Contractor asked to do more hours than permies

[WordIsBond]

Inside IR35 contract.

Who said so? Is this public sector and the client has made the determination? If so, I'd not necessarily agree with some of the above comments. If they have said that you are to be treated like an employee for taxation but they aren't going to treat you like an employee by requiring you to work more hours, I'd say that is a very interesting and problematic position for them to take, and is the kind of thing that sometimes get tested in court.

Contractor told that contractors are asked to work 40 hours per week, and permanent staff work 37.

Was this in the contract / were you told this before you started, or is it a change?

[psychocandy]

Inside IR35 contract.
Contractor told that contractors are asked to work 40 hours per week, and permanent staff work 37.
No written policy on this as far as is known so far.
Thoughts?

What does your contract say? If anything?

Personally, if I got to a gig and its PWD then I'd expect both parties to agree to "normal" hours amongst themselves.

i.e. if it all goes tits up I'll stay late and fix but then don't moan if I leave early one day. Average about 37-40 hours per week and I'm happy.

BUT, if a client start dictating hours then warning bells start ringing for me. Especially if client seems to think they need to squeeze a bit more out of the contractor. This NEVER ends well.

[WordIsBond]

Hourly or PWD?

What does the thread say, if anything?

edit: Oh, nice edit, well done, but I preserved for posterity your dumb question.

[SimonMac]

Raise this with your union rep at ClientCo, it's completely unfair that two employees are treated differently

[Batcher]

What does your contract say? If anything?

Personally, if I got to a gig and its PWD then I'd expect both parties to agree to "normal" hours amongst themselves.

i.e. if it all goes tits up I'll stay late and fix but then don't moan if I leave early one day. Average about 37-40 hours per week and I'm happy.

BUT, if a client start dictating hours then warning bells start ringing for me. Especially if client seems to think they need to squeeze a bit more out of the contractor. This NEVER ends well.

Hourly rates were great because it cost the client more if they wanted you to work on.

Once they twigged and started with the day rates, it was up to us to negotiate a reasonable PWD.

I've had a client who argued that a PWD was 12 hours

Normally, 8 hours on site is usual for me but the agreement is anything up to 4 hours worked is half a day and anything over is a full day.

I try and be flexible so if they need something done in the evening I will have a break for something to eat and log back in. This leads to a bit of flexibility on their part and they will pay a full day but let me leave early to travel back home for instance. I will then log back in when I get home just to deal with any emails/issues that might have cropped up.

This leads to a good working relationship and extensions.

If you stick to a set number of hours per day and are inflexible, you won't get extensions. I've seen that happen to a few contractors.

[zonkkk]

Inside IR35 contract.
Contractor told that contractors are asked to work 40 hours per week, and permanent staff work 37.
No written policy on this as far as is known so far.
Thoughts?

What does your contract with the agency say? I suspect 40h... then you 'have' to do 40h.

On the other hand, it is counter-productive on the client's part... one could just 'sit' in the office for an extra 3 hours just to make them happy...

[JRCT]

Raise this with your union rep at ClientCo, it's completely unfair that two employees are treated differently

Funnily enough, in my last perm role about 7-8 years ago, I was working for a company that was owned by 2 different companies 50/50. They didn't 'employ' anyone directly and all staff were actually on a contract with one or other of the 2 shareholder companies.

It just so happened that one of them had a standard 35 hours a week and the other was a standard 40 hours a week. I was on the former and I did always feel guilty (not) leaving at 5 when my colleagues had to stay until 5.30.

That caused a bit of ill feeling, but not as much as the fact I also got a company car allowance and they didn't. I hope they got an extra few £k to compensate, but of course money is never talked about and so there was never any way of knowing and the ill feeling just boiled over at times.

[hamsterfreelancer]

Trying to reply but my posts need to be moderated!
Public sector contract and firmly inside IR35 (they say).
Contract says '8 hour day'. Colleague next to me says full-time is 37 hours.

[hamsterfreelancer]

Contract doesn't have any further references to working hours and was only told of the distinction (in a roundabout way) on Day 1.

[56samba]

Contract says '8 hour day'. Colleague next to me says full-time is 37 hours.

Looks like your 'Colleague' is better at negotiating contracts than you.