Broadcast: News items

The University recently made a successful claim to the Government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) for the period March to May 2020. This claim covered 303 employees in all, of which 135 are casual workers i.e. those who do not have a contract of employment but work for us on an occasional basis.

A number of permanent and casual roles at Sussex had been very difficult or impossible to carry out when the vast majority of staff have been asked to work from home.

The scheme was one of the financial measures taken to ease some of the financial burden in the short-term to protect the sustainability of the University.

Accessing the scheme enabled the University to ‘furlough’ staff for whom work has been unavailable or not possible to do from home, due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic – and apply for a grant to recover a proportion of their wages.

From 1 July there are a number of changes to the scheme as below:

• From 1 July 2020, employers can bring furloughed workers back to work on a part-time basis.
• This new part-time scheme will require employees returning on a part-time basis to keep an accurate record of hours worked
• The scheme also allows for reduced minimum period of seven days

The new rules are only applicable to staff who have already been furloughed.

At present the University is both working to understand the detail of the new scheme and working with senior managers to identify what is feasible in relation to part-time furlough.

How can I find out more?

• Staff can read these FAQs on the furlough scheme.