Friend said DH is abusing furlough

[amy198820]

DH been on furlough from 2 jobs since March (one full time job and one part time job he does one evening a week). He has been back to work on and off since the summer and is now on the flexi furlough scheme and both jobs have topped his pay to 100%. Since the tier 4 announcement he has been put back on furlough completely.

As tier 4 is looking like it will continue through Jan/Feb, and so unlikely he will be going back anytime soon DH had applied for another job to keep him busy rather than sit at home. DH found out before Christmas he has got the job and he has made this new employer aware that this job will just be a fill in whilst he is on furlough and the employer has accepted this and are happy to take him on. (its a friend of a friend type thing)

Spoke with my friend and earlier and told her about DH's new temporary position explaining that its better than him sitting at home all day /gives him something to do until all this passes etc. My friend took umbrage with this and said that we are abusing the system and that this isnt what the scheme was designed for. I didn't really know what to say and so said sorry she was offended and would speak to her later on.

For background before anyone says anything, I was not being insensitive, my friend has not suffered financially due to COVID as she has been working from home continuously throughout.

I want to call my friend back soon as to not let the bad feeling grow. How would you suggest I approach this? I do not think we are doing anything wrong, just trying to get through this pandemic and doing the best for our family as would anyone else.

@HotSince63 I'm not sure if you're reading my posts? I said I didn't get support but I equally didn't need it as I happen to have savings and a business that has been OKish.

It's still discrimination by the government to have a different set of rules for directors. If you bothered to educate yourself any tax benefits of directors paying dividends vs PAYE is so marginal it's a old argument that keeps getting voiced by people who don't understand the tax breaks have been closed for a long time.

My comment to the OP about her DH being made redundant first in my books would be exactly how it would play out. If I had 6 furloughed staff and I'd topped their wages to 100% plus continued to pay their NI contributions, if 1 of them had taken on multiple other jobs, 4 stayed at home and maybe taken some courses online and 1 had worked for track and trace like your husbands employees, I'd been seriously thinking twice about taking back the greedy one!

Because to me that employee has just milked the system, that's as I said my opinion and I passed it onto the OP who asked for opinions.

Three jobs is pushing it a bit much though.

I’m also sick if the “just doing the best for our family as would anyone else” schtick in general. Some people do think about people beyond their own family.

So OPs husband is getting full pay for two jobs that he isn’t ACTUALLY doing, plus getting more pay for a third. Whereas I worked 42 weeks (including three public holidays) last year whilst being paid only for my contracted 38 weeks to ensure that vulnerable children and key workers children were safely in school.

It may be legal but it sure as hell isn’t morally okay!

I don't blame your DH for wanting to earn more money even if it does involve him getting 2 full time salaries using taxpayer monies.

But I now have an extremely low opinion of Rishi for not anticipating that this would happen.

Tough one.
My partner and I are also tax payers, OP.
Have lost our business (in a sector particularly hard hit) and have received/qualified for literally zero in small business or sectoral financial support (and not because we're sitting on a pile of cash - we're an example of the many that have 'fallen through the cracks'). So it rankles that you see that as a justification. Our taxes also support the economy - and furlough - and we're clearly not 'owed' anything.

However, if it's legal and your partner isn't denying someone - who currently has no income - the opportunity to earn, then fine.

Income aside, surely one of the reasons for furloughing workers is to pay them for staying at home, thereby helping to curb the spread of covid.

From a personal point of view, whilst it's apparently within the rules, your husband has filled a job that someone who has lost their job due to Covid might have filled... It's a difficult situation but , if you're not in need of the money (which is how it sounds), would it not be more generous to allow someone in need to have the job?

In the summer I was furloughed at 80% of salary and I was about £400 a month worse off - I didn't know how long it would be for or if it might be forever so I just put the spare time I had into my survey work and I actually ended up better off by just over £800.

You make £1200 a month doing surveys??

but we might need the money in the future if we were to be made redundant. No greed at all.

He's getting paid 100% already, he doesn't need another job, someone else does. It is greed pure and simple.

@Fieldofyellowflowers

I always thought that if you were furloughed you were not allowed to do paid work in any other capacity without being taken off furlough. Happy to be told that I am wrong on that though.

You are allowed to do paid work for your existing employer under the flexi-furlough scheme.

It may be legally ok but morally it’s not great is it? The taxpayer is paying him 100% pay plus he’s taking a job a more needy person could have. Nah, I’m with your friend OP.

YABU

It is my understanding, though am happy to be told otherwise, that your husband is breaching the furlough rules. Though if he isn’t. breaching to rules, then I think the rules need changing. I think that if you are furloughed you should not be taking on another paid job, though you can volunteer.

