Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme

(asked on 22nd October 2020) - View Source

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Her Majesty's Government why they ceased publication of Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme data by local authority area in May 2020.


Answered by
 Portrait
Lord Agnew of Oulton
This question was answered on 5th November 2020

HM Revenue and Customs published statistics on the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme in August 2020 which included a breakdown of the number of employments furloughed at both local authority and Parliamentary constituency level. Those statistics provided figures on the cumulative total number of employments furloughed at any time between March 2020 and June 2020 by local authority and Parliamentary constituency.

In addition to this, the latest issue of these statistics, published in October 2020, included data on the number of jobs furloughed at local authority and Parliamentary constituency level as at 31 August. Both of these breakdowns also split the figures for each area by gender and are based on claims received until the end of September. Both of these statistics releases can be found on the Internet at the addresses in the footnote to this answer.

HMRC published local authority and Parliamentary constituency breakdowns in the June, July and August CJRS statistics, but these were temporarily removed from the September release. HMRC did not cease publication of these statistics in May.

The temporary removal of the local authority and Parliamentary constituency breakdowns from the September release was done in order to enable the statistics to be released in a timely manner, while dealing with the additional work associated with substantial changes to the data and the statistics following the introduction of the flexible furlough element of the job retention scheme.

HMRC continue to monitor the use of these statistics and make improvements as necessary.

Footnote text:

August 2020 Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme statistics can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/coronavirus-job-retention-scheme-statistics-august-2020

October 2020 CJRS statistics can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/coronavirus-job-retention-scheme-statistics-october-2020

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