Contractor Rate Benchmarking

[ContractorMonkey]

My city company is asking all the contractors in the building to
declare their take home rate to the boss. They want to work out
what percentage the agencies are taking and try to save some money
by battering them all down to the lowest percentage they can.
Are they legally allowed to do this?
When/if they batter the agency into submission and get an across
the board 10% and reduce their costs greatly, I'll be scuppered
when trying to squeeze more money out of the agency myself.
Worse than that, the agency might try to pass on the reduction
by reducing my rate.

[darmstadt]

Does your contract state that you are allowed to discuss your rate with anyone else? Quite a few contracts have a clause disallowing this (probably for the very same reason you have asked!)

[BolshieBastard]

My city company is asking all the contractors in the building to
declare their take home rate to the boss. They want to work out
what percentage the agencies are taking and try to save some money
by battering them all down to the lowest percentage they can.
Are they legally allowed to do this?
When/if they batter the agency into submission and get an across
the board 10% and reduce their costs greatly, I'll be scuppered
when trying to squeeze more money out of the agency myself.
Worse than that, the agency might try to pass on the reduction
by reducing my rate.

Surely if they want to know this they should ask the agency first for the figures? After all, that's their business arrangement.

I dont think legal comes into it. They can ask but you dont have to tell them. You could respond if you wish by saying your day rate is circa £xxx.

I'd be wary as I suspect all that will happen is the agent will implement a rate cut if the client cuts their take.

[JonSmile]

up it by 10 % just to confuse them

Or just ask the nice ap girl to show you the invoice (or look on the accounts at the vendor details) - easy to see what pimp is charging and easy to work out how much you are getting screwed - make your rate higher so there is less for company to slash and it means you are in a better position to get a rate rise next time as you know the % up lift.

[TheFaQQer]

My city company is asking all the contractors in the building to declare their take home rate to the boss.

They can ask all they like.

Are they legally allowed to do this?

They can ask all they like - it's perfectly legal to ask the question. They can't make you tell them, though.

When/if they batter the agency into submission and get an across the board 10% and reduce their costs greatly, I'll be scuppered
when trying to squeeze more money out of the agency myself. Worse than that, the agency might try to pass on the reduction by reducing my rate.

No "might" about it - the agency will try to pass on any cut to you. Then you have the fun of trying to justify why you shouldn't have a rate cut...

Personally, if the request is in an email, I'd bury it amongst other emails and ignore it. Keep ignoring it as long as you can, and hope they forget about getting a figure from you. If the request is verbal, or they keep insisting that you tell them something, I would tell them (politely) that you have a non-disclosure clause in your contract which prevents you from revealing the details of the contract between your company and the agency to a third party.

Never discuss your take home rate with anyone on client site. That way leads to problems and unhappiness.

[blacksheep]

I think the City Company is behaving in a strange manner. If they push it, I can see it p***ing off all the agencies and contractors concerned.

if the company wanted to go direct with contractors... they could have done at the outset, then they would have direct knowledge and control of exactly what rates each individual contractor was being paid.

IMHO the company should have thought "is hiring ContractorMonkey via agency XXX for £XXX/day" a better option that hiring someone else via a different agency for <different rate>

If they want to mess around with the small print after the event, I don't see them deserving much help.

I'd ignore the request as far as possible.

good luck!

[DMGee]

I was 'lucky' enough to know my agency's charge rate from the off... quite low really in 'only' scalping off about £3.50 an hour.

Not bad for them really as all they do is process payment. The client / place I work is my old company who I was perm with before going away travelling for a couple of years.

Got back, spoke to old colleague who has now taken up my old boss' role, he asked me to come back, through the agency and I started the following week - all the agency did is provide me with my contract, a week after starting!

Money for old rope, robbing SO and SOs.

[Hex]

Got back, spoke to old colleague who has now taken up my old boss' role, he asked me to come back, through the agency and I started the following week - all the agency did is provide me with my contract, a week after starting!

Money for old rope, robbing SO and SOs.

Perhaps - but they still have Administative overheads and possibly Factoring costs. Factoring isn't cheap.