IR35 Contract Negotiations

[thunderlizard]

You insist on calling them 'employment businesses' rather than agencies, but you also insist that what they provide you is not 'employment'. I can understand why they're confused.

[Denny]

You insist on calling them 'employment businesses' rather than agencies, but you also insist that what they provide you is not 'employment'. I can understand why they're confused.

Actually, EB is the correct legal term for them - that's why I use this term. Look at your contract: on it says 'we're acting in the capacity of an employment business.'

By drumming into your heads the EB term, it also reminds contractors of the absurdity of the recruitment model concerning contractors and that this is precisely what they should not be called for the very reasons you state above. They don't employ us and they don't deduct our NI and PAYE.

But if you call them agencies, you're hoodwinking others less experienced on here (and much too optimistic, leading to a psychology of dependency on them) and probably yourself too that they are there to work on your behalf to get you work (like a real agency does). Yet they do neither of those things - they don't work on contractors behalf, and they don't find contractors work. All they do is find and introduce contractors to their clients and negotiate the fee and the contractors themselves sell themselves into the role during interview. As a contractor it's my CV (marketing brochure), my experience, my skills, my time, my interview skills that the client is sold on that ultimately lands me the gig - not something the EB has done for me. So why give them the credit for something they don't deserve by calling them agencies?

EBs dealing with contractors with limited companies should really be called Self Employment businesses, not employment businesses.

[tim123]

..oh no, you will have to work on site full time, 5 days per week, be under client control with no rights of substitution ........ yawn!

Maybe what you do is different, but for what I do, this is driven by the client. If you aren't a, more or less, 5 day a week BOS they are not interested in taking you. Many of my potential clients won't even let (new) contractors do 4 * 10 hour days.

So if you're an EB and you aren't offering a 5 day a week BOS, clients will get their 5 day a week BOS from somewhere else. That somewhere else is likely to be a Software House.

This is a competitive business. The agent(cy) is interested in what is easiest for them. If they have hundreds of clients, all looking for a BOS contractor, and thousands of contractors, prepared to be BOS contractors (however reluctantly), they aren't going to spend much time/effort trying to find a placement for a B2B consultant. This isn't their business model and if this is what you want, you have to engage someone, and pay them, specifically to do this.

YMMV

tim

[ratewhore]

As a contractor it's my CV (marketing brochure), my experience, my skills, my time, my interview skills that the client is sold on that ultimately lands me the gig

Try and remain consistent Denny. Last time you were banging on about your 'model' you said you didn't go to 'interviews', you had 'business negotiations', or some such nonsense. Plus it wasn't 'you', it was 'your company' you were negotiating on behalf of...

[Denny]

Try and remain consistent Denny. Last time you were banging on about your 'model' you said you didn't go to 'interviews', you had 'business negotiations', or some such nonsense. Plus it wasn't 'you', it was 'your company' you were negotiating on behalf of...

Absolutely true, but I hark back the days when I was like you - a bums on seat pseudo temp with a 'boss' breathing down my neck 8 hours day.

I was trying to show a bit of emphathy, that's all.

[Mordac]

Harsh Denny, harsh...

[thunderlizard]

acting in the capacity of an employment business

My contract says no such thing. I know because I wrote it.

You are right Denny in that it's an odd situation - an IT agency usually gets paid by the buyer not the seller, and I can't think of any other industries where that happens. I agree that you mustn't think they're working on the contractor's behalf when the customer's paying them. Fundamentally they're working for their own good of course.

Kind of sympathise with tim123 too. Wow I'm in a rather conciliatory mood today!

I'm still going to avoid the term 'employment business' because it comes from a law that does a lot of good for vulnerable workers (who tend to go more for office cleaning and fruit picking than business apps implementations) and has zilch relevance to us specialist suppliers. There are lots of other terms I prefer, but the swear-blocker would strike most of them off the board.