Barbers and hairdressers will be able to reopen in Northern Ireland on 6 July.

It is among a series of measures agreed by Stormont ministers in an attempt to further ease the lockdown. Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill said those businesses should now ensure they have the appropriate safety measures in place.

Justice Minister Naomi Long said the indicative dates came with a ‘health warning’ and that if the rate of the virus increased, the dates would need to be pushed back.

We will continue to post updates as and when we receive them. This date does not apply to barbershops in Scotland, England or Wales, who are awaiting government guidelines on when they can reopen and under what restrictions.

NHBF has today published an open letter sent today to the Rt. Hon Alok Sharma MP Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, stressing the urgent need for the Government to publish formal guidance regarding close proximity services, which includes hair and beauty salons and barbershops.

The letter can be read in full below:

Dear Alok

I am writing to stress the urgent need for the Government to publish formal guidance regarding close proximity services.

As you will know from our previous meetings and ongoing discussions with your department, the National Hair & Beauty Federation has been proactive in communicating the Government’s latest advice and information to our members and the wider industry.

We have also been a significant contributor to the draft guidelines on ‘Working Safely Guidance – Close Contact Services including Hair and Beauty’. As well as attending a round table meeting with you on 22 May, we have provided continued technical advice to BEIS officials. We put forward a representative selection of salons, barbershops, beauty salons and freelancers to comment on the first draft of the guidelines which were published late on Friday 5 June. With a deadline of 5pm on Monday 8 June, many people from across the industry willingly gave up time to meet the government’s timetable and support these important developments understanding the urgent need to publish guidance. Despite a real sense of progress, we have heard nothing since.

There is growing frustration at the continued delay in publishing these guidelines, preventing hair salons, beauty salons and barbershops from being able to fully prepare their businesses, staff and clients for reopening.

We have written to you previously about urgent need for guidance on PPE in particular. Salons and barbershops have been unable to trade for months, so if they are to make a financial investment in PPE, they need to be confident that they are buying the right materials and they need sufficient time to source supplies.

We understand the latest advice is that these services will not re-open until 4 July at the earliest but businesses need adequate time – ideally two weeks – to redesign their premises, train staff, ensure they have suitable PPE, communicate with clients regarding operational changes, implement adequate hygiene standards, and come to terms with the changes necessary to ensure the safety of themselves and their clients.

We therefore urge you to publish the guidance without any further delay. We are available to provide any support necessary in order to ensure this outcome.

Yours sincerely

Hilary Hall
Chief Executive

National Hair & Beauty Federation

Partnering with the NHS and South West Mental Health Clinical Network, BarberTalk are offering a new virtual training session to barbers and hairdressers for free.

The bespoke online training course, called BarberTalk Online, is designed to assist hair professionals before they return to work, giving them the skills to help their clients when in need.

This in-depth session builds on the four pillars of training to equip you with the skills to help your clients to better mental wellbeing.

BarberTalk Online training will:

• Give you the tools to RECOGNISE mental health issues in your clients
• Equip you to be able to ASK direct questions about the emotional wellbeing of your clients
• Refine your LISTENING skills to be present at a critical moment for your client
• Provide you with the resources to HELP your client find support

This is a four hour course where you will learn directly from Tom Chapman and his team of ambassadors, dive into the topics of mental health, share how it impacts you and your job, and learn how you can support your clients.

The course is FREE for a limited time only, with classes running from the 22nd June to the 2nd July.

To sign up to a class, click here.

BarberEVO is thrilled to report that Adam Sloan will be Chairing the Hairdressing Industry Advisory Board as well as the Barbering from June 2020.

Adam has been in the Hair Industry for 42 years now, specialising in Hairdressing and Barbering, and based on the passion he has shown during his recent appearances on #EVOLive, we know his love for the industry remains constant.

As well as founding the Men’s Hairdressing Federation, Adam works closely with City and Guilds on many lovels and states that “education is the past, present and future of our industry.” Adam added that he is “deeply honored to be asked to Chair City and Guilds Hairdressing Industry Advisory Board as well as the City & Guilds Barbering Industry Advisory Board.”

We have no doubt that he will do great things in his new role and wish him the very best of luck and a massive congratulations.

