Pact has expressed disappointed that the UK Government has not accepted the UK broadcasting and production industry’s pleas to extend the Production Restart Scheme (PRS) and provide a short term transition from the tax payer-backed PRS to a fully operational commercial insurance market.
The trade body for independent producers points to the shortfall that it sees occurring in production insurance, saying that this does not fulfil the Government’s stated ambition of transitioning to a “viable commercial insurance” market at the end of April 2022.
In a statement, Pact said: “PRS has proved to be one of the most successful Covid interventions by the UK Government and the entire industry is thankful that the Chancellor acted so quickly and at scale to protect domestic audiovisual jobs and businesses.
“Having supported nearly £3bn in production and over 90,000 jobs at a cost of £50m to the tax payer this has been a highly cost efficient intervention. On the basis of the tax revenues from this activity it is likely that the UK tax payer is positive on this scheme.”
Pact will continue to work with the insurance industry to help more providers return to the market going forward, but its research shows that there will inevitably be some productions that will not be able to get cover for Covid related losses and may subsequently not be able to proceed.
Pippa Considine
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