The leading professional bodies for our industry have joined forces to seek urgent clarity from the government regarding how Furlough pay is to be calculated for Umbrella employees.
‘The FCSA and Professional Passport members need to understand whether an umbrella employee’s furlough pay calculated on an average of all earnings or just basis pay (National Minimum Wage)? Umbrella workers are at risk of receiving furlough pay calculated only on NMW, which we do not believe is the government’s intention as it will result in two workers doing the same job and paying the same tax receiving very different levels of furlough pay. Therefore we would like clarification that umbrellas can calculate furlough pay for their workers according to the average taxable pay, in the same way as all other agency workers will have their furlough pay calculated.’
Julia Kermode, Chief Executive of the FCSA said:
“The issues facing our respective members are very similar; they are keen to support workers but are unable to do so without clarity from the government, therefore, working together is the best approach to get the assurance our members need. We don’t believe that the government is deliberately putting barriers up but at the same time there are very significant risks to all of our respective members if they misinterpret the financial calculations of furloughing workers.
“Given that our members all operate large scale payrolls, even a small error could be very significant for those businesses, equating easily to several million pounds. That is why we have sought to work with the government to bring clarity, urgently and ultimately to enable workers to be supported at this difficult time.”
Sterling fully supports this joining together of these leading bodies and hopes that we will be receiving fully clarity very soon to ensure our umbrella employees are able to access what we believe they are fully entitled to.
You can read the full press release here.
