Huge thanks to these Super Troopers who have spoken out today via Zoom on behalf of the Excluded Scotland community that are going through the NSE and MCC grant shambles being administered by UMi.
Hear their experiences first hand
On 17th November 2020 Scottish Government announced the Newly Self Employed Hardship Fund Grant and on the 10th December 2020 the Mobile Close Contact Fund Grant which included Home Based Businesses was announced. The #Excluded Scotland community anticipated receiving that funding before Christmas 2020.
However these grant funds did not open for applications until 16th February 20201.
The NSE and the MCC grants are not being administered by local authorities as anticipated.
These grants are being processed by a third party private contractor called UMi. The process has been utterly shambolic, thousands of applicants are stuck in a processing loop which is failing those is it supposed to be helping.
These applicants have had little or no Government support for 12 months now. Applicants are having to sell their homes, cars, they are struggling to feed themselves, their families and have been plunged into debt through no fault of their own.
This has had a severe impact on the mental health of many of those applicants. In this recording are some of those applicants share their experiences. Representatives from Scottish Government are keen to brag about the applications which have been awarded while doing little or nothing to help those in the grant proceeding queue some of them for a third time.
The ludicrous process does not tell the applicants what the reason was for their application failing when inviting them to reapply. Instead they are just told to reapply within 7 day with absolutely no guidance nor reason why.
Initially the application process was due to close on 16th March 2021, giving applicants one chance only to apply and no right to appeal. Excluded Scotland challenged this because the UMi system and process was not fit for purpose.
As of today 18th March 2012 the application process has been extended until 23rd March 2021 for new applications. Thank you for listening to members of the Excluded Scotland Community, your support is greatly appreciated by those that have fallen through the cracks in support for the past 12 months.
