Frontline workers to miss out on Covid payment

FRONTLINE workers employed by care charities are to miss out on the £500 Covid payment, it has emerged.

Services that are not registered by the care watchdog will be ineligible to claim for the payments on behalf of their staff.

It means that despite providing care to vulnerable people throughout the pandemic, workers – including those from the third sector – will miss out.

Martin McElroy, Labour councillor for Springburn and Robroyston, has written to

Health Secretary Jeanne Freeman to highlight the discrepancy and to demand that all frontline workers are treated fairly.

He said: “I’ve been contacted by a number of constituents who feel let down by the SNP. These frontline staff have gone above and beyond during the past year, and they fully expected to be entitled to the £500 Covid payment in recognition for their hard work.

“They are working in social care and should be entitled to the same treatment. Now, it appears that they are missing out on a technicality. It is not good enough, we need the politicians in Edinburgh to fix their own mess and make sure that frontline staff get what they are entitled to.”

The one-off £500 payment was announced late last year as a thank you to frontline and key workers for their duties throughout the pandemic.

It is available to all staff, including porters and hospice workers, who were employed from March 17, last year.

Calls have previously been made to include Glasgow’s cleansing and refuse staff in the bonus.

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “The pro-rata £500 thank you payment is for NHS and Adult Social Care staff, and over 300,000 people will be eligible for this. We are hugely grateful to the efforts over recent months of the many key workers in different sectors across Scotland as they have risen to the challenge of responding to the pandemic.

“For people working for private employers, it would be for their employer to determine their remuneration and any additions to existing pay which may be appropriate for these staff.”

A RELATIVE of the Queen has been jailed for 10 months for sexually assaulting a woman at his ancestral home.

Simon Bowes-Lyon, 34, the Earl of Strathmore, pleaded guilty to attacking a woman at Glamis Castle, Angus, in February last year.

Bowes-Lyon, who is the son of a cousin of the Queen, was sentenced at Dundee Sheriff Court yesterday.

The court previously heard the assault happened in a bedroom at the castle.

The court heard the woman was attending a three-day public relations event at the castle and had gone to bed when a “drunk” Bowes-Lyon went to her room at around 1.20am, persuaded her to open the door and pushed his way before pushing her on the bed and sexually assaulted her.