The NHBF has teamped up with organisations representing the hospitality, leisure and retail industry to put pressure on the Government to raise the threshold for support for businesses facing hardship due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

The #raisethebar campaign is pushing for the £25,000 Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grant to be made available to all businesses with a business rates value of up to £150,000. This would help many salons and barbershops in cities with higher business rates to deal with cash flow challenges, such as rents, that wage subsidies do not address. Currently, the £25,000 grant is only open to salons and barbershops with a rateable value of up to £51,000.

Ian Egerton, President of the National Hair & Beauty Federation and owner of The Stress Exchange in London and said, “By ignoring businesses such as mine with business rates just over the £51,000 threshold, the Government is storing up trouble to come. Not only am I not entitled to any financial grants, I also have no income at all, yet quarterly rents are still expected to be paid at the end of this month. This is not sustainable. A VAT delay does not help as ultimately the money still has to be paid back. I do not expect the government to fund failing businesses, however with no means of income and outgoings still expected, they urgently need a common sense approach to fairness.”

Hilary Hall, Chief Executive of NHBF added, “The government support has been focussed on small and micro businesses which has benefited many of our Members. But this campaign work is essential for our larger Members who have received little or no government support and rightly feel that they’ve fallen through the cracks. We hope that working together with other organisations as part of the #raisethebar campaign will increase our voice and help get these businesses the support they need to ensure their longer term survival.”

To help embed best practices and assist building the confidence of learners and their clients on how to return work safely, VTCT is releasing six new Infection Prevention qualifications for the hair, barbering, beauty, nail and sports industries, which will become a pre-requisite on all VTCT and ITEC qualifications from the 1st of August 2020.

The first qualification, which will be available for registration from Wednesday 10th June, will be Infection Prevention for Hairdressing and Barbering Services.

The VTCT have used information and materials from the World Health Organisation, national authorities in the UK and around the world, as well as learning from the experiences of those in Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore, who have been able to safely re-open barbershops and salons.

The qualification will allow learners to develop knowledge on the causes, transmissions and effects of COVID-19, the importance of social responsibility and the methods used to control transmission, such as correct hand hygiene and the use of PPE. They will also gain an understanding of the safe working practices required to protect themselves and their clients.

VTCT’s Chief Executive, Alan Woods OBE, said: “We take our responsiblity to the sector very seriously and are looking to help engender our centres, learners and their clients with the confidence that as things open up, their safety will remain paramount.”

For more information, click here: https://bit.ly/2MoKyvV

The NHBF has welcomed the latest announcement from the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, on Friday, 30th May, providing more details on the next phase of the Government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.

Throughout June and July, the government will continue to pay 80% of wages up to a cap of £2,500 as well as employer National Insurance Contributions and pension contributions for the hours the employee doesn’t work.

From July 1, employers can bring furloughed staff back on a part-time basis, provided they pay the wages for the hours the employee works. Employers will still be able to claim under the scheme for the hours not worked.

In August, although the government will continue to pay 80% of wages up to £2,500, employers will be required to pay National Insurance and pension contributions for the hours the employee does not work. In September and moving on to October, the government payment will drop to 70%, and then on to 60% for the hours employees do not work. Employers will need to make up the amount to 80% during these months and pay National Insurance and pension contributions for the hours the employee does not work.

The scheme will close to new entrants from 30 June 2020. From this point onwards, employers will only be able to furlough employees that they have furloughed for a full three-week period before 30 June 2020. This means that the final date by which an employer can furlough an employee for the first time will be 10 June 2020.

Self-employed individuals will be able to claim a second and final grant when applications open in August 2020. The grant will be worth 70% of the individual’s average monthly trading profits and will be paid in a single instalment capped at £6,570 total.

The first grant was worth 80 per cent of the individual’s average monthly trading profits up to a maximum of £7,500. Applications for this grant closes on 13 July 2020.

Hilary Hall, NHBF chief executive commented ”The NHBF has been speaking continuously with relevant government departments to ensure financial support for all those in the industry, whether business owners, employees or self-employed to make sure it does not peter out before we have had a chance to re-open and return to full trading.

