| UPDATED: 17:18, Thu, Dec 17, 2020
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Earlier this year, the Government announced a package of economic support to help people during the coronavirus crisis. The Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) has helped millions of self-employed people throughout the pandemic, and November to January 2021 will be covered by the scheme’s third grant, capped at £7,500. However since the scheme was introduced in March 2020, the Government has faced significant criticism as well as praise over the scheme.
Scots taxi drivers to mount Holyrood demonstration in fight for survival TAXI drivers are to mount a protest at the Scottish Parliament to help assure the survival of an industry that dates back a century. Concerns about the trade s future emerged as nearly one in three have been unable to get financial support from government support schemes. A ‘mobile demonstration’ will take place at Holyrood after a union survey found that around 80% of taxi drivers have lost up to to three quarters of their usual incomes due to the Covid pandemic. As self-employed workers, many cabbies have been entitled to benefit from the Self Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS), however the grant focuses heavily on the driver profits. The high operating costs involved in running a licensed taxi means many are still struggling to find enough work to tide them over until the pandemic passes.
Oh My Sweets! is among the offerings from enterprising former West End workers
Credit: Oh My Sweets!
“Necessity is the mother of invention” is a proverb that has been tested and proven to the hilt this year. Theatre-makers – and those in associated industries – have seen the sudden and lengthy closure of the playhouses blast their livelihoods to smithereens. And notwithstanding some – far from comprehensive – Government support, masses of freelancers have been forced to do what they can to keep body and soul together.
Such is the burgeoning nature of the new activity, which has seen this creative sector turn on additional taps of money-raising ingenuity as never before, that sites and social media accounts have sprung up helping to guide potential customers through the maze of home-grown delights. If you want to help the freelance theatre community and stumble on unusual Christmas gift ideas, theatre-themed or not, you could do worse than start at NotOnTheWestEnd.co.uk
Chancellor Rishi Sunak. Picture: contributed
- Credit: POOL/AFP via Getty Images
UK Government Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced extra measures to support workers and businesses throughout winter, including a furlough scheme extension paying 80 per cent of staff wages.
Kelly Dunn, MD of KD Recruitment Picture: contributed
- Credit: Archant
The UK Government has pledged billions of pounds more to help workers and businesses throughout winter.
The furlough scheme, extended across the UK until the end of March, pays 80 per cent of wages up to £2,500 a month. The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme subsidises the wages of people who cannot do their jobs because their workplace is closed or there is no longer enough work.