• Car Dealer Plus
No Result
View All Result
  • Latest
  • Used Cars
  • Live
  • Forum
  • Power 2020
  • UCA 2020
  • UCA 2021
  • CDX
  • Knowledge
  • Suppliers Guide
  • About Us
  • Latest Issue
  • Top 100
  • CD Plus
  • Latest
  • Used Cars
  • Live
  • Forum
  • Power 2020
  • UCA 2020
  • UCA 2021
  • CDX
  • Knowledge
  • Suppliers Guide
  • About Us
  • Latest Issue
  • Top 100
  • CD Plus
No Result
View All Result

Sub-£10k used cars continue to boom – and will carry on 'for some time to come'

July 15 round-up: Nissan unveils electric SUV; Banksy tags London Underground; Capital Gains tax under review

Home Advice

Advice: Flexible furlough scheme, redundancies and other legal questions answered

John Bowman by John Bowman
July 16, 2020
in Advice
0

Confusion is still rife following the government’s announcement about the £1,000 furlough bonus – and it’s even got legal experts scratching their heads!

Rishi Sunak announced the move in his summer statement, as reported by Car Dealer, saying that businesses bringing back furloughed staff would be paid a £1,000 bonus per employee

Appearing on Car Dealer Live on July 13, Lawgistics legal adviser Nona Bowkis was asked by host James Batchelor what it meant for dealers.


‘As ever, we don’t really know yet. It’s the headlines. People will walk back from furlough and remain in employment through until January. Employers are going to get a £1,000 “Brucie bonus” for doing that [but] we don’t know if that will include people that are already back from furlough or people that are brought back in October when the furlough scheme comes to an end.

Guide: Why coronavirus pandemic means you need to be investigating potential fraud in your car dealership 

‘They’ve said that it will be towards the end of July before we get any details. But it’s interesting that there are already some companies saying “We don’t want this”, because I think generally people have thought “We don’t see the point of this. We don’t really see the benefit.”

‘Maybe now the government has seen the reaction wasn’t particularly positive they will just change that.’


As she said: ‘Would you keep someone on because you’re going to get a thousand pounds in January when you’ve got to pay them through November, December and January?’

Joining her on the show was fellow legal adviser Kiril Moskovchuk from Lawgistics, which provides specialist motor trade law advice and support to the retail motor industry.

Flexible furlough – how different is it?

Among the questions posed, Moskovchuk answered a commission-based query from a viewer who had his sales staff working on flexible furlough.

He clarified that the flexible furlough scheme was different to the original one, where one of the key conditions was the furloughed staff couldn’t do any work. As such, any work done now under the flexible furlough scheme had to be paid at the national minimum wage level, so if the basic pay falls below that, it’s incumbent upon the employer to top it up to at least the national minimum wage.

Annual leave rules under flexible furlough hadn’t changed much though, he said, with leave still accruing normally.

The only difference – which he said should please dealers – is that under flexible furlough annual leave should be counted as furlough hours, meaning staff on flexible furlough will have 80 per cent of their annual leave paid via the scheme, although the employee will still have to be paid 100 per cent. However, the scheme can’t be used simply to pay for the annual leave.

He stressed that any employees doing work under flexible furlough would need to have a new agreement.

Can employees refuse to be part of the flexible furlough scheme?

Batchelor wondered if people could refuse to work under the flexible furlough scheme, and Bowkis commented that they’d had a number of queries where people were still scared to come back to work, for example because their spouse was an NHS key worker and previously they’d said they couldn’t get childcare.

However, she said the NHS workload had now decreased and with others returning to work, such as childcare professionals, there was no excuse now.

‘The employer needs him back at work – he’s got to come back and work. At the end of the day you’re employed, that’s your contract, and you’ve got to work. There might have been reasons earlier on, but everyone’s kind of going back to work now, the childcare is back out there, the schools are going back, and what would you do normally in the school holidays, for example? Ultimately, you’re employed to do a job and if your employer needs you back, you’ve got to go back to work.’

If they continued to refuse to return to work, it could lead to disciplinary action or even the employer having to ask them if they were therefore leaving.

But she warned: ‘They’re difficult conversations and I wouldn’t recommend anybody does that without talking to us first, just so they don’t drop themselves in a horrible employment tribunal potential hole, because with all of these there are going to be very slightly different facts.’

Can dealers use furlough for notice and redundancy pay? And how do you calculate redundancy pay?

Turning to the topic of redundancies, one viewer who’d had to make some jobs redundant wanted to know if he could use furlough for both notice and redundancy pay.

Bowkis said they’d have to make a distinction between notice pay and payment in lieu of notice, the latter of which couldn’t be claimed via furlough under the Employment Rights Act.

Redundancy pay can’t come out of furlough either – it must come out of company funds. A ‘brilliant’ calculator to help employers work out what to pay people was available on the gov.uk website, she added.

