The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) has made improvements to enforcement processes to increase effective use of powers. This includes simplifying deductions from earnings, increasing efficiency by reducing the manual intervention required, making better use of deductions from bank accounts therefore increasing the volume of deductions leading to more money being collected quicker for children and working in partnership with HMCT to reduce Court processing times by introducing Virtual Court presenting and electronic exchange of documentation. There is also a Private Members bill sponsored by the Honourable Member for Stroud that removes the requirement to make court applications for liability orders which enable CMS to progress with enforcement action faster and improve efficiency, whilst protecting appeal rights.

The CMS FIU considers all allegations relating to income, either that received from HMRC or from declarations from paying parents, where the information and intelligence indicates that the income used in a CMS assessment has been underdeclared, the FIU carry out a full and thorough investigation and where additional income is found cases are re-assessed and any fraudulent activity considered for referral to the Crown Prosecution Service.

The Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) has provided and will continue to provide support to the self-employed, including freelance performers and musicians who meet the eligibility criteria. The third grant, combined with up to £14,070 worth of support for each individual from the first and second grants, makes the SEISS one of the most generous schemes for the self-employed in the world.

The third grant will be available to self-employed individuals who have been affected by reduced demand or have been unable to trade due to COVID-19, which they believe will lead to a significant reduction in their trading profits. This will ensure that support is targeted at those who most need it.

The SEISS continues to be just one element of a substantial package of support for the self-employed. Other elements of the package include Bounce Back loans, tax deferrals, rental support, mortgage holidays, self-isolation support payments and other business support grants.

The Government has announced a £1.57bn Culture Recovery Fund to protect the cultural sectors through the COVID-19 pandemic, in order to help to ensure a vibrant future for the cultural and creative sectors on the other side of the COVID-19 crisis. To date, £560m in grant funding has been allocated to nearly 3,000 cultural organisations in England. Organisations supported include galleries, theatres, museums, orchestras, music venues, comedy clubs and festivals. This funding will help to enable performances to restart, protect jobs and create opportunities for freelancers. Further allocations will be announced in the coming weeks.

The Government recognises the significant challenge the current pandemic poses to our world-beating cultural and creative industries and to the many individuals and freelancers working across the sector. We are working very hard to help freelancers in those sectors access support.

According to the latest statistics (published on the 25th November), over two thirds of all those who are self-employed in the country have been eligible for the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme. Those statistics showed that 76,000 self employed people in the arts, entertainment and recreation sector got SEISS support in phase 1 earlier this year, and 72,000 in phase 2.

Of the £119m available through Arts Council England as part of their Covid emergency support, over £26m has been distributed to individuals, including freelance workers, and organisations via the Emergency Relief Fund and Project Grants Funding (as of 5 November 2020).

Within the £26m, £17m has been distributed to individuals via ACE’s Emergency Response Fund (now closed) and c.£9m has so far been distributed to both organisations and individuals via Project Grants (out of a total of c.£80m available until April 2021).

In addition to the two Funds above, the £119m also includes the following:

• £6 million distributed by a series of Benevolent Funds focused on self employed individuals; and

• £18 million available through their Developing Your Creative Practice Fund

The £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund (CRF) is also benefiting freelancers. Around 40% of CRF awards have gone to non-building based companies (and building based companies are also likely to employ significant numbers of contracted employees), and it is estimated that around 12.5% of business costs by CRF recipients will go to freelancers, artists and casual events staff.

Under the new Tiers which came into force in England on 2 December live audiences are permitted in indoor covid secure venues in Tiers 1 and 2 in line with the capacity caps now in place and provided social distancing is maintained in line with the Performing Arts Guidance.

We recognise the crucial role that individuals play in making our arts and creative industries world-leading. As a result of the £1.57 billion Culture Renewal Fund, organisations will be more able to resume cultural activity, albeit in a socially distanced way, which will increase employment opportunities for freelancers.

Each organisation that receives money will know what best they can do to support their workforce, including their freelance workforce.

To complement Government Funding, ACE have made over £115m of funding available for individuals, including freelancers, to apply to. That includes:

• £17.1m through the Emergency Response Fund for individuals;

• £18m through their Developing Your Creative Practice fund;

• £75m through National Lottery Project Grants (available to both individuals and orgs); and

• £6m distributed by a series of Benevolent Funds focused on the self employed.

The Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) is only available to those whose trading profit makes up 50% or more of their total income, as the SEISS aims to provide financial support to those who rely on self-employment as their main source of income. Many individuals earn small amounts of income from self-employment in addition to income from employment and other sources. These individuals may benefit from other policies such as the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.

Individuals may have access to a range of grants and loans depending on their circumstances, and the SEISS supplements the significant support already announced for UK businesses, including the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme and the deferral of tax payments. More information about the full range of business support measures is available at www.businesssupport.gov.uk/coronavirus-business-support/.

In its 2017 Review of Automatic Enrolment, the Government committed to improve retirement saving among the self-employed by testing a number of different approaches aimed at improving savings levels. This recognises that, given the diversity of self-employed people, a single initiative is unlikely to work. Finding effective, durable retirement saving solutions for self-employed individuals is, therefore, a long-term challenge.

Following extensive stakeholder engagement and preparatory work for trialling activities throughout 2018, the Government’s December 2018 report, ‘Enabling retirement savings for the self-employed: pensions and long-term savings trials’, provided a research and trialling programme, which involves working with partners, to deliver a range of trialling activities from 2019/20.The initial trials focus on testing whether or not certain types of messaging or marketing interventions can increase the propensity of the self-employed to save in a pension. Our objective is that later trials will build on the findings and test the scope to make it easier to prompt and/or facilitate contributions through existing systems which many self-employed people use, such as invoicing services or accounting software.

The Department is committed to making information from trialling activities publicly available, working with delivery organisations to ensure monitoring and evaluation is robust to inform implementation options and costs.