'Furlough fraud' | First arrest sends stark warning to employers

When the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) was announced by Chancellor Rishi Sunak earlier this year, many analysts questioned the ability of HMRC to regulate its implementation and usage, given the mass scale on which it was adopted.

The scheme, which facilitates furloughed staff members receiving 80% of their wages by the taxpayer, which can be up to £2,500 per month, is estimated to have cost the public £19.6billion so far. By the Government’s own analysis at its height, furlough was being used by one-quarter of the UK’s workforce – yet numbers have dropped as lockdown measures continue to ease across the country.