Additional UKG Coronavirus support


Dear Member,

As you may have seen, the Chancellor has just made a further announcement on economic support for businesses and people across the UK over the winter months.

Measures announced today which will be of interest to you include:

  • The furlough scheme will be extended until the end of March – see previous updates for more detail on this scheme. This is a flexible furlough scheme, to 80% of salary capped at £2500, and employees do not have to have been furloughed before;
  • There is a review point in January, which may have the capacity to reduce from 80% as the previous scheme did;
  • The Job Retention Bonus of £1000 per retained employee which would have paid out in January 2021 has been scrapped, though a new incentive may take its place next year;
  • Guaranteed funding for the devolved administrations is increasing from £14bn to £16bn (bringing the Scottish Government’s guaranteed funding to £8.2bn, on top of their Spring Budget 2020 funding).

This is on top of previously announced support, which included the extension of existing loan schemes to the end of January, and an ability to top-up Bounce Back Loans.

A factsheet with details of the package can be found here, and HMT’s press release can be found here. Fuller guidance will be issued on the 10th December which we will brief.