Freelance production crew and furloughing

Like many sectors of the UK economy, UK film, TV and production companies have been brought to a standstill. However, given the short-term intermittent nature of the production industry, there are growing concerns that certain production crew may not be able to benefit from the government’s job retention scheme.

Under the Coronavirus job retention scheme, UK employers can access a grant to cover the salary costs of employees who are furloughed because of the Coronavirus crisis. Government grants will cover 80% of the salary of furloughed workers, up to a total of £2,500 a month.

Employers can only claim for furloughed production crew employees that were on the payroll on or before 19 March 2020 and who were notified to HMRC on a real-time information (RTI) payroll submission on or before 19 March 2020.This means an RTI submission notifying payment regarding those employees to HMRC must have been made on or before 19 March 2020.

Production crew employees who are eligible to be furloughed are worried that their employers are not willing to engage with the job retention scheme, particularly where they are not currently working under a contract of employment. Importantly, however, production crew who were employed as of 28 February 2020 and on the payroll (i.e. notified to HMRC on an RTI submission on or before 28 February) but subsequently left after that date and prior to 19 March (e.g. due to fixed contract ending) can be put back on payroll by their employer and then furloughed even if the employer does not re-employ them until after 19 March 2020. The employing company can still claim the grant to cover 80% of the employees’ regular salaries.

While employers are not under any obligation to re-engage crew members, and indeed there is a negative cash flow effect in doing so, we are aware that some major industry players have already done so. An industry-wide approach would greatly benefit production crew who are currently adversely affected.

The HMRC online portal for claiming grants under the job retention scheme is launched on 20 April 2020. Click here for the details on the process of claiming.