The big Coronavirus thread

TheBigBean

We applied for a small business loan. I think the problem is that the government only underwrites 80% of it, so lenders are still on the hook for 20% and therefore are reluctant to lend to anything too ropey which is probably everything at the moment.

Our bank is also still talking about personal guarantees above a certain amount.

The other big problem is staffing levels and being able to process the loan requests at the banks.

Pross

rjsterry said:

Stevo_666 said:

The job retention scheme seems to be operating as planned so far. The guidance is a bit of a moving feast but will probably only be an issue further down the line if HMRC audit the claims.

Agreed. I think they are going to have to give quite a lot of SMEs some slack on the precise way it has been implemented in each firm.

I think there are companies that are misusing it, I've heard from friends who are having to work additional hours to cover for colleagues that were put on the scheme by their company basically to offset a cost for a few months rather than because there wasn't the work to sustain them and they would have had to make redundancies otherwise. I suspect there is quite a bit of that going on but I assume the Government would have anticipated that and just accepted it would happen.

rjsterry

Stevo_666 said:

rjsterry said:

Stevo_666 said:

The job retention scheme seems to be operating as planned so far. The guidance is a bit of a moving feast but will probably only be an issue further down the line if HMRC audit the claims.

Agreed. I think they are going to have to give quite a lot of SMEs some slack on the precise way it has been implemented in each firm.

I think they already are - and that extends to big groups as well.

Just been on a call this morning with a 'peer group' taken from a fairly wide range of big business and several were saying that they have never known HMRC to be so helpful and flexible. In particular, one opposite number who worked in a large hotel chain said that HMRC had agreed with minimal checks for them to defer their PAYE payments by 3 months - effectively all they did was to get in touch and say how much it was.

That's very reassuring. For a lot of SMEs the accounts department, payroll, HR and the Managing Director are all the same person sat at his or her dining table after the children have gone to bed. Mistakes will be made. The furlough scheme will only really be tested when April's payroll is due. Fingers crossed.

rjsterry

This seems broadly good news, especially given all the predictions of civil unrest if Britons were asked to stay at home for even two weeks.

https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1250338631845212167?s=19

Some slippage over the Easter weekend, but it's a bit chilly for sunbathing now. From what I saw of central London parks, distancing was being pretty scrupulously observed.

First.Aspect

I just got an email from a North Korean law firm. There are NO cases of the deadly virus due to super special epidemic measures (I'm quoting here).

They hope we are all well. But secretly they know that we will all soon be dead and the invasion can commence (I may not have taken that directly from the letter).

pangolin

Pross said:

rjsterry said:

Stevo_666 said:

The job retention scheme seems to be operating as planned so far. The guidance is a bit of a moving feast but will probably only be an issue further down the line if HMRC audit the claims.

Agreed. I think they are going to have to give quite a lot of SMEs some slack on the precise way it has been implemented in each firm.

I think there are companies that are misusing it, I've heard from friends who are having to work additional hours to cover for colleagues that were put on the scheme by their company basically to offset a cost for a few months rather than because there wasn't the work to sustain them and they would have had to make redundancies otherwise. I suspect there is quite a bit of that going on but I assume the Government would have anticipated that and just accepted it would happen.

My employer has furloughed 80-90% of the workforce. There genuinely isn't work for them to do as we work with other businesses that are also shut.

I am nervous about what they'll do if they don't end up seeing some of that cash from the Government.

rjsterry

Pross said:

rjsterry said:

Stevo_666 said:

The job retention scheme seems to be operating as planned so far. The guidance is a bit of a moving feast but will probably only be an issue further down the line if HMRC audit the claims.

Agreed. I think they are going to have to give quite a lot of SMEs some slack on the precise way it has been implemented in each firm.

I think there are companies that are misusing it, I've heard from friends who are having to work additional hours to cover for colleagues that were put on the scheme by their company basically to offset a cost for a few months rather than because there wasn't the work to sustain them and they would have had to make redundancies otherwise. I suspect there is quite a bit of that going on but I assume the Government would have anticipated that and just accepted it would happen.

