Those 10 who are furloughed are probably the only ones who have Swedish Derogation contracts guaranteeing a minimum number of hours, I suspect the rest are a mix of Ltd Co, and more adhoc PAYE staff who work for several agencies & don’t have Swedish Derogation Contracts. So the agency probably isn’t interested in keeping them, as the driver will pick and choose the odd shifts. Whereas the 10 have been working on the job constantly so it’s in the agencies interested to retain them ready for when the job restarts
good_friend:
peirre:
Im aware that of around 100+ Drivers who work on one particular contract, who happen to work for the same agency as Winseer, only 10 of them met the criteria for furlough.That’s a bit weird. I have done the calculations for a couple of people (both from small companies) and it’s pretty easy to work out. I admit that the original email from HMRC was horrible but the calculator itself is really easy to use.
There is definately something wrong somewhere as I don’t believe the ‘qualifying’ aspects of it are particularly stringent.
Perhaps the identifying bit is that the money is for a ‘job retention scheme’ and the agency do not want to keep the drivers they aren’t putting on furlough?
(I think I will regret being that blunt)
If there isn’t a job to go back to, then what happens? A company might pay out for a furlough in good faith, but as the lockdown goes on, they could loose work for a long time.
Will the 80% from the Gov need to be repaid by the employer? employee? Or will it be taken off any redundancy payments? Or will some individuals end up with 80% times several weeks as a freebie? An extra payment for some, however welcome, isn’t fair to those not receiving it.
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I daresay it is written in a Gov paper somewhere.
Can’t see me finding it before I finish this coffee though.
The furlough scheme was initially setup to run for 3 months, I’d say even if they extended it I doubt it will be extended beyond 6 months due to the crippling cost to the exchequer. After that the house of cards might come crashing down
peirre:
The furlough scheme was initially setup to run for 3 months, I’d say even if they extended it I doubt it will be extended beyond 6 months due to the crippling cost to the exchequer. After that the house of cards might come crashing down
“You might well say that. I couldn’t possibly comment”.
F.U.
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[emoji3]
good_friend:
peirre:
Im aware that of around 100+ Drivers who work on one particular contract, who happen to work for the same agency as Winseer, only 10 of them met the criteria for furlough.That’s a bit weird. I have done the calculations for a couple of people (both from small companies) and it’s pretty easy to work out. I admit that the original email from HMRC was horrible but the calculator itself is really easy to use.
There is definately something wrong somewhere as I don’t believe the ‘qualifying’ aspects of it are particularly stringent.
Perhaps the identifying bit is that the money is for a ‘job retention scheme’ and the agency do not want to keep the drivers they aren’t putting on furlough?
(I think I will regret being that blunt)
We were due to have an mid-week PAYE night rate uplift from £14ph to £16.67ph from April 1st. My last shift was on March 29th. I used to do a LOT of hours.
A business decision seems to have been made to “let go” those drivers deemed to be costing the client too much to keep on, regardless of any A 1.00 Microlise scores, Clean Licence, or recent act-together on things like WTD Infringements… I suspect now that the criteria for getting a furlough grant is that you cannot sack people, but must instead get rid of as many as possible via “natural wastage” i.e. “Any old excuse that can be thought of”, hence nothing in writing, verbal references to irrelevancies, followed up by a complete blanking…
With regards to those Ten Drivers on Furlough being referered to above:
I suspect that these ten spoken of - are staff that put in regular but low numbers of hours on the day shift. From the furlough application aspect - if you have to pay this top-up 20% of Worker (A) who normally gets say, £200pw, then the agency only have to stump up £40pw if that person then gets no work at all. Compare that to yours truly who worked 50+ hours pw on night shift AND who was about to be getting a rather hefty uplift from April 1st… Stumping up 20% of MY average earnings - would be costing the agency three figures per week if there was then no work for me - for any reason. Their motivation for throwing me under the bus then - is a business decision, rather than anything personal for that part at least. The “Blanking” and “misleading” and “evasiveness” - are another matter, however. I’ve already seen two weeks skipped in the holiday pay I’ve requested over a month ago, because of course it wastes away if based on an average of the prior 12-13 weeks when I was still working flat out. They won’t tell me what my holiday pot IS despite repeated requests - because no doubt it is a dynamic figure, that “average” reducing each week now because I’ve not done any work for the past month by this point! They’ve also put my day off that I have been paid for down as “Wednesday” instead of Sunday, bearing in mind that I worked every sunday, and nowhere near every wednesday… “Wasting Averages” again there, I suspect, ten hours at a lower hourly rate, such an arbitrary move clearly represents as well, of course… This move on their part has reduced a day’s holiday pay to such an amount that NO payments of stamp/tax got made on two of the past four weeks which I’m sure will be of interest to the HMRC and DWP under closer scrutiny… I had requested my estimated week’s hoiliday to be paid one day per week @ average somewhere around the £180pw mark, because of my high average aggregate hours around the premium rates that I did.