Generally, for people up to the age of 41 it’s a week’s pay for every year they’ve been with the company, and one and a half week’s pay per year for over-41s – and it’s the pre-furlough rate of pay for the last 12 weeks they were working that’s applicable, not the 80 per cent furlough rate. However, people employed for under two years aren’t entitled to a redundancy settlement.

Are test drives allowed?

As far as test drives are concerned and whether or not they should still be unaccompanied, Lawgistics has been taking guidance from driving instructors and examiners, who are in a similar position to sales people, and it was recommended that face masks should be worn but definitely not face shields in case the airbag goes off.

Examiners have to wear a face covering but instructors have the choice, so it comes down to the individual sales staff member to decide if they want to wear a face covering or not. Having the window open where possible was recommended, while the use of recirculated air, eg, via air conditioning, was a no-no. Thorough cleaning after a test drive was also a necessity.

Will face coverings become mandatory?

Would dealers have to change the way they work if it was made compulsory in England to wear face masks in retail spaces including showrooms?

Because there would be fewer people in dealerships than, for example, a food shop, the government was probably going to weigh up the risk to decide if it should be mandatory in dealerships, said Bowkis. But with the government itself seemingly divided as regards retail, a unified message was really needed, especially bearing in mind that there were already different rules for elsewhere in the UK.

Can dealers in local lockdowns carry on working?

Meanwhile, what was the position with local lockdowns, bearing in mind the one that was currently in force in Leicester? Again, there had been confusion from the government, which had said that all non-essential retail had to shut from June 30. In fact, the leicester.gov.uk website clearly states that car showrooms could continue to operate.

‘Each lockdown would probably have slightly different rules,’ said Bowkis. ‘The devil is in the detail as with everything in law really.’

Watch the interview in full by clicking on the main image.

Click here for more advice articles in our dedicated section

You can watch all of our Car Dealer Live interviews by clicking here

  • Rate your manufacturer and favourite suppliers in Car Dealer Power – it takes a few minutes to have your say here.
  • Join our breaking news WhatsApp group. Broadcast only, no chit chat, and headlines to your phone. Send us a message and ask to join here.
  • Download the latest digital edition of Car Dealer Magazine Issue 148 for free here.

Get more from Car Dealer

  • Premium stories
  • Used car data
  • Magazine early access
Register

Or Sign in

Previous Post

Sub-£10k used cars continue to boom – and will carry on ‘for some time to come’

Next Post

July 15 round-up: Nissan unveils electric SUV; Banksy tags London Underground; Capital Gains tax under review

Next Post
July 15 round-up: Nissan unveils electric SUV; Banksy tags London Underground; Capital Gains tax under review

July 15 round-up: Nissan unveils electric SUV; Banksy tags London Underground; Capital Gains tax under review

Want the latest news?

Sign up to Car Dealer's daily news email updates

Subscribe
Electrified vehicle registrations overtake diesels for the first time in Europe
News

What is stopping car buyers from switching to EV? Our exclusive White Paper reveals all

April 16, 2021
How many car dealerships does each manufacturer have in the UK? Car Dealerships Locations List 2021 revealed
News

How many car dealerships does each manufacturer have in the UK? Car Dealerships Locations List 2021 revealed

March 12, 2021
Used Car Awards with Mike Brewer and James Baggott graphi
News

Who won what at the Used Car Awards 2020? Mike Brewer reveals our winning car dealers

March 12, 2021
Used Car Awards 2021 logo
Used Car Awards

Used Car Awards 2021 will be back in all their glory on November 29 hosted by Mike Brewer

April 15, 2021
The Newcomers: Here are the 10 electric car brands coming to a forecourt near you soon
News

The Newcomers: Here are the 10 electric car brands coming to a forecourt near you soon

March 30, 2021
Trophy Cars forecourt
News

Investigation: Meet the hyper-specialist car dealers making their money from weird and wonderful motors

March 12, 2021
Car Dealer Top 100 – The list in full of the most profitable car dealers in the UK
Car Dealer Top 100

Car Dealer Top 100 – The list in full of the most profitable car dealers in the UK

February 10, 2021
BMW, Mercedes, Audi and Volvo, could they be sold under one roof?
News

Multi franchising: Premium brands rule out selling cars alongside rivals in same dealer – as others remain tight-lipped

March 11, 2021
  • Latest
  • Used Cars
  • Live
  • Forum
  • Power 2020
  • UCA 2020
  • UCA 2021
  • CDX
  • Knowledge
  • Suppliers Guide
  • About Us
  • Latest Issue
  • Top 100
  • CD Plus
Call us: 020 8125 3880

© 2020 Blackball Media

No Result
View All Result
  • Car Dealer Plus
  • Latest
  • Used Cars
  • Live
  • Forum
  • Power 2020
  • Used Car Awards 2020
  • Used Car Awards 2021
  • CDX
  • Knowledge
  • Suppliers Guide
  • About Us
  • Latest Issue
  • Top 100

© 2020 Blackball Media

Log In
Register
Register
Server 2