I would imagine so. At some point measures to prevent abuse also prevent legitimate use. I suspect there aren't that many businesses in a position to furlough staff unnecessarily.

rick_chasey

pangolin said:

rick_chasey said:

pangolin said:

Yes I was asking which scheme Rick was referring to, that's clear now.

TBH, you name the scheme, I'll give you data that it's not working as promised. It's all a sh!tshow.

This often happens. I pipe up with some vaguely angry "this is all rubbish", people get annoyed and ask for a source, I give one and they go 'oh ok' and that's the end of it.

Obviously bad delivery on my part.

Keep making posts that are almost deliberately vague and telling us all how terrible everything is and it just becomes a sort of white noise that is impossible to continue to engage with - at least in any way that feels remotely productive.

Unless you can point to otherwise, I tend to base my 'everything's terrible' on the facts that, right now, seem to point at that.

Sometimes things are, y'know, actually bad.

I was actually quite positive about Sunak's promises and made plenty of posts to that effect. Alas, that all gets lost in the wash, doesn't it?

rick_chasey

rjsterry said:

Pross said:

rjsterry said:

Stevo_666 said:

The job retention scheme seems to be operating as planned so far. The guidance is a bit of a moving feast but will probably only be an issue further down the line if HMRC audit the claims.

Agreed. I think they are going to have to give quite a lot of SMEs some slack on the precise way it has been implemented in each firm.

I think there are companies that are misusing it, I've heard from friends who are having to work additional hours to cover for colleagues that were put on the scheme by their company basically to offset a cost for a few months rather than because there wasn't the work to sustain them and they would have had to make redundancies otherwise. I suspect there is quite a bit of that going on but I assume the Government would have anticipated that and just accepted it would happen.

I would imagine so. At some point measures to prevent abuse also prevent legitimate use. I suspect there aren't that many businesses in a position to furlough staff unnecessarily.

It isn't quite as black and white as all that. You don't know how long or how bad it is going to be in the future so you don't want to eat into your emergency reserves until you have to. It may well be that furloughing staff now saves a few extra jobs 3 months longer than it otherwise would have.

You have to be prudent. I think there won't be many instances where it is really possible to profiteer in that way in this economic environment, and anyway, eventually it will be audited and if you have been found to have profiteered from the schemes, I can't imagine HMRC or the plod going soft on you.

morstar

In the early days, my employer envisaged furloughing people and their being able to carry doing any work that wasn’t chargeable as that ‘does not directly benefit the business’.
Took balls for one of the lowly paid admin staff to point out that the CEO had effectively classified their entire role as ‘not adding value to the business’ for the CEO to realise that chargeable and adding value are not necessarily the same thing.

rjsterry

rick_chasey said:

rjsterry said:

Pross said:

rjsterry said:

Stevo_666 said:

The job retention scheme seems to be operating as planned so far. The guidance is a bit of a moving feast but will probably only be an issue further down the line if HMRC audit the claims.

Agreed. I think they are going to have to give quite a lot of SMEs some slack on the precise way it has been implemented in each firm.

I think there are companies that are misusing it, I've heard from friends who are having to work additional hours to cover for colleagues that were put on the scheme by their company basically to offset a cost for a few months rather than because there wasn't the work to sustain them and they would have had to make redundancies otherwise. I suspect there is quite a bit of that going on but I assume the Government would have anticipated that and just accepted it would happen.

I would imagine so. At some point measures to prevent abuse also prevent legitimate use. I suspect there aren't that many businesses in a position to furlough staff unnecessarily.

It isn't quite as black and white as all that. You don't know how long or how bad it is going to be in the future so you don't want to eat into your emergency reserves until you have to. It may well be that furloughing staff now saves a few extra jobs 3 months longer than it otherwise would have.

