After this week's announcements, and as we commence another period of lockdown, here are the most recent developments:

It was announced yesterday that the CJRS (Furlough Scheme) is being extended to 31 March 2021, although the government will review its policy in January.
 
Under the extension, furloughed employees will receive 80% of salary for hours not worked, capped proportionally at £2,500 as previously, with businesses asked only to cover National Insurance and employer pension contributions.
 
The scheme will retain its flexible element - with employers able to furlough employees full time or part time - and the level of government support will return to the August levels i.e. employers will be able to claim the full 80% of furlough pay, capped as above.
 
To be eligible for the grant, an employee must have been on an RTI submission made to HMRC before 23:59PM on 30 October 2020.  The employee does not have to have been furloughed previously.
 
As part of the revised scheme, employees who were employed and on the payroll on 23 September but who later were made redundant can be re-employed and put on furlough.

The Job Retention Bonus, a £1,000 one-off payment to firms who had retained previously-furloughed staff until the end of January 2021, will be scrapped for now and replaced with a new “retention incentive” to be deployed at an “appropriate time”.

It has also been announced that the third instalment of the Self-employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) will be increased from 40% to 80% of average trading profits, with a maximum claim of  £7,500 for the grant covering the period November 2020 to January 2021.
 
Payments will also be made more quickly - with the claims window being brought forward from December 14 to November 30.

These grants will be administered by local authorities. At the time of writing Craven District Council’s website had not been updated with this information, but keep checking their Coronavirus advice and information for businesses page for more information.
 
Local Restrictions Support Grants (LRSG) (Closed) – Business required to close under level three restrictions and the current National Lockdown
 
Businesses required to close for a minimum period of two weeks in England due to local or national restrictions will be eligible for the following:

This funding is only available for businesses required to close due to restrictions which had their first full day of restrictions on or after 09 September 2020.
 
From yesterday the payment cycle became a 28 one and will be in place as long as national restrictions apply.
 
LSRG (Open) - Businesses which were open before lockdown but severely impacted by Local Covid Alert Level ‘High’ and ‘Very High’ restrictions. 
 
This strand of LRSG support, announced 22 October 2020, is for businesses not legally required to close but which were severely impacted by the restrictions under Levels 2 and 3. This applies to England only and is retrospective, applying from 1 August 2020, or when the restrictions began, if later.
 
These amounts have been recommended to authorities:

As we have now entered National Lockdown, future claims will be under the Closed Scheme.
 
LRSG (Sector) -- Businesses which have not been allowed to open since the 23 March 2020 lockdown
 
This applies from 01 November, 2020.  It is not retrospective.  However, since we entered National Lockdown from yesterday, claims from that date will be under the LRSG (Closed) Scheme.  The amounts due are as for the Local Restriction Support Grants above.
 
Additional Restrictions Grant (ARG)
 
This support was announced on 31 October 2020 and applies just to England from 14 October 2020.  It is not retrospective.  It is designed to provide additional support to grant funding under the Local Restrictions Support Grant.
 
Local Authorities will be able to determine how much funding to provide to businesses from the ARG funding provided, and exactly which businesses to target. 
 
Local Authorities are being encouraged to develop discretionary grant schemes to help those businesses which, while not legally forced to close, are nonetheless severely impacted by the restrictions put in place to control the spread of Covid-19. This could include businesses which supply the retail, hospitality, and leisure sectors, or businesses in the events sector.   Local Authorities may also choose to help businesses outside the business rates system, which are effectively forced to close – for example market traders.

In addition to the SEISS changes, more businesses will be able to access additional support as deadlines for applications for government-backed loan schemes and the Futures Fund have been further extended until 31 January 2021. According to the government, businesses can also ‘top up’ existing Bounce Back loans if they need to.

A note of caution, however, as some of the original accredited lenders had dropped out of offering Bounce Back Loans in October. Whether they will ‘reopen’ for loan applications between now and the end of January remains to be seen. You can see details of the various accredited lenders here.

Homeowners struggling financially because of coronavirus will be able to pause their mortgage payments after the mortgage holiday deadline was extended.
 
The scheme was due to end on Saturday, October 31, but after the lockdown announcement that same day, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) proposed to extend the availability of payment deferrals by another six months.
 
Full details are not currently available but what we know is:
 

• Borrowers who've not yet had a payment holiday will be able to request one.
• Borrowers who've already started a payment holiday will be able to extend it.
• These mortgage holidays won’t show up on your credit report.

As we have regularly reported in our newsletters, there has been a huge increase in reported Scams. HMRC has recently published a checklist to help you identify potential ones.
 
The checklist can be found here:
 
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/identify-hmrc-related-scam-phone-calls-emails-and-text-messages