“Our sector will particularly benefit from being able to return people to work flexibly with the furlough scheme, bearing in mind salon capacity if client numbers are reduced to ensure safety and the need for childcare arrangements due to schools not fully reopening. Employers can start working out their staffing rotas and begin having these conversations ready for when the government says it is safe for hair salons, beauty salons and barbershops to re-open.”

Keep up to date with the NHBF here: www.nhbf.co.uk/coronavirus

As of today, Monday 1st of June, at 3pm, Barber Blades is moving back to an online service! This means they will be dispatching all online orders and will be doing their very best to turn them around as soon as they can.

Phone lines are still closed for now, but you can still contact the team via their live chat on barberblades.co.uk or through Facebook and Instagram.

Anyone ordering online should allow 2-3 working days for deliveries and, althought product returns cannot be accepted until after 15th June, Barber Blades have extended the warranty on all products by three months to cover this delay.

Keep an eye out on the site over the coming weeks as PPE products will be available soon!

American Crew UK has announced this year’s All-Star winners for the UK and Ireland.

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Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced recently a £500 million boost for self-employed workers hit by coronavirus, but stopped short of meeting demands to extend statutory sick pay to all. So, how will this affect barbers and shop owners?

According to reports, the budget would make sick pay available for all those advised to self isolate during the outbreak, even if they do not have symptoms. Unfortunately though, this will not extend to zero hours workers or those who are self employed.

Instead, self employed workers will be given help through a £500m boost to the benefits system, including a temporary halt to the minimum floor in universal credit and quicker payments for employment and support allowance (ESA) claimants.

Local authorities will also be given a £500m hardship fund, also scrapping the need for claimants to attend job centre appointments in person and small businesses will be given government help to meet the cost of statutory sick pay.

We asked some of our columnists for their thoughts on the coronavirus and some advice on how to keep your staff safe and protect your business.

Dan Davies: “The main thing is that both staff and barbers are safe. If you are feeling under the weather, spot a colleague is not right or indeed if a customer is showing systems it’s best to act on the side of caution. Hygiene is always of paramount importance, even more now wash your hands after every client and ensure they are dry. Fresh alcohol wipes and Salonside for all equipment.”

“Salonside is my favourite disinfectant. It comes in refillable sprays and is water based so it acts 10x quicker than oil based brands. I always wipe the chair, combs and brushes after every client with this. It gives people a sense of protection and needs to be taken into consideration in these uncertain times. The main thing everyone needs to do is take the advice of professionals seriously. There are a lot of really crazy things on social media about the virus. Keep calm and follow the professional advice given by the government.”

Luke Dolan: “COVID-19 has now been updated to a pandemic virus and it’s a very real threat to everything, but it’s not the illness that is the threat, it’s the hysteria and breakdown in the system because of it that will bring the real chaos. Yes, be vigilant, stay clean and sanitised, clean your hands before and after cuts, maintain the highest level of bacterial cleanliness you can.

“That said, what we have no control over is hospitals being over run, people won’t come out of their homes, business’ will plummet and appointments will fall off the radar. We may have areas of the country that will be told to stay home and be on lock down, so be prepared. Plan for the worst case scenario.

“Events are being cancelled in October. That’s no joke and means that a six months stretch of bad business could be coming our way. Speak to your landlords, clarify with your utility companies of allowances and if any can be given. Making calls and emails now will keep anxiety levels at a minimum when the virus actually goes widespread and if you get the virus you’ll be quarantined for two weeks minimum, and the last thing you want to think about are bills.”

“Make plans now. The virus is a real threat, but the chaos that it might bring is the unknown entity. As a boss, your responsibility lies with keeping your workforce safe and your client base, and making sure you’re ready for anything.”

Vikki Harrison-Smith: “We are encouraging those who feel unwell to stay at home and cancel appointments. We have put more hand sanitisers dotted around the academy for clients, students and staff. Gloves are readily available for those wanting to use them for work.

“Friendly reminders are up in the toilets to wash hands and there is a hand washing guide up too. Disposable paper towels to dry hands or the air dryer. As always, reinforcing sanitisation on all stations and equipment.”

We’ll continue to provide updates as and when we have them, but make sure you pay attention to local guidelines and safety procedures.