You have to be prudent. I think there won't be many instances where it is really possible to profiteer in that way in this economic environment, and anyway, eventually it will be audited and if you have been found to have profiteered from the schemes, I can't imagine HMRC or the plod going soft on you.

Agreed.

Stevo_666

kingstongraham said:

Stevo_666 said:

The job retention scheme seems to be operating as planned so far. The guidance is a bit of a moving feast but will probably only be an issue further down the line if HMRC audit the claims.

I'm not that close to it, but is it working as planned because everyone is trusting it will be ready on time, or is there more to it? The guidance still says "The online service you’ll use to claim is not available yet. We expect it to be available by the end of April 2020." The original date was 20th April for this to be available, with first payments by end of April, so not long to go. It's a hell of a thing to get designed, built and tested in that amount of time.

The self employment version says "The online service you’ll use to claim is not available yet. HMRC will aim to contact you by mid May 2020, and will make payments by early June 2020."

It's working in that it has given the confidence to businesses and encouraged them to tell their staff to stay home, but the actual distribution of money bit hasn't started yet.

Correct, the portal is due to open next week IIRC but they have been proactive in terms of setting out the rules, providing support, answering questions. That's why I say 'so far'.

Stevo_666

pangolin said:

Pross said:

rjsterry said:

Stevo_666 said:

The job retention scheme seems to be operating as planned so far. The guidance is a bit of a moving feast but will probably only be an issue further down the line if HMRC audit the claims.

Agreed. I think they are going to have to give quite a lot of SMEs some slack on the precise way it has been implemented in each firm.

I think there are companies that are misusing it, I've heard from friends who are having to work additional hours to cover for colleagues that were put on the scheme by their company basically to offset a cost for a few months rather than because there wasn't the work to sustain them and they would have had to make redundancies otherwise. I suspect there is quite a bit of that going on but I assume the Government would have anticipated that and just accepted it would happen.

My employer has furloughed 80-90% of the workforce. There genuinely isn't work for them to do as we work with other businesses that are also shut.

I am nervous about what they'll do if they don't end up seeing some of that cash from the Government.

At present HMRC is literally chucking cash at businesses in other areas so I imagine once the portal is open, they will push to get the cash out. They are well aware of the cash flow pressures for many businesses.

kingstongraham

Will be an impressive achievement to get that open and working one month from its announcement.

rick_chasey

Made me laugh



Would like to remind you all of Hiscox's "we never look for loopholes", in light of the stories of many insurers not paying out that will soon come. https://www.hiscox.co.uk/home-insurance/why-choose

pangolin

Your autosig fits quite nicely there KG

rjsterry

rick_chasey said:

Made me laugh



Would like to remind you all of Hiscox's "we never look for loopholes", in light of the stories of many insurers not paying out that will soon come. https://www.hiscox.co.uk/home-insurance/why-choose

Given the state of the insurance industry they might well need help to pay out for every C19 related claim.

First.Aspect

The furlough scheme will end in a small number of months. The economy will not have bounced back by then. In a lot of firms everyone who is furloughed is by implication on a list of potential redundancies.

Discuss (or am I still in remedial school on this one?)

rick_chasey

The noises coming out of the FCA are very insurer friendly (i.e. they are assuming that if the contract doesn't refer to a novel pandemic, they ain't gonna pay out).

rick_chasey

On Sweden, some are not very happy with their policies.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/15/sweden-coronavirus-death-toll-reaches-1000

The Public Health Agency announced a death toll of 1,203 people from Covid-19 on Wednesday, a rate of 101 per million inhabitants, compared to 51 in Denmark and just 11 in Finland, both of which imposed strict early lockdowns to curb the virus’s spread.

Sweden’s per-million tally is also significantly higher than the 37 recorded in Germany and the comparable US figure of 79 – but remains lower than the UK’s rate of 182 and far below Italy’s 348 and Spain’s 386

rjsterry

rick_chasey said:

The noises coming out of the FCA are very insurer friendly (i.e. they are assuming that if the contract doesn't refer to a novel pandemic, they ain't gonna pay out).

