About 600 freelances who regularly work for the BBC on PAYE contracts are to “finally” be offered financial support to cover some of the worst months of the Covid-19 crisis.

The BBC will pay average earnings capped at £2,500 for March, April and May for about 600 people who have been ineligible for any of the Government’s support schemes and who regularly worked for it over the previous 12 months.

The corporation said it believed this was the “right thing to do” after four months of appeals from hundreds of those affected and the National Union of Journalists, but some said its inaction so far had built up “ill will”.