BUT neither agencies nor clients can just lay off or sack the “heavyweights” - or they might find themselves being disqualified for the 80% grant, which is going to be paid for a job-lot of drivers out of a particular office, rather than a case-by-case basis surely? Alternatively, the agency might be an innocent dupe in an attempt by the client firm themselves to throw both agency and agency staff under the proverbial bus at the same time, killing two birds with one stone, as it were… The Client has recently taken on some extra full timers on the lousy any five from seven contract that I simply side-stepped at the time NO Regrets there, I might add. There’s also the huge influx of drivers being side-shifted in from John Lewis, suggesting that the firm would rather bugger everyone about, than pay people for extended gardening leave. I don’t imagine there would be many full timers about ANYTHERE who’d like to be told “Work out of ■■■ depot 50+ miles away to earn your basic pay and not a penny more”. compared to just being furloughed, and paid for some gardening leave… I don’t regret for a moment “turning down the dreaded any-five-from-seven” then. There was even a cut to the night rate about a year ago FFS… MORE “Racing to the bottom”…
So the answer then: “Part Timers” qualified for the Furlough money, or at very least “Full Timers on Days”. Anything to reduce that 20% of wages that the firm still has to pay to have a bod sit at home doing nothing for three weeks plus - which it has now been, of course…
It is time for me to realize my proverbial freebie first class cabin on Captain Ed Smith’s Cruise Ship - ain’t worth as much as a “perk” as I first thought.
" Having already been turned down for a place in the lifeboat I thought I qualified for under “First Class”, I now make my way past the band playing Autumn, looking for alternatives… I’ve got a couple of potential solutions in sight, but I still have to make it work now. These are solutions for an indivdual. I don’t need “luck” - just my own ingenuity to stand up now. I’ll pat myself on the back later, if I pull this off - there won’t be anyone else able or willing to do it for me. My first task is to protect myself from the cold rather than the water… "
peirre:
The furlough scheme was initially setup to run for 3 months, I’d say even if they extended it I doubt it will be extended beyond 6 months due to the crippling cost to the exchequer. After that the house of cards might come crashing down
…What If it should turn out that hardly any firms are willing to play it straight and jump through the hoops…?
…We might end up with a case where the furlough money is barely claimed by any firms at all, in a similar manner to the “Bank Bailout Money” not being claimed by Barclays during the 2008 Credit Crisis…
Barclays - didn’t want to be beholden to the Government, and took out some private finance with Saudi Arabia, if memory serves… 12 years on, and Barclays are still here - Midland, Abbey National and others - swallowed up by bigger fish since.
Nice to know our own banks would rather serve a foreign master than the UK taxpayer huh?
Those banks that DID take the taxpayer money, ultimately paid a lot of it out in golden parachutes, paid-up final salary pensions - only to get administered by the government, where the taxpayer ended up taking a haircut when they got sold on at a loss by George Osbourne’s exchequer…
There is nothing in any of the documentation that says a company will have to pay the money back and please believe me when I say I have read it 
If you have more than 10 employees on furlough then you have to update a file to the web instead of entering their names individually but each person is taken into consideration as an individual
If a company chooses to top up to 100% of the employees salary then that can be done but they will also have to pay the difference in tax and NI of the 2 amounts
I don’t see how any company would pick and choose who to put on furlough or not as it doesn’t actually cost the company anything unless, of course, they are choosing to top up to 100%. There is one company near here who asked one of their employees (who they really want to keep) to come off sick leave as they could pay him more through the furlough scheme rather than SSP
I think the chance that jobs won’t exist after the ‘furlough’ period is perfectly possible. In fact I have my own suspicions that companies will use this time as an opportunity to sort the wheat from the chaff, in so much as finally be able to get rid of the no-hopers, lazy, criminal or just plain irritating employees they have been stuck with through the adding of relatively recent HR laws
good_friend:
There is nothing in any of the documentation that says a company will have to pay the money back and please believe me when I say I have read itIf you have more than 10 employees on furlough then you have to update a file to the web instead of entering their names individually but each person is taken into consideration as an individual
If a company chooses to top up to 100% of the employees salary then that can be done but they will also have to pay the difference in tax and NI of the 2 amounts
I don’t see how any company would pick and choose who to put on furlough or not as it doesn’t actually cost the company anything unless, of course, they are choosing to top up to 100%. There is one company near here who asked one of their employees (who they really want to keep) to come off sick leave as they could pay him more through the furlough scheme rather than SSP
I think the chance that jobs won’t exist after the ‘furlough’ period is perfectly possible. In fact I have my own suspicions that companies will use this time as an opportunity to sort the wheat from the chaff, in so much as finally be able to get rid of the no-hopers, lazy, criminal or just plain irritating employees they have been stuck with through the adding of relatively recent HR laws
British Airways are saying 12,000, currently furloughed, workers may be laid off.
