Training a new employee

[dang65]

This is a hypothetical question, at the moment, but I was wondering how one might stand legally if one hired an employee and then simply sent them on training courses without them ever doing any work.

For example: My partner hasn't worked for a few years due to having far too many children. She's now looking at getting back to work but wants to do a couple of courses to get back up to standard and catch up with all the changes since she last used stuff like spreadsheets and word processors.

Could I employ her, send her on a load of courses using company money, then sack her?

Hypothetically.

[TCL]

Yep

[PM-Junkie]

My partner hasn't worked for a few years due to having far too many children....

Seems to me that she works fine then

Sorry, couldn't resist

[Turion]

You will need to put her on your payroll. Think you can pay someone about 6K to stay below the tax/NI limit and this counts towards the state pension. What you actually give her (if anything) is up to you, so that £6k is a nice tax free wedge you can keep to yourself.

[dang65]

Thanks for the responses. Sounds like a plan then.

[Epiphone]

My partner hasn't worked for a few years due to having far too many children.

I don't think you can train it out of 'wizard's sleeve' proportions.

[Alan @ BroomeAffinity]

You'd need to justify to HMRC that the training is wholly and neccesarily for the benefit of the company. How would you do that?

[original PM]

you may also have to pay her minimum wage for the hours spent on the courses - not sure you can employ someone and when they are away on training courses not pay them.

[ratewhore]

On the other hand, you could treat her like a piece of tulip, give her a bit of sexual harrassment then sack her for being a woman.

Then she can take you to a tribunal, win, your insurance pays out squillions - BOOMED!!!

[dang65]

You'd need to justify to HMRC that the training is wholly and neccesarily for the benefit of the company. How would you do that?

Yes, that was the point of the original question. i.e. Would this be legal?

But I don't see why I would have to show that the training "is wholly and neccesarily for the benefit of the company". Do companies normally have to do that?

I got sent on all sorts of courses when I was a permie, only a handful of which appeared to be for the benefit of anyone other than the bank account of the company providing the training.

Anyway, it would only be the usual MS Office sort of stuff - she's not training as a deep sea diver or anything - so it would be quite plausable I would think.