THE government has been accused of moving the goalposts by demanding that more than 250 self-employed Islanders pay back up to £1.9 million handed out to stop their businesses from going under during the pandemic.
Some 270 people have been sent letters saying that they were not entitled to all the cash given out under the Co-Funded Payroll Scheme, with one recipient saying the demands had ‘heaped stress’ on their life.
Following an audit, more than 10% of the 2,370 who received support have been approached for reimbursement or asked to justify payments, which the government now contests.
A recipient of the support accused the government of sending ‘demanding emails that caused psychological distress to many who had made claims in good faith’. They have appealed against the assessment.
The individual, who wished to remain anonymous, said that the rules applied in the review were different from those which were in place when they made their application.
‘I made my application based on the advice of a Jersey government employee who was an “income support specialist”. I have the emails we exchanged in which my situation was clearly stated. It was the same situation that went into my tax returns. There was no change.
‘In addition, the form very clearly states that an application is made when you can declare and evidence a drop in turnover of at least 30% when compared with trading in 2020 or the same month in 2019. Their audit is claiming that I did not earn that amount in 2019 during the same month and that my claim was therefore ineligible. My business didn’t start until later in 2019,’ they said.
A statement from the government acknowledged that the scheme had evolved over its seven phases ‘to ensure that it remained precisely tailored to public health and economic circumstances of the time’ but it stated nevertheless that ‘customers are checked against the criteria that was in place at that time’.
‘Consequently, there is alignment between the criteria of the scheme and the process used to review the amount of subsidies that businesses and individuals were eligible to receive,’ it continued.
However, others have complained of a lack of clarity over the income figures which the scheme solicited from applicants. Another beneficiary of support said: ‘I am a sole trader and I know the difference between gross and net. Basically, the problem is the government have asked all sole traders to state a figure which they have called gross earnings, which we all understand. However, at the bottom of some deep paragraph, in brackets, they have said excluding your expenses. This, by its nature, makes it no longer gross; it means net.
‘They were meant to be helping us. Things are still difficult, we are trying to rebuild and we are being sent letters demanding, in some cases, large amounts back,’ they added.
Treasury Minister Susie Pinel acknowledged that it was unusual for the government to ‘pay first and check later’ but that this was an important part of getting funds out quickly to business members of the community.
‘From the beginning, the scheme was designed to run in a customer-centric manner while carefully balancing the need to safeguard public funds, making sure that people who have over-claimed have a system in place enabling them to return the funds they are not entitled to,’ she said.
‘To help, additional resources have been deployed in our teams to ensure that anyone required to repay funding has been initially contacted by phone. This allows for a discussion with a customer services adviser.’
The government statement stressed that the payroll scheme was in place to safeguard Islanders’ livelihoods and that any person required to make repayments which may cause financial hardship could enter a repayment plan, typically over a period of up to 12 months.
