Covid, businesses and staff shielding during first lockdown

[EducatingArti]

Hi there. I'm after some information about the first lockdown.
In the first lockdown, if a member of staff had been officially advised to shield for health reasons and by nature of their job, they couldn't work from home (eg a cleaner, bus or van driver, factory worker in food processing or other essential work - you get the idea) what grants, if any were available to companies? Was there anything available to help companies pay for an additional contract/agency member of staff whilst they still paid the salary of the shielding employee? Or were they supposed to furlough the shielding employee so that they only had to pay 20% of the shielder's salary and the cost of the agency staff. Or were they expected to just have to suck up both costs.

Some info here
commonslibrary.parliament.uk/the-furlough-scheme-one-year-on/

No grants, just 80% furlough reimbursement. No requirement to top up to 100% and no ability to claim 20% if they were topped up.

Thank you so much @Mantlemoose and @Idontlike

So shielding employees were definitely permitted to be furloughed, even if agency staff then had to be employed to cover their role?

We are having a difficulty with the management company of our flats. The caretaker was shielding for health reasons ( he is an employee of the management company) but they did not furlough him. They then employed contractors to cover his essential work ( putting out bins, cleaning communal areas etc) . They now say us leaseholders have to pay both the full caretaker salary plus the contactor costs as part of our management costs (despite assuring us at the time - only aurally sadly and by an employee that has now left the company) that this would not be the case.
I'm trying to find out whether they would have been able to furlough the caretaker and still employ a contractor as this would mean we would only have to had paid 20% of the caretaker's salary plus contractor fees, not all of it.