Well, the sunshine is shining and it would have been a cracking week for a trip to Cornwall, wouldn’t it?!! Hey ho, we are having a lovely week holidaying from home. Building on mental health awareness week last week, I am taking this week out to enjoy the small things, my family being the major one. I was fortunate to be able to see my mum and Dad (separately of course) yesterday, for the first time in 75 years (or so it seems!) and it was lovely!! The sunshine has also meant things like – cycling on the Tissington Trail (4.5 miles with a 3 year old!), long walks, picnics, building boats and sailing them on the river near our home (with me nearly falling in trying to rescue one stuck in a tree trunk!), Cornish pasties (from Cornwall), ice creams (from Mummy’s very own pop up ice cream shop in the garage), feeding the goslings…all these memories that will be etched in our minds for a long time to come – it’s the simple things.

I popped back into work today (metaphorically of course) to jump on our usual F Word webinar and I must say you are a lovely lot. We had a good discussion about furlough, bringing people back in, inevitable childcare issues (as I sat there with my 2 girls on the webinar with me!) and collective consultation. No big announcement that I had hoped for relating to the tapering down of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. I expect this will be over the weekend, but what do we know…

  • From the start of August until the end of October the Scheme will be tapered down and wound up, we don’t know whether this will be in multiple stages or one chunk.
  • Workers on furlough will continue to be eligible to receive 80% furlough pay (subject to the £2,500 cap and you agreeing the reduction with them)
  • The Government will reduce their contribution from 80% to something lower; we don’t know the exact figure but think something between 50-60%
  • Employers will be expected to make a contribution towards furlough pay. The exact contribution will depend on what the Government continue to contribute, but I suspect likely to be between 20-30%
  • Employers will have to re-start paying national insurance contributions on top of their contribution towards the employee’s salary, but not pension just yet.
  • Workers will be allowed to return to work part time; although we don’t know if there will be any limits on this. I expect a cap of around 50% of usual working hours.
  • Any time the worker actually works, will have to be paid by the employer at the worker’s usual rate of pay
  • A furlough cut off date is likely to be implemented, meaning that no further employees can be furloughed after that date – which I expect to be the end of July.

There may also be changes, tapering down or axing of the self-employed income support scheme.

Whenever the changes are announced you will be the first to hear via my LinkedIn. For now, I am back off to “Cornwall” for a cream tea … just need to make the scones first!!