The Treasury has issued a Treasury Direction with details of the Job Retention Bonus.
As always, you need to read the document. Or, if you're not someone who enjoys legalese, the government has produced this simpler guidance (which, irritatingly, I didn't come across until after I'd waded through the Treasury Direction itself). There is also a useful set of examples of employees who trigger the bonus.
Here is a summary, broadly in line with what we knew was coming:
- the Job Retention Bonus is available to employers in respect of each employee who (a) has been on furlough at some point; and (b) remains employed, and not under notice, on 31 January 2021.
- HMRC will make a payment of £1,000 to the employer for each eligible employee. This is a bonus to the employer, and the employer does not have to pass it over to the employee.
- to receive the bonus, the employer must have paid a salary of at least £1,560 to the employee between 6 November 2020 and 5 February 2021 (this is to prevent the employer getting a bonus of £1,000 by keeping, say, a zero hours employee on the books and paying them a trivial amount before 31 January 2021).
- a claim for the bonus needs to be presented in a 6 week window between 15 February and 31 March 2021. The Treasury Direction does not specify how the claim is to be made, but further guidance is expected.
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