I’m searching for an expletive that won’t get banned here…
.
Gosh!
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Anyway should that inject some disinfec…don’t do that at home children…should add some petrol to the flam…ummm
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Maybe the Union, as well as the COVID, and Furlough, threads will get a wee boost?
…I bet there are not many Unions about the country right now that are demanding furlough pay for their stood-down staff… They are probably more worried about keeping their members jobs, which is fair enough…
Trouble with that is that you all end up either working normally OR being laid off outright. No “Half measures”.
RM staff have already been out on strike because they were made to work with “insufficient provided PPE”. That’s off-work with zippo pay there then.
I could argue a case for RM workers “being had, big-time” there…
They would have been better off demanding furlough stand-down until such PPE had been provided, I would have thought…
“Get Paid” that way. 
…If a Union cannot play this game for a good worker outcome - who possibly can?
Not seen a RM vehicle around my neighborhood for over a week now.
Have RM SORN all their fleet in some postal areas?? 
Just to say.
Compnay I work for has successfully claimed furlough money from the government.
Back dated.
So.tomorrow be paid 3 weeks pay.then hopefully every week from now.
Big thanks to.boris.
It’s appreciated and I hope others appreciate it as well
edd1974:
Just to say.
Compnay I work for has successfully claimed furlough money from the government.
Back dated.
So.tomorrow be paid 3 weeks pay.then hopefully every week from now.Big thanks to.boris.
It’s appreciated and I hope others appreciate it as well
My lot paid it weekly regardless, then claimed when it was open. I assume they’ve been successful with the claim, I’m not overly bothered, its beyond my payscale.
One of the first questions I asked was if they were honouring pay until the scheme opened and they said yes.
I start an artic driving job on Monday even though I’m on furlough from my coach driving job (yes shoot me now)…
Is it wrong to keep receiving that pay even though I’m driving artics??
It seems to be the case that paying furlough wages - is down to the employer. Some firms are generous and will pay it, others will side-step paying it, and lay people off with nothing instead.
The very worst employers will claim it for their lightest-houred workers, or at least the ones that can most easily be fully assigned once they qualify the employer for a furlough claim, whilst other formerly heavily houred ZHC staff that would involve a 20% of a far higher amount to be met by that agency employer meanwhile - get effectively “shadow dismissed” - giving them no work until they run out of money, and are forced to seek employment elsewhere as a matter of emergency, leaving of their own accord, and therefore not disrupting any grant qualification conditions that may be sought to circumvent by that evasive firm. Totally legal of course, but a disreputable business practice nonetheless akin to those put in place by people like Branson and Mike Ashley, who have already deflected “poor reputation” upon the issue of Zero Hours Contracts rather than their own methods of applying and interpreting such contracts in a manner that screw people’s entire lives… 
There will be a reckoning for this latter type of employer, as a continuation of the social distancing combined with an easing of the actual lockdown - means those larger firms both client and agency that have brought ill-repute to their entire business model the way they have - can only “not recover” as the year goes on now. Social distancing will slow down greatly their customer through-put rate, whilst they lose their former regular customer base to smaller firms selling food direct, delivering it often, and “cutting out the middlemen” that were formerly the large five supermarkets in particular.
Good riddance, I say.
Ref claiming it for lower earning drivers…
You are aware that there’s a ceiling on what can be claimed anyway don’t you? If you’re on good money, you’ll likely hit the ceiling and therefore get 80% up to that ceiling rather than 80% based on your actual average earnings.
The ceiling is 80% of full pay to a maximum of £2500 per month as far as I know.
