This Portal allows companies to reclaim staff salaries (80% of wages of furloughed staff up to a cap of £2,500.00).

It will not come as a surprise to most that there have been some teething problems reported!

The problems reported are said to include:

  • The website crashing for some people.
  • The online calculator producing the wrong result. This has now been removed.
  • Portal causing confusion by not allowing for overlapping of furlough periods as employers have not furloughed all employees on the same day.

Our advice is to persevere as persistence should succeed in the end. It is also advisable to have all the PAYE details and employee details such as National Insurance number to hand in respect of all employees to be furloughed. Your account details and the amount of the minimum employer pension contribution will also be required.

On another note the government has updated it Statutory Sick Pay manual to confirm that employees do not qualify for SSP if they are on furlough.

Statutory Sick Pay (General) (Coronavirus Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 2020 also now provides that a person is deemed to be incapable for work because they fall within an extremely vulnerable group who have been advised to shield.