I apologise this may be a bit long winded, its my first post and I'm not a big earner like most other contractors.

Hi I work for a London Council through an agency. I had the option to be paid through an umbrella company but chose not to as I was happy to take my holidays and not work every working day of the year. I am Inside IR35 and not a Ltd Company. I really didn't have any benefits of being a contractor and would rather have been permanent but they never gave me that opportunity.

I started working around the middle of 2018 and worked all the way up to Monday the 23rd of March 2020 when I was told to work from home due to the Corona Virus Outbreak. I then got a call on Friday the 27th March that my services were no longer required, along with other non key worker contractors.

As I was working within IR35 paying all my tax and national insurance and getting paid PAYE and earnt around £46k for 2019-2020 financial year, so I thought I would qualify for the government furlough scheme.

As I could not apply for myself I approached my agency to see if they would assist me in claiming. They were completely unhelpful and evasive.When I pushed them to apply they came back with an email stating that my assignment was no longer needed and I could claim my 1 weeks notice pay.

I rang my council manager and he told me over the phone that they would like me back once these problems had passed. I knew that wouldn't be any good as I needed that on paper so approached the head of HR at the council to see if he could talk with my manager to bottom this out due to the conflicting information I am getting. They came back with a letter saying my services are no longer required and as such I am not able to apply for the furlough scheme!

So it seems to me that the council and the agency are colluding not to allow any contractors that have been layed off to claim from the furlough scheme.

I understand that the furlough scheme simply has to be an offer of work at the end of this lock-down but if they subsequently realise they cant have me back that fine I could still claim for furlough government help and then go on my way to finding another job. But neither the agency or council will help me claim, in fact they go out of their way to stop me from doing this.

I may have missed something obvious, but does anyone have a clue why they do not want to assist in helping me claim furlough??? It would be a massive help to me if I could, instead of earning nothing!

Thanks in advance