Coronavirus: Self-employed £10m scheme expanded

A £10m scheme to help newly self-employed people in Northern Ireland has been expanded and extended.

There are 134,000 self-employed people in Northern Ireland, but recently self-employed people have not been eligible for support from the chancellor.

They have been one of the groups calling for financial support since the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in March.

A one-off taxable grant of £3,500 was announced last month.

At that time, concerns were raised about one of the eligibility criteria which said over 50% of the previous financial year's income must come from self-employment.

It would have ruled many applicants out.

It has now been amended to allow those who commenced self-employment later in the financial year to qualify.

They will be able to do this if they can show they moved from paid employment to self-employment during 2019/20 the income from the previous employment will not be taken into account.

The rest of the eligibility criteria remains unchanged.

Economy Minister Diane Dodds said it is important the scheme "covers as many self-employed as the budget will allow".

"These grants will help hundreds of businesses across Northern Ireland and I am confident that the revised closing date and change to the criteria will allow many more newly self-employed to avail of much needed support at this difficult time," she added.

The scheme, which opened on 3 December 2020, was due to close today, but the closing date has now been extended to Friday 5 February 2021 to allow applicants to include their 2019/20 HMRC tax return.