During the first lockdown 2.9 million workers in the UK were unable to work and left without Government support according to statistics released by the National Audit Office. This included people with new starters and those on PAYE freelance short-term contracts falling into the cracks of support. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Excluded UK, a volunteer run organisation campaigning for the 2.9 million workers excluded from Government support, released a statement after the second lockdown was announced. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It read: \u201cThe glaring omission of support for the 3 million thus far excluded is unacceptable. Excluded UK calls on the Government to recognise once and for all the extreme financial hardship caused by the hard policy edges to these schemes\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A group exercise instructor from Medway felt she had been tossed to the side due to the lack of support from the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nikki Payne, from Halling Medway, works in gyms in Medway and although she has many permanent classes, she is classed as a self-employed freelancer and thus was unable to be furloughed when the first lockdown hit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She was getting used to the new normal when the second lockdown was announced. She said: \u201cI am at the state of disbelief but kind of knew it was going to happen. It’s horrendous, it’s just mentally heart-breaking to have built it all back up again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She was able to receive some income as part of the Self-Employed Income Support Scheme however she still struggled because the scheme is based on her profit, not her actual earnings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She went on to explain how she had extra expenses such as petrol and training which decreases her profit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n She added: \u201cIf it had been 80% of my earnings then I\u2019d be in the same boat as everybody else. Because it was profit only it really hit us hard. If my dad hadn\u2019t been able to help me out, I\u2019ll be in dire straits.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She thought that it is outrageous that self-employed group exercise instructors like her were not included in the Government Furlough System. <\/p>\n\n\n\n She said: \u201cWe are responsible for retaining the membership but were tossed to one side when all this happened. It really makes you feel worthless.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Business minister Nadhim Zahawi told BBC News this morning that the government has put \u00a39 billion into the welfare system to help those who have fallen through the cracks in support during this time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Government sparked controversy today by extending the furlough scheme until March whilst continuing to leave 3 million workers to fend for themselves. Yesterday England went into a second lockdown after the rise of coronavirus cases. In England alone, more than…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":996,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[]},"categories":[15,7,8,1],"tags":[40,82,144,145,20,38],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=993"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1051,"href":"https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993\/revisions\/1051"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/2.54588401.jpg\")