That amount would have done me fine, and I’d have got pretty close to it on my averages over the past 12 months… but alas, got told “I didn’t qualify” whilst others working at the same agency apparently did.
It now appears that I have been “shadow sacked”, put on zero pay and given zero work until I decide to leave of my own accord, presumably because sacking me directly might involve me pushing back somewhat with litigation otherwise… I’ve also been stalled on holiday, so each week that has since gone by with no work - wastes away my holiday pot, based on my working hours averages to a certain extent other the last 13 weeks… I keep asking for an update, but get stalled. Keep asking for “how much I’ve got left” - no reply. I’m sick to death of this actually, but there’s little legally I can do against such abuse, other than taking the same line that so many other drivers have on here that “Agencies are crap, and need to be boycotted for the rest of one’s natural life”… I guess I’ve learned the lesson of my peers here the hard way. 
Looks like the secret is now out:
WIth Tax offices also furloughed, and “out of action” in terms of “crucifying offenders of the furlough scheme” as has been suggested on here by some…
It now seems that there are three ways in which firms can help themselves to some free money (I only originally described two among my “conspiracy” notions)
(1) Full Time workers - carry on getting work, but it’s dogsbody work. The government have been told these staff are “at home, furloughed - gimme the grant money please”. In fact though, staff have merely been transferred sideways into some job that’s not really their contract. If you only get them to work 20-30 hours, they will think they are benefiting compared to normally having to work say, 40-48 hours per week for the same money. In reality, firms are only paying 20% of wages with the government (or rather the taxpayer) paying the other 80%. Paying 20% of wages to get 20-30 hours free out of staff that are actually supposed to be at home on gardening leave - is FRAUD as I suggested before, however - they are unlikely to get caught though, because “who’s doing a full audit” of any firm at this time hmm? The difference is being skimmed off here, at taxpayer expense.
(2) Workers who have actually been furloughed fair and square - Get called in early, or to do “odd jobs” outside their normal contract. The grant is provided for six full months at least, so WTF are these people already doing back at work? This group, I must admit - escaped my notice. They’re being conned as well of course, as anyone currently furloughed, should be off now for the full six months on 80% pay - right? How can anyone already furloughed be back at work before the lockdown is officially over already?
(3) Agency Workers are supposed to qualify for furlough money but if you get effectively let go “shadow sacked”, sent home with the phone no longer ringing before the start of the new financial year - then because that worker doesn’t get sacked, and doesn’t get furlough money neither, they end up being forced to find another job pronto, meaning it is unlikely that any legal action will be brought by that disgruntled employee… Unless they file a report to DWP telling them the same inside track as I’ve posted at length, of course! Naughty Firms should now expect some audits - if the video above is anything to go by! We might even see a number of larger firms pulling this stroke - stamped on by the taxman in due course, as an alternative for anyone in a suit going to jail for a seven-stretch… 
Full timers will lose out in the end too of course - because they’ll be racing to the bottom with yet another “Jam Tomorrow, Times are 'ard” change(s) to their contracts at the end of the day.
In all three cases it is possible to put in for a grant because the employee is still on the firm’s books, has not been sacked, and anyone looking for someone working when they shouldn’t be - is probably working out of a different location, perhaps splitting the difference with the full time staff, so they don’t complain that they are having to work some hours rather than no hours to get 80%+20% which feels like they are not losing out at all… Firms doing this should not be applying for the grant in the first place - of course! If there is enough work about to keep staff busy - then that firm is not in danger of letting anyone go - right?
…But there’s free money tempting employers to put in for it, with the “Moral Hazard” that with Tax Office Staff also known to be furloughed, it is (was?) seen as unlikely any firm will end up being prosecuted, or even asked to pay back the money falsely claimed…
Who’s the real victim here?
The Taxpayer actually!
My role is now merely reduced to “Whistleblower” of course…
Well that answer was short and sweet…
[emoji23][emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]
Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk
^^^^
polytrotter:
Well that answer was short and sweet…[emoji23][emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]
Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk
the maoster:
^^^^
Probably only did it to bump thread as last post was on the 1st 
Winseer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maK2D_tPhFoMy role is now merely reduced to “Whistleblower” of course…
No Winseer I will correct you, your role has not been reduced to “whistleblower”, your role is bitter agency driver who doesn’t seem to accept the fact they don’t want you anymore.
Instead you will just keep shouting “conspiracy theory” to anyone who is bored enough to read your posts!