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Leading early years membership organisation the Early Years Alliance has welcomed clarification from HMRC that employees, including childcare staff, can be placed on furlough more than once.

Updated guidance for employees on the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, published today, states: "your employer can place you on furlough more than once".

The Alliance had led calls for flexibility to be applied for childcare settings staying partially open who may need to 'unfurlough' and 'refurlough' staff to cover, for example, situations where staff are off sick or in self-isolation. The organisation's MP email-campaign on this issue led to hundreds of letters being sent to MPs in a matter of days.

Commenting, Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Early Years Alliance, said:

"We welcome the news that childcare providers, alongside other businesses, are able to access the job retention scheme flexibly.

"For childcare providers remaining partially open, such flexibility - for example, the ability to rotate staff who are furloughed in instances of staff sickness or self-isolation - is absolutely vital to being able to continue operating and providing places for key worker families and vulnerable children during this difficult period."