Hi all, another question re Furlough, so apologies in first. Employee left us for a new position on March 20th and has been P45d and HMRC informed through RTI. Her new job has been put on indefinite hold unfortunately for her, so she has approached us to see if we can put her back on our payroll from April 1st and claim the 80% for her furloughed pay. She would not be working for us at all. I am happy to do it as long as we don't lose out financially which I don't see that we would, but wanted to check the legality of it. It appears that Marttin Lewis (Money saving guy) said last night on his show that it is possible to do this, hence the employee's query this morning. I've had a scout about on gov.uk and couldn't see anything saying we can't?
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As you say, Martin Lewis says he has been told that it is permissible. Whilst he does genuinely appear to have authoritative contacts at high level in government, there is a possibility that he turns out to be wrong.
Personally, I would take the chance if I thought my business could afford it should the subsidy for that worker be declined.
If the application for funding is denied and your argument is only "Martin Lewis said HMRC told him it was fine" then your argument will fail.
I suppose it depends how much you trust Martin Lewis. Going solely by the official guidance published thus far it would seem you would not get 80% of her wages repaid by the government, though I do agree that seems counter to the intention of the measure.
Personally, my view is that Martin Lewis's view only applies if you've made the employee redundant.
Which doesn't seem to be the case here.
It's not beyond doubt, though.
It'd be nice if someone at the Teasury either confirmed or refuted Martin Lewis.
But happen they're too busy to watch daytime TV.
There is a new update from Martin Lewis here, directly quoting the Treasury.
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2020/04/left-a-job-after-28-feb-a...
It also says that the formal guidance will be updated.