Job Support Scheme (JSS) FAQs

No - employees cannot be made redundant, or put on notice of redundancy, during the period within which their employer is claiming the grant for that employee.

The Job Support Scheme will be in place for a period of six months, from 1 November 2020 (following the closure of the CJRS) until 30 April 2021.

HM Treasury has advised that similar methodology to that used under the CJRS will be applied to the calculation for 'usual hours' for the purposes of the Job Support Scheme. 

Further guidance on this topic will be released in due course. An initial factsheet can be found here.

Employees must work for a minimum of a third of their usually worked hours.

The company must pay for any hours worked, but the cost of any usual hours not worked will be split between the employer (a third), the Government (a third), and the employee (a third). The employee will effectively take a wage reduction of a third of the hours not worked.

The minimum number of hours worked will be reviewed by the Government in three months, and will look at the situation at the time and how the scheme is working.

Employers must ensure that they agree the new short-time working arrangements with their staff, and make any changes to employent contracts, notifying the employee in writing. The agreements must be provided to HMRC upon request.

The Government will pay a third of the amount due for an employee's usual hours not worked, but will not pay for any employer National Insurance (NI) contributions or pension contributions (on-costs).

The employer will be required to pay the on-costs for usual hours not worked, as well as those associated with payment for hours worked.

Grants will be paid in arrears, but employers must pay employees in line with their contract and report information to HMRC via the RTI process.

Payments will be made on a monthly basis.

Employers will be able to submit claims for the Job Support Scheme online via Gov.UK, from December 2020. Further guidance will be published in due course.

• An employee must have been on an employer's PAYE payroll on, or prior to 23 September 2020, and RTI submissions showing payment to that employee made on or before the same date
• Employees are able to go on and off the scheme, and do not need to have the same working arrangement for each month, but each arrangmeent must be for a minimum of seven days
• An employee must be working at least 33% of their usual hours for at least the initial three months of the scheme, after which point the level of hours worked will be reviewed by the Government

• Employers must have a UK bank account and UK PAYE Scheme
• They do not need to have previously submitted claims through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS)
• All Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) will be eligible for the scheme
• Larger businesses will be expected to meet a financial assessment test, to show that their turnover is now at least a third less due to the impact of coronavirus
• Businesses using the scheme should not be making any capital distributions, including dividend payments or share buybacks for the duration they are accessing the grant

No. Where eligibility criteria is met, employers are able to claim under the Job Support Scheme in conjunction with the Job Retention Bonus, and the two were actually designed to sit alongside one another.

Yes, there will be a monthly cap of £697.92 per month. The Government will not pay a grant exceeding this amount in relation to any one employee.