Time Off and IR35

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Myco has a contract with a fellow contractor's co to provide services. He's a PCG member and I'm going to join when I get a minute. We used the PCG model contract and my accountant has checked it and declared it outside IR35.

I am concerned about the practical however.

I have received an e-mail suggesting I need to send "holiday requests" for "approval" . This sounds a bit permie to me and I'm worried if I leave it unchallenged it will be the only available evidence in the event of an IR 35 investigation.

I need to navigate tactfully as I don't want to make myself unpopular......

[malvolio]

Love the idea of an accountant vetting a PCG Standard contract...

If you need to have permsission to take the time off, that is a bad thing for IR35 - that's the D&C element. What you should do is advise your client you will not be working for them on a given set of dates. Of course, being a professional, you will ensure that this does not do any damage to the workload. Or, of course, you could offer to source a subbie if needed to keep things on track.

[Cheshire Cat]

similar issue arose a while back on my contract. there's a few contractors here but HR don't understand the B2B relationship and treat us all as temps.
we were asked to sign various non-disclosure forms and asked to submit holiday "request" forms. After some discussion it was agreed we would simply inform in advance by email the appropriate permie contact when we were planning to be absent. Inform, as a courtesy, not make a request.
Some contractors here include a line such as "if you would like me to invoke my substitution right please let me know in advance, and I will attempt to secure a resource for the date/s" or words to that effect.
The client usually can't be bothered with the hassle of a substitute, so decline, but the important thing is that as a separate business you do NOT get paid holiday and are NOT required to "request" leave.
Common courtesy is good business sense though.

[Cheshire Cat]

...or, what Mal said

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Love the idea of an accountant vetting a PCG Standard contract...

Ifk.

Actually, there was a bit more to it as they sent me an additional set of questions about actual working practices, so maybe it wasn't quite as pointless as I made it sound.

Thanks for the reply.