Can I switch an existing loan facility onto the CBILS scheme?

The Government expects the use of bespoke contractual documents to implement temporary arrangements relating to your PFI contracts.

With time and resource precious commodities, focus should be given to documenting:

• The key changes to your PFI requirements
• The temporary nature of the measures
• The requirement for best efforts on behalf of the PFI Contractor
• The importance of continued health and safety measures at all times

Employees on any type of employment contract including full-time, part-time, agency, flexible or zero hours and foreign nationals who are eligible to work in the UK on any visa can be furloughed subject to the following excluded categories:

• Anyone who was not employed prior to 30 October 2020
• Anyone for whom you haven’t made a PAYE Real Time Information submission to HMRC between 20 March 2020 and 30 October 2020.
• Employees who are working but on reduced hours or for reduced pay
• Employees currently receiving SSP (see FAQ on SSP and self-isolation below)
• Public sector employees
• Employees of businesses or organisations in receipt of public funding for staff costs (except for those who are not primarily funded by the government and whose staff cannot be redeployed to assist with the Covid-19 response)

It is worth pointing out that, despite all the guidance, survey results and other advice about managing Covid-19 H&S risk in the workplace, the law has not been changed. None of the guidance is codified by regulation/legislation, which means that you are managing this risk in the context of existing H&S law.

In very simple terms, HASWA74 requires employers to take “all reasonably practicable steps” to ensure the health and safety of its employees (and anyone else affected by your business).

“Reasonably practicable” means to balance risk reduction against the time, money and effort required. If measures are grossly disproportionate, you wouldn’t be expected to take them, but there is a strong presumption in favour of taking any steps which will protect workers.

As part of managing the health and safety of your people, you must control the risks in your workplaces. To do this, look for what might cause harm to people while they work and decide whether you are taking reasonable steps to prevent that harm. This related duty under MHSWR is to ensure you undertake a “suitable and sufficient assessment of risks.”

Many planning permissions contain a condition restricting the hours within which a developer can carry out construction work or are subject to an approved construction management plan setting out the permitted construction hours.

The Business and Planning Act 2020 entered the statute books on 22 July 2020. Section 16 of the Act incorporates a new S.74B into the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. The effect is that any condition/approved document which limits construction hours on a site could be amended through an application to the local planning authority. The application to the local planning authority must set out the date on which the proposed extension to construction hours shall cease (such date being no later than 1 April 2021, after which the original conditions over construction hours will resume). The local planning authority must determine the application within 14 days (beginning with the day after the application was submitted) otherwise there is deemed approval.

New guidance has been published alongside the Act and is available here

The European Commission has reintroduced its “comfort letter” system for cooperation in relation to shortage of supply. This allows cooperating businesses to check what the Commission’s view of their proposals are before implementing them.

In the UK context the SMA has introduced an exemption for suppliers of healthcare services to the NHS. This allows:

• Sharing information about capacity
• Coordination of staff deployment
• Joint purchasing of goods, services and facilities
• Sharing or lending of facilities
• Division of activities, including agreeing whether to expand or reduce the volume or type of services provided by suppliers

In relation to whether the CMA will investigate cooperation, it has indicated:

• The CMA will use its discretion as to the prioritisation of its enforcement action to permit some agreements/collaboration which would otherwise potentially give rise to enforcement action (including potentially attracting fines of up to 10% of group worldwide turnover)
• The CMA will use its existing power to exempt certain agreements under the Competition Act 1998 where these are in the public interest