Treasury seeks to block museums from topping up furlough salaries

The Treasury is seeking to block museums, and other arm’s length bodies (ALBs) from topping up the salaries of workers they have furloughed under the government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), which opened on Monday.

Museums have been badly hit by COVID-19 and many are having to furlough a lot of their staff using the CJRS. This includes key institutions like the British Museum, Imperial War Museum and V&A.

The CJRS allows employers to furlough workers and claim back 80% of their salaries from the Treasury up to £2,500 a month. Employers are permitted however to top up those salaries to 100%, when the Chancellor announced the scheme he stated that: “And, of course, employers can top up salaries further if they choose to.”

In contravention of this statement, The Treasury has instructed DCMS that its policy with regards to ALBs is that they should not top up the salary even though the museums and galleries generate up to 70% of their own income.

The DCMS is, however, sympathetically considering the cases made by employing bodies for topping up salaries.

Some staff in national museums which receive grant-in-aid have already been furloughed with promises of the top-up to 100% – this revelation of the Treasury’s position puts that in doubt.

The implications of the Treasury’s position are dire for many workers. A large percentage of museum staff earn at or around the living wage. A 20% cut will put them into further financial difficulty and in need of state benefits.

As the union which represents heritage workers, we and other unions will not accept furlough of these workers on just 80% of salaries and will urge members to reject it too. The CJRS requires agreement before staff can be furloughed.

Prospect understands that other ALBs and public bodies, for example, TfL, are topping up the wages of furloughed workers. Staff at the National Museums of Scotland are also being furloughed with the top up. Workers in parts of the civil service, who cannot work from home but whose jobs are not essential so cannot work outside either, are also being paid 100% of their salaries.

This is entirely the right thing to do and demonstrates how untenable the Treasury’s position is in relation to these heritage employers.

Alan Leighton, Prospect national secretary said:

“The government should be leading by example on topping up furloughed workers’ wages, instead the Treasury are blocking some employers from doing so even where they are willing to fund this from their own income or reserves.

“This is unacceptable and will be strongly opposed by Prospect and other unions.

“This money will make almost no difference to government given the scale of expenditure on supporting the economy during the crisis, but it will mean the world to these workers who are some of the lowest paid in the public sector and who will have to rely on the overstretched benefits system if wages are cut in this way.

“Given that other ALBs do seem to be able to top-up salaries it is extraordinary that heritage seems to have been singled out in this way by government.

“Government must urgently rethink this policy, support its own heritage workers, and make clear that they want other employers to do as they do, not just as they say.”

Shadow Culture Secretary Jo Stevens MP also added her support:

“The Chancellor was very clear when announcing this scheme that employers would be free to top up wages to 100% and that’s the case no matter who the employer is.

“Government should urgently consider the impact of this on the lowest paid workers.”