Don't forget we had a LOT of flooding not long ago and the ongoing fallout from Grenfell is enormous.

rick_chasey

https://www.ft.com/content/9b5c3d0a-4960-4654-b8d5-c4b6697c43c5

FT on the small business loans.



and the line just underneath

"new research on Wednesday showed a third of small businesses were running so low on cash they would not survive longer than two weeks"

pangolin

First.Aspect said:

The furlough scheme will end in a small number of months. The economy will not have bounced back by then. In a lot of firms everyone who is furloughed is by implication on a list of potential redundancies.

Discuss (or am I still in remedial school on this one?)

I think it will depend on the specifics for each company. But yeah, being on the furloughed list certainly feels like you're going to be at higher risk.

ugo.santalucia

Anybody else baffled by Belgium?
They do a lot of testing, but yet they have a 15% mortality, which is the highest I have seen... the number of deaths per population is the same as Spain and increasing fast...
Yet, they have been in lockdown for a month...

rick_chasey

ugo.santalucia said:

Anybody else baffled by Belgium?
They do a lot of testing, but yet they have a 15% mortality, which is the highest I have seen... the number of deaths per population is the same as Spain and increasing fast...
Yet, they have been in lockdown for a month...

This got discussed a while back. A mixture of things not going well and how they're counting it I think was the summary?

First.Aspect

rick_chasey said:

ugo.santalucia said:

Anybody else baffled by Belgium?
They do a lot of testing, but yet they have a 15% mortality, which is the highest I have seen... the number of deaths per population is the same as Spain and increasing fast...
Yet, they have been in lockdown for a month...

This got discussed a while back. A mixture of things not going well and how they're counting it I think was the summary?

No, the summary was that the reasons were complex/unknown.

If you recall, it was put forward as an example to be cautious about drawing direct lines between policy "causes" and clinical "effects". You proposed that they were counting correctly and we were not. Some people disagreed.

rick_chasey

First.Aspect said:

rick_chasey said:

ugo.santalucia said:

Anybody else baffled by Belgium?
They do a lot of testing, but yet they have a 15% mortality, which is the highest I have seen... the number of deaths per population is the same as Spain and increasing fast...
Yet, they have been in lockdown for a month...

This got discussed a while back. A mixture of things not going well and how they're counting it I think was the summary?

No, the summary was that the reasons were complex/unknown.

If you recall, it was put forward as an example to be cautious about drawing direct lines between policy "causes" and clinical "effects". You proposed that they were counting correctly and we were not. Some people disagreed.

They are counting care home deaths, right?

AFAIK the UK isn't.

kingstongraham

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/15/norwegian-air-uk-pilots-and-cabin-crew-will-not-receive-april-salary-covid-19

Not only small businesses.

rick_chasey

rick_chasey said:

First.Aspect said:

rick_chasey said:

ugo.santalucia said:

Anybody else baffled by Belgium?
They do a lot of testing, but yet they have a 15% mortality, which is the highest I have seen... the number of deaths per population is the same as Spain and increasing fast...
Yet, they have been in lockdown for a month...

This got discussed a while back. A mixture of things not going well and how they're counting it I think was the summary?

No, the summary was that the reasons were complex/unknown.

If you recall, it was put forward as an example to be cautious about drawing direct lines between policy "causes" and clinical "effects". You proposed that they were counting correctly and we were not. Some people disagreed.

They are counting care home deaths, right?

AFAIK the UK isn't.

and First Aspect, here's Faisal Islam repeating the point I was making (which in fairness I gleaned from him) .

https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1250418370664529922

kingstongraham

6,000 excess deaths in week ending April 3rd. 3,500 coronavirus deaths. What do people think most of the additional 2,500 deaths are if not unreported coronavirus deaths?

I can understand the official statisticians being wary of assigning a cause, but realistically?