Use of the Government Kickstart Scheme for job creation

[MrQuestion]

Hello. I'm sorry if this has been asked previously. As the grant from the Kickstart Scheme is apparently paid to a company directly, and not to the employee, I'm wondering if the Scheme is "allowed" from a job creation perspective for the T1E visa. It seems to me to be similar to furlough in that it's a grant paid to the company, and then passed on to the employee. With furloughed employees now able to be counted towards the job creation criteria for extension/ILR... is the Kickstart Scheme the same? I realise it's only for 25 hours per week, which would require a 5 hour increase to get to the required 30 hours, but still.

If true, that would mean you could hire 4 "Kickstarters" for 6 months each, and given the revised guidance that a "job" can be made up of multiple people doing different jobs across different months, you'd have a large portion of your wage bill covered in order to meet the criteria. Can that really be correct..?

[Legend1]

hi Mr Question,
just for information, what's the nature of your business ?
it might be helpful for me as well if this is practically possible !
thanks

[marcnath]

Hello. I'm sorry if this has been asked previously. As the grant from the Kickstart Scheme is apparently paid to a company directly, and not to the employee, I'm wondering if the Scheme is "allowed" from a job creation perspective for the T1E visa. It seems to me to be similar to furlough in that it's a grant paid to the company, and then passed on to the employee. With furloughed employees now able to be counted towards the job creation criteria for extension/ILR... is the Kickstart Scheme the same? I realise it's only for 25 hours per week, which would require a 5 hour increase to get to the required 30 hours, but still.

If true, that would mean you could hire 4 "Kickstarters" for 6 months each, and given the revised guidance that a "job" can be made up of multiple people doing different jobs across different months, you'd have a large portion of your wage bill covered in order to meet the criteria. Can that really be correct..?

This has not been clearly specified but I can't see why it would not be accepted. It still meets the objective of creating new jobs for UK settled workers. And you still have to make your investment into the business.

[jocksta]

Note also that the Kickstart scheme pays for 25 hours a week, so presumably you would need to pay for the extra 5 hours a week to make it up to the minimum 30 hours. It's not clear to me though whether you could employ another person under the scheme to make up for the 5 hours. Previously the requirement was to employ a person for a minimum 30 hours a week; the current guidance seems to indicate greater flexibility here, but I'm not sure if the 30 hour minimum is no longer required.

[MrQuestion]

Thanks @marcnath and others for weighing in. Yes, I assume the best/safest way would simply be to employ the person for 30 hours, receiving the grant for 25 of those.

@Joksta, or to anyone else observing this thread, has anyone:

1) Utilised or is planning on utilising the Kickstart scheme to satisfy their job creation requirements
2) Been in contact with the Home Office to confirm validity of using the scheme to satisfy job requirements

I've put in request with WhatDoTheyKnow, and had a response back from the 'Digital Correspondence Allocation Team' at the Home Office. Sadly, they completely ignored the nature of the question in the response, and I've responded asking for clarity again.

I'll post here again if I receive any information.

[MrQuestion]

For the benefit of anyone reading this, I've received a reply from the Home Office. They state:

"Paragraph 49(a)-(h) of the rules gives full details of the requirements needed for job creation, with paragraph 50(a)-(h) listing the specified documents needed to demonstrate that these requirements have been met.

If the evidence provided demonstrates the applicant meets the requirement of paragraph 50(a) of Appendix A, as well as all other associated evidential requirements for job creation, the jobs would be eligible to use as part of evidence for meeting the job creation requirement for both extension and settlement applications.

In response to your point regarding the guidance not specifically referencing the ‘Kickstart Scheme’ despite it only recently being updated to include details of the furlough scheme. I should explain that guidance is not and cannot be an exhaustive list of what is and isn’t acceptable for the purpose of job creation. It was felt appropriate to include details of the furlough scheme given the extraordinary circumstances currently being experienced by businesses during this ongoing pandemic."

So, an answer, but not quite as clear as I'd have liked. They don't say that the Kickstart Scheme couldn't be used... The Kickstart Scheme doesn't seem to violate anything in Appendix A (other than needing to top up roles to 30 hours per week), and if the T1E guidance allowance of combing multiple jobs across multiple months supersedes Appendix A, that opens up ample opportunity to use the scheme in different ways with various numbers of Kickstarters.

Does anyone have any further opinions?

[marcnath]

Apprentices for who government was giving a grant and having a lower minimum hour wage have been accepted. I really see no reason why the government would change the criteria for this