WFTV Launches Forgotten Freelancers Campaign - 18 June 2020

On National Freelancers' Day,  Women in Film and TV  launches a new campaign to highlight the huge number of freelancers and self-employed workers who have been left unable to claim for either of the government financial schemes (SEISS and CJRS), leaving them in genuine financial hardship. Each day the organisation will post across Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn, the story of a freelancer who has fallen through the gaps of the current schemes.

Liz Tucker, Chair  and Acting CEO of WFTV said:

“We already know from our recent survey that around two thirds of freelancers have been unable to claim under the government schemes, but when you read the  individual heart breaking stories of these individuals, the true personal impact of those left with no financial support real hits you. ”

The daily social media posts from WFTV will reveal the stories of freelancers in genuine financial and mental  distress, facing the risk of losing their homes and their livelihoods.

Here are a few of the extracts from some of the upcoming freelancer stories, WFTV will be covering:

“It’s now nearly 4 months without a job and without pay. I’m 5 months pregnant and facing a further 6 months leave as of October that I should be saving for now, instead I am spending the last of the savings I do have”.

If the government acknowledged I am self-employed I could receive £2,500 a month and all my rent and bills would be paid. But instead, I have had to ask for charity funds despite being a tax payer since 1998”. 


“Without question it’s been financially devastating, but the mental anguish has been far worse. With no work on the horizon and a sense of being excluded from help, things have never felt so precarious”.


“Script Supervisor with over 25 years’ experience in TV. Set up as Sole Director of Ltd Company. Furloughed myself and receive £575 per month. I can’t survive on this. Worried sick, isolated with no work for foreseeable future”.

 Liz Tucker:

The ultimate irony is that these freelancers who have paid taxes for decades are seeing these same taxes used to fund the government support schemes, yet they are excluded from claiming  themselves”.



<< back to news