Today the Chancellor has announced an extension to the Job Retention Scheme and increase to the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme. The furlough scheme will now be extended until the end of March and the Self-Employment Income Support grant will increase to 80% of average profits until January.

Responding to the announcement, Roy Rickhuss CBE, General Secretary said:

“We welcome today’s announcement that the furlough scheme will be extended to protect our members’ jobs and incomes. The increase to the self-employment income support grant also ensures parity with employees until January, and is what we called for in our letter to the Chancellor yesterday.

Workers have been faced with damaging uncertainty as to what the next few months looks like for their families and jobs with the additional restrictions and changes to guidance from the Government. We are pleased additional support is now in place until early next year.

However, the Government must now prepare for the future. We ask the Government to announce the details of the grant for the self-employed from February to April as soon as possible, and ensure this is on par with support for employees. Otherwise, the self-employed will once again be plunged into uncertainty leading to businesses going under and families suffering. It also means preparing workers through reskilling and retraining opportunities, and supporting viable businesses so that they can have a prosperous future as we emerge from the crisis.

It remains the case that the Self-Employed Income Support Scheme has serious and unforgiveable gaps that leave many self-employed people without support. Yesterday I wrote to the Chancellor urging him to immediately plug the gaps and do the right thing to ensure that thousands of self-employed people are not plunged into further financial hardship as a result of this pandemic. We will not stop until every worker gets the support they need.”

Community represents employees and self-employed workers across every part of the UK economy. You can join us here today.

If you are Community member and need help at work, please reach out to our service centre at servicecentre@community-tu.org.

Read more on the Chancellor’s announcement today here.