CORONAVIRUS UPDATE 6th APRIL

The week ahead!

As we go into the third week of lockdown, we have been busy taking part in daily telecom meetings with various stakeholders in the meat industry.
Meetings have been held with Food Standards Scotland, Scottish Association of Meat Wholesalers and the Scottish Government every Tuesday and Friday.
We have meetings with the Farming Round Table group every Monday and Thursday. This involves stakeholders from the National Farmers Union Scotland, Auctioneers, Transport Hauliers, Livestock Feed Producers, QMS and various others involved the food chain in Scotland.
On Tuesday we will participate in a telecom meeting with the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Fergus Ewing at the invite of our industry colleagues, SAMW.
On Wednesday we will contribute to the Animal Health and Welfare Group organised by the Scottish Government.
Our members interests and concerns will be addressed at each of the meetings mentioned and if there is anything you would like us to raise the please get in touch by e-mail or mobile numbers listed below.

Job retention scheme update

WHAT WE KNOW TODAY

Over the weekend, the Government published updated guidance about its COVID-19 Job Retention scheme. Here is what we found out:

Furloughing employees

To be eligible for the grant employers must confirm in writing to their employee, that they have been furloughed. A record of this communication must be kept for five years.

Past overtime, fees, commission, bonuses and non-cash payments

The guidance now says “you can claim for any regular payments you are obliged to pay your employees. This includes wages, past overtime, fees and compulsory commission payments. However, discretionary bonus (including tips) and commission payments and non-cash payments should be excluded.”

This appears to clear up the question about overtime. If you regularly pay certain workers overtime, you can include this in the furlough pay calculation and claim the grant on this amount. Employers should use the averaging calculations described in our earlier updates to work out the average pay due to workers, and as a basis for their claim. It would however imply that if overtime is occasional, the workers' basic wage should be used instead.

Since the grant excludes non-cash benefits, employers will not be able to claim for benefits normally paid to employees such as childcare vouchers and health care.

Apprentices

Can be furloughed in the same way as other employees and they can continue to train while on furlough however you must pay your apprentices at least the Apprenticeship Minimum Wage, National Living Wage or National Minimum Wage as appropriate, for all the time they spend training. This means you must cover any shortfall between the amount you can claim for their wages through this scheme (80% or £2,500) and their appropriate minimum wage.

Employees with caring responsibilities

Employees who are unable to work because they have caring responsibilities resulting from COVID-19 can be furloughed. For example, employees that need to look after children.

Employees on fixed term contracts

Employees on fixed term contracts can be furloughed. Their contracts can be renewed or extended during the furlough period without breaking the terms of the scheme. Where a fixed term employee's contract ends because it is not extended or renewed you will no longer be able claim grant for them.

Company directors

Salaried company directors are eligible to be furloughed and receive support through the job retention scheme. The company (through its Board of Directors) should consider the decision to furlough one or all the directors and this decision should be formally adopted as a decision of the company, noted (presumably by way of a minute) in the company records and communicated to directors.

Where furloughed directors need to carry out certain duties to fulfil the statutory obligations they owe to their company, they will be allowed to do only that and still claim the grant.

Directors while on furlough should not be carrying on any kind of 'normal' work for example tasks which are intended to generate commercial revenue or provides services to or on behalf of their company.

This also applies to salaried individuals who are directors of their own personal service company.

Benefits in Kind and Salary Sacrifice Schemes

Reference salaries for the purpose of the grant, should not include benefits in kind or benefits obtained under salary sacrifice arrangements (including pension contributions). Employers, however, will be required to provide benefits to employees while on furlough under the terms of employees' contracts of employment.

Normally, an employee cannot switch freely out of a salary sacrifice scheme unless there is a life event. HMRC has clarified that COVID-19 counts as a life event which could warrant changes to salary sacrifice arrangements, if the relevant employment contract is updated accordingly. If one of your employees therefore wants to come out of a salary sacrifice agreement, you will need to agree to this and put the change in writing as a variation to the employee's contract of employment.

National Minimum Wage

Workers are only entitled to the National Living Wage/National Minimum Wage/ Apprentices Minimum Wage for the hours they are working or treated as working under minimum wage rules. This means that furloughed workers who are not working can be paid the lower of 80% of their salary or £2,500 even if, based on their usual working hours, this would be below their appropriate minimum wage.

Minimum furlough periods

Government has confirmed that employees can be furloughed multiple times, but each separate instance must be for a minimum period of 3 consecutive weeks.

Making claims

Claims should be made using the amounts in your payroll – either shortly before or during running payroll. Worker's wages should be reduced to 80% (or £2,500) of their salary within your payroll before they are paid.
You can view the full guidance here:

—Claim for wage costs through the Coronavirus job retention scheme

Some questions remain, for example, whether staff can take holidays while on furlough and if so, should they be paid at 100% or 80% of regular wage?

We will continue to review all Government advice and guidance in relation to the Job retention scheme as it becomes available and update and advise our members accordingly.

REMEMBER: You will only be able to claim the grant if you have followed the guidance and correctly furloughed your employees. This includes making sure you have their agreement in writing.

If you have not already done so, you need to enrol for PAYE online services. This can take up to 10 days. If you have a Government Gateway login you should check to make sure you have access to PAYE for employers and if not, request for this to be added to your account. Follow the guidance here:

— PAYE -ONLINE ENROL

The updated guidance states that HMRC will check your claim, and if you're eligible, pay it to you by BACS to a UK bank account.

Welcome to our new corporate members.

Sundolitt design, manufacture and supply insulated and protective EPS packaging for fresh meat. Perfect for use in deliveries to our customers.

The link to their brochure can be found here:-

—SUN PACK EPS PACKAGING BROCHURE

Sundolitt Ltd
Stirling Agriculture Centre
Stirling
FK9 4RN
www.sundolitt.com
Tel: 01674 676 006
Contact: David Watt
Mob: 07827852563
[email protected]

The Scottish Craft Butchers office in Perth is now closed following government guidelines.
We will be available to our members to answer any queries via email or by mobile phone and will be available out of office hours for any members wanting to contact us.
Our contact details are below
Gordon King: –[email protected] 07917524313
Bruce McCall: –[email protected]07834490922