Any furlough knowledge people about?

[StarFishFantasies]

Can a work place employ someone else to cover your role when you are furloughed (ie, bring in a contractor)?

And can then do this if it costs more money to the organisation than what your wage would be?

And if someone who is full time employed covers your role, can them employ a contractor to cover their role?

We are restructuring as well (if that's an important piece of information)

What? So someone is furloughed because there is no work for them due to coronavirus, but the company is paying someone else to do the work? I don't understand why the company would want to do this.

Yes.

The people being contracted to do the work are friends with a director. They have occasionally come in in the past but they've been working full time since March

Oh, so is the director basically giving their mates some extra cash while the government pays the salary of the people actually employed to do the work? Sounds dodgy to me if that's what is actually happening.

(disclaimer - personal thoughts only)

In the spirit of the agreement, I'd say 'no' & they 'could' get themselves into trouble - possibly having to pay the furlough back

However, in reality, they'll probably get away with it if they make a case for the contractors to have xyz skill and only be doing 'your' job around that

Contractors can't get furlough, so I'm guess your 'boss' is trying to help them out while still paying you via furlough.

Are you worried about the legality of it, or are you worried this means you'll lose your job. Do you think you'd lose it from the restructuring anyway?

Yeah that's it.

It feels really wrong but we cannot find anything about whether it is illegal or not.

I wasn't worried about our jobs because we have unskilled people doing the roles (not in full, just the more admin bits). However, found out that both people have been sent on training courses to do our roles so yes now shitting it a bit.

It depends on the reason for furlough. If they are furloughed because they are shielding or have childcare difficulties, then yes it’s fine to bring someone in to cover the work.

If there is work there and no shielding or childcare, then if the employer claims through the furlough scheme that would be fraudulent and they risk having to pay the money back and fines from HMRC. You can report abuse of the furlough scheme anonymously through a dedicated online system I don’t have the link to handy but you’ll be able to find it.

PS if there's any employers out there reading this do not do this to even a small percentage of your staff because it will piss off the masses!

Everyone is working from home until October in our jobs so shielding doesn't come into it I don't think. No childcare issues for anyone.

None of us have had an explanation as to why we are furloughed.

No this is not how the furlough scheme is designed to work.
Furlough is there to protect employees who would otherwise be made redundant because the company has no work for them due to the Covid-19 outbreak. If they're hiring a contractor in to do your job, that means that your job wasn't at risk of being made redundant (i.e you actually still have work you could do) and therefore completely exploits the whole furlough scheme. Unless of course, the contractor is in to do another role and is merely picking up your emails while you're on furlough - that's slightly different. However, if they've merely hired a replacement for you (who is a contractor) then legally this is not allowed and your boss could be looking at a fine as well as having to pay back furlough!

Don’t forget you need to have agreed to be furloughed.

Oh I had no idea I needed to agree to be furloughed. I did sign a letter but I thought that was just stating I understood that I must not work elsewhere.

Right, thanks for all the input. Super helpful. Yes, there's definitely work (and some more) for all of us to do!

Pretty sure they're not supposed to do this. You can report confidentially