Payment for Covid-related Absence

What are the rules surrounding training of staff on furlough? Is it reasonable for an employer to request employees to complete training on new systems, etc., on their site whilst they're on furlough?

Seamus: Yes, my understanding is that it's always been the position that you could engage in training whilst on furlough, and there's the obvious position now as well that you can do the hybrid of furlough and engaging in work as well. So I wouldn't imagine that there should be any difficulty arising as a result of that, and it's a good time for employers to do that if there are new systems and things like that again, provided that if they're planning to do it from the workplace, that it is absolutely necessary for the purposes of the business and they can provide a safe and healthy work environment.

Scott: Okay, so might be in that case that maybe there's some . . . The date of training, you may class that as work and other times you may class it as furlough. But other than that, there's nothing really to stop people taking part in some training is what you're saying . . .

Seamus: No.