Coronavirus: Our call for income protection fund for self-employed members
News from BACP

20 March 2020

We’re pleased to be among the signatories on this vital letter to the Prime Minister

We’re calling for the Prime Minister to implement a Temporary Income Protection Fund to support the self-employed during the coronavirus crisis.

We’ve joined a range of organisations who represent the UK’s five million self-employed and freelance workers in signing a letter to Boris Johnson regarding the support available to them during the pandemic.

The letter has been led by IPSE, the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed, and also signed by UKCP.

There is also a petition to support the calls for a fund, which already has more than 157,000 signatures.

Unprecedented

Martin Bell, our Deputy Head of Policy and Public Affairs, said: “We know that many of our members, particularly those working in private practice or for small organisations are anxious about how their business will cope over the next few months.

"We’re working hard to support our members during what is an unprecedented health and economic crisis.

“By signing this letter, we’re joining together with other organisations to urge the Prime Minister to provide support for our self-employed members by implementing a Temporary Income Protection Fund.

Act urgently

“We call on the Prime Minister to act urgently to support our members who are a critical part of the national effort in helping people cope with the current crisis and related uncertainly.

“Our members can support our call by signing the petition too.

“In addition to this we are engaging with all Governments across the UK to ensure the vital contribution of our members to the mental health of the nation is recognised and that access to counselling and psychotherapy can continue throughout this outbreak. We will be shortly be asking members to add their voice to that call.”

Dear Prime Minister

Temporary Income Protection Fund for the self-employed and freelancers

We are writing to you as a collective group of organisations representing the UK’s five million self-employed and freelance workers, regarding the support available to them during the coronavirus crisis.

In recent days, our members and the wider self-employed community across the country have contacted us in huge numbers about their work and projects being delayed or cancelled altogether. From the construction sector to our world-leading creative industries, where freelance talent including designers, writers and developers is abundant, it is evident that many self-employed people are already feeling the impact. We have also heard concern from those self-employed professionals whose work involves entering homes and premises, such as cleaners, carers and tradespeople, that they face a choice between losing their income and risking the health of themselves and others.

We understand the government is due to announce a further employment support package in the coming days. We are calling on the government to implement a Temporary Income Protection Fundspecifically for the self-employed as part of this package.

This should be time-limited and carefully targeted to ensure support goes to those self-employed people who need it most. Although this will require a large financial commitment, we believe this is the right approach. In recent days, other countries have taken such steps. In Norway, for instance, the government has committed to pay the self-employed 80 per cent of their average income over the past three years.

We are grateful for the package of measures that have been announced in recent days, however we are concerned these will not be sufficient to meet the scale or pace of the problem. Universal Credit and Employment Support Allowance are both less generous than Statutory Sick Pay, which the self-employed cannot access, and difficult to navigate – they are not well-suited to deliver rapid financial support. Similarly, the government’s bold set of business support measures will undoubtedly help many small and large firms but they are not well-tailored to the self-employed, who need fast cash flow support and not long-term debt liabilities.

As you have recently stated, this is not just a health crisis but an economic crisis. The income of freelancers up and down the country is at immediate risk, threatening their ability to keep their businesses alive and cover basic living costs like rent, bills and food.

We wish to help in any way we can to inform government policy making in these extremely challenging circumstances and would welcome the opportunity to discuss this proposal with you at the earliest opportunity.

Yours sincerely,

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