Anyone else had to take u paid leave this whole time

[Mumma301]

I work three days a week for a local authority. I’m not a key worker so haven’t been entitled to access childcare during the lockdown.

I asked to be furloughed from day one of the lockdown as I wasn’t provided a laptop to work from home and had no childcare. My boss told me the policy was I’d have to take unpaid leave.

So I’ve been off without pay since March. We’re doing ok but have had to go without like many people. However anyone I tell my situation to is outraged that I’ve had to take all this time off with no pay. I figured it was just one of those things.

Anyone else had to go off unpaid? Or is it just me

Furlough in local authority is a bit of a grey area, my DH was told that as he is already paid from public funds they weren't allowed to furlough staff as it would be claiming twice from the government.
Have you got any holiday accrued that you could use? Are you able to do your job from home? Could you have requested to be set up to work from home? Could he worth speaking to HR

The furlough thing is two decisions:

1. Can I do without this person right now

1. Can I claim money from the government scheme - and if not they have to fund it themselves.

For local authorities they'd only be able to claim furlough if you're paid from income rather than from govt funds, eg if you work in a town museum and the museum is closed - museum income paid your salary not govt funding.

If you can't work they don't have to pay you. Our LA has taken the same stance. Although you could argue that the money has already been budgeted and paid by govt so they won't lose out by paying you.

My experience of LA and furlough/paid leave is as a school governor. our LA is definitely using it as leverage to get back to work for those people who seem to want to stay off on full pay but have no real reason to- they are paying the officially shielded in full but everyone else who isn't working is unpaid whatever the reason.

I work for a LA, they didn’t have enough laptops for me to work from home, but I was eventually set up with me using my own laptop. My authority has not put anyone on furlough, even though it took weeks to set up some of my team working from home.
As long as we do our hours we can work hours to suit our individual situations.
Do you have any holiday you can use?

My husband is LA and everyone who works for ours is on full pay regardless of wether they are working or not. DH has been working flat out from home well into the evening for no extra pay.
Resentment is starting to build from the people working as they would need to take annual leave to take a day off, while the non workers are on full pay, not working, and are allowed to carry over their holidays into next year.
I think it’s going to get a bit messy between people.

Thank you all for replying. Seems like it differs for each authority so I’ll just have to suck it up I guess!