And if you actually thought about what being furloughed is, it would be pretty obvious that taking another job whilst still taking home a tax-payer funded (or, more realistically, a wage funded by significant government borrowing) which is provided for the express purpose of ensuring that those who cannot work due to covid restriction are not left without income (or their employers going bust trying to pay a wage whilst the business is not bringing in any income), then going and topping it up by taking on another job is taking advantage. You get the furlough wage and the additional wage. Furlough was not designed to enable people to earn more than usual. It is, in my view, a piss-take to abuse the system like this. Though I think for some people it is ignorance of the rules and lack of thought, rather than deliberately taking advantage of the situation. I do wonder, though, if there may be tax penalties introduced at some point to dissuade people from doing so. Or you have to pay back the proportion of the income which was provided by the furlough scheme.

My understanding is that furlough scheme was designed to maintain the wages of those who are unable to work due to restrictions placed on their employers by the government, in order that those people are not destitute and their employers can remain solvent. Most people who are furloughed receive 80%-100% -at least some of that is likely to be have provided by HMRC to your employer. Your employer might top up additional so that you have 100% of your wage, but a lot of it will still be coming from the treasury.

Ifyou then go and do another (temporary) job, you get this additional wage whilst the taxpayer continues to top up your salary from your usual job. That’s not right- when other people are having to go to work in challenging circumstances (and have not had the lovely time that some people- not all- had when furlough during spring and summer this year) and cannot take on additional employment to earn a bit more, curtesy of government subsidy. I am surprised more people can’t see that quite clearly TBH.

If this really isn’t about boosting your income, but about keeping DH busy then he should look into volunteering in some capacity. He can keep busy/occupied without abusing the furlough scheme.

@ClinkyMonkey

Income aside, surely one of the reasons for furloughing workers is to pay them for staying at home, thereby helping to curb the spread of covid.

No ... this isn't a reason.

It's so that firms don't have to make workers redundant.

There is no problem with this it is allowed by the scheme. I dont understand why people would be cross about it.

The employer decides whether he can work or not.

We have to take OP's word on it here that the employer has allowed it. The question is not that. It's whether it's moral.

@ClinkyMonkey

Income aside, surely one of the reasons for furloughing workers is to pay them for staying at home, thereby helping to curb the spread of covid.

No, it's about being able to still offer them a job when they can.

It is my understanding, though am happy to be told otherwise, that your husband is breaching the furlough rules.

There's a link posted earlier which confirms there is nothing illegal about working for another employer whilst on furlough.

Also the gall of saying that he doesn’t want to be sitting at home. Christ, nine months into a pandemic and he doesn’t fancy sitting at home. Because everyone else is loving it...

@7catsisnotenough

From a personal point of view, whilst it's apparently within the rules, your husband has filled a job that someone who has lost their job due to Covid might have filled... It's a difficult situation but , if you're not in need of the money (which is how it sounds), would it not be more generous to allow someone in need to have the job?

The system doesn't work like that though. DH got the job on merit. How do you know the other 5 applicants say weren't all in the same position? The only solution to people framing it as "taking jobs" which you can't do, is that interviews are done on who needs the job the most.

@MiddlesexGirl
Fair enough, that makes sense.

But workplaces are closed specifically to stop the spread, so surely, if you're furloughed, it makes sense to keep contact with others to a minimum.

@YouBoughtMeAWall - I was actually off for 6 weeks and yes I did.
I absolutely love the survey sites as when you do them they lead to interviews/product trials/communities which are very lucrative.
You just never know what you are going to get when you click on that link so the more you do, the more chance you have of hitting gold. If you couple all of that with the incentive levels as you progress you can make a lot of money and I did spend 5/6 hours a day doing different sites (though mainly three as they seem to give the best/most reliable returns for me)

It’s the taxpayers money which is the issue though, when this had to be all paid back if will be the lowest paid and public sector workers who will have their wages penalised. It just isn’t fair at all.

[quote ClinkyMonkey]@MiddlesexGirl
Fair enough, that makes sense.

But workplaces are closed specifically to stop the spread, so surely, if you're furloughed, it makes sense to keep contact with others to a minimum.[/quote]
This, on the other hand, doesn't make sense. If the job exists and needs to be filled then the identity of the person who gets the job makes zero difference to the potential for spreading infection.

This isn’t just happening with furlough. Self employed workers who have been eligible for SEISS grants only had to self declare that their business has been affected by covid. I’ve seen quite a few people on Twitter who have claimed the grant whilst continued working and earning as normal. I certainly hope the government claws back any funds that have been claimed dishonestly.

[quote PiggyPokkyFool]**@YouBoughtMeAWall - I was actually off for 6 weeks and yes I did.
I absolutely love the survey sites as when you do them they lead to interviews/product trials/communities which are very lucrative.
You just never know what you are going to get when you click on that link so the more you do, the more chance you have of hitting gold. If you couple all of that with the incentive levels as you progress you can make a lot of money and I did spend 5/6 hours a day doing different sites (though mainly three as they seem to give the best/most reliable returns for me)[/quote]
Thank you!! Would you be willing to say what sites they are?