is where the establishment is going to be.
Now that doesn't apply in every circumstance. So if you have an operation which is absolutely controlled centrally despite the fact that people may work at one of your smaller sites, if they have no autonomy at all in the way in which they operate, they may still be regarded as part of the central establishment so they'd be lumped in, to put it bluntly, with head office numbers and head office calculations.
I think the issue with people who homework, almost by definition, either their establishment is their home or alternatively they're part of the establishment at the centre and I think at this stage it's more likely, although I can't be definitive about it because it's not really been tested, that the establishment would seem to be head office. But as a starting point, and certainly talking to clients only this morning about an exercise like this, we've been looking at how the numbers will fall across a number of sites from which they operate and we're taking those as the establishment because they have sufficient autonomy, sufficient local management, sufficient local resource, but they're not utterly reliant on the centre.
Jonathan: Thank you. I hope that's going to have picked up a number of the questions that we've had. Jane can I come back to you for one very briefly, because I think it's a really important point and you did cover it, but I think it's one worth repeating. To what extent can you use furlough money to make redundancy payments, if at all?
Jane: So not at all for the actual redundancy payment, so the statutory redundancy payment or any enhancement, but our view is that if people are going to serve their notice while furloughed, I won't say work because obviously they shouldn't be working but remain employed during notice on furlough, then our view is that you can use the furlough funding to fund those notice monies.
Obviously if you're dealing with a collective scenario now, the timing is going to be looking a little difficult if the furlough ends at 30 June, but if you're only looking at individual redundancies you might be able to get at least some of the notice in after a proper individual consultation and have some of that served before 30 June. But obviously it depends what the Chancellor says today. If the furlough is extended and redundancies that are potentially being thought about now get delayed, then that may become more of an opportunity.
Jonathan: Thanks Jane.
A number of the questions that you've asked have been about the practical arrangements for returning to work, rather than redundancies and we're not going to cover those on this webinar but the good news, if I can call it that, is that we will be running a webinar later this week with colleagues from our regulatory team on how to use the government guidance in your workplace and get your employees back to work safely and lawfully. So watch out for the invitations in your inbox or if you're not already signed up for our alerts and invites, please do keep an eye on our website, you can sign up there, we will be putting this out over social media as well.
Thank you very much for joining us, it's been interesting for us to talk about these topics. I don't suppose any of us could describe it as a pleasure in these circumstances. I wish you and your companies all the very best over coming weeks. These are very difficult times and we're all going to work together to try to make the best of them for our employers and for our colleagues.
Thank you very much for joining us.
Article originally published on 14 May 2020
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