Opt in or out

[Boo]

I need to agree a contract (in principle) with the agent before he negotiates on my behalf with the client.

This is completely invented : it is almost never the case that agencies agree contract terms before putting a contractor forward to the client. In fact, if you explain to them that your rate requirement depends upon the other terms of the contract then that is the quickest way of persuading them to either put you forward at a negotiable rate, or else to drop you entirely.

In any case the issue here is at what point in time does the opt in/out status have to be defined, and there is nothing in your remark which suggests a reason why it should be before interview time, when no other contract term need be defined by that time.

The regulations specifically govern the arrangement between the agency and contractor and will need to be in place before the agent goes to the client.

The regulations govern the relation between the temp, whether a contractor or an individual and the agency. If you support the proposition that the contract between contractor and the agency needs to be in place before interview, then you need a reason for your assertion the equivalent contract does not need to be in place at the time an individual is interviewed.

If you had troubled to read the thread then you would have known that was the issue on which Malvio's decreasingly relevant remarks have led him to rely. Of course the obvious interpretation of "introduction or supply" does not really rely on a thesaurus for comprehension.

It's pointless the regulations kicking in when you've completed a multi-layered set of contracts then suddenly have to work out whether you're opted in or not with all the massive implications the regulations have for the governance of the contract.

Hahahaha ! You are a finger puppet for Malvolio and I claim my £5

The opted in/out status wrt the regs has no implications whatsoever for the client, so why is interview with the client relevant to the time the contract terms must be agreed between contractor and agency ?

I know I'm right. I know the other posters above are right.

Well, please remind me to have you at my side when I have to explain to a judge why your preposterous interpretation of the regs is right : "Craig knows he's right and he knows everyone who agrees with him is right too, m'lud." That should do the trick nicely. You'd have put the whole of the rest of the legal profession of a business if you'd carried on in the field

That all said, I'm not a lawyer and am very proud of that fact

Did you get a good enough degree to become a lawyer ?

Boo

[malvolio]

OK, let's ask someone more informed and who has sought legal opinion. From the Guide the Agency Regulations:

Q I understand that I must opt out before “introduction” to the client. What
constitutes an introduction?

A PCG believes that the term “introduction” means before the client has received
your curriculum vitae. If the client decides to interview you without seeing your CV,
then the interview itself would probably count as the “introduction”. If you do not
even attend an interview, perhaps because you have done work for the client
before, then actually starting work would become the last cut-off point by which
you would be allowed to opt out

Now will you please shut up and go away.

[Boo]

OK, let's ask someone more informed and who has sought legal opinion. From the Guide to the Agency Regulations:

"A. PCG believes that the term “introduction” means before the client has received your curriculum vitae. "

1. The PCG have made a preposterous "mistake" in negotiating the opt out clause form the regs.
   
2. The PCG say that the situation can be mitigated because the opt out does not apply if is is received by the agency after interview.
   
3. You say that the PCG's interpretation of the words "introduction or supply" is correct.
   
4. You produce in lieu of reasoned argument a snippet from a PCG publication.

You are an official 5-straw bumpkin, Malvolio. And the fact that you have repeatedly declined to give any possible reason that the regs should discriminate between contractors and individuals in terms of the time at which the opt in/out should be decided shows that you don't have one.

Now will you please shut up and go away.

It seems to me that the person who is putting forward reasoned arguments in defence of their position should not be the one who should "shut up and go away". Much rather the person arguing by reference to "authority" in terms of failed lawyers, conversations with BERR officials which never took place and that last refuge of the charlatan : PCG official opinion.

Have a nice one,

Boo

[malvolio]

1. The PCG have made a preposterous "mistake" in negotiating the opt out clause form the regs.
   
2. The PCG say that the situation can be mitigated because the opt out does not apply if is is received by the agency after interview.
   
3. You say that the PCG's interpretation of the words "introduction or supply" is correct.
   
4. You produce in lieu of reasoned argument a snippet from a PCG publication.

You are an official 5-straw bumpkin, Malvolio. And the fact that you have repeatedly declined to give any possible reason that the regs should discriminate between contractors and individuals in terms of the time at which the opt in/out should be decided shows that you don't have one.



It seems to me that the person who is putting forward reasoned arguments in defence of their position should not be the one who should "shut up and go away". Much rather the person arguing by reference to "authority" in terms of failed lawyers, conversations with BERR officials which never took place and that last refuge of the charlatan : PCG official opinion.

Have a nice one,

Boo

Well if you want history lesson from someone who participated in the whole negotiation and does actually understand what they're talking about...

The regs are aimed at protecting genuine agency temps, not freelance contractors. They did not specifically exclude freelance workers and it was felt, with some justification, that a set of regs intended to ensure agency temps get proper employment protections from with their agency or the end client might well work against the best interests of genuine freelancers, who neither want nor need such protections.

It also had the potential to inhibit people who wanted to grow their businesses, mostly by virtue of the enforced limits on payment terms and handcuff clauses that would be a real problem to someone starting out and aiming to reinvest and grow.

The regs were not going to be rewritten so as to exclude freelancers, since there is not (yet) a clear legal definition of what one is. It was also thought that that would leave too much room for unscrupulous agencies to get out of providing the proper protection for more vulnerable workers such as farm labourers, cockle pickers and the rest.

Hence the opt out was negotiated. It is not a mistake, provided you have the wit to understand what it means and how it should be invoked.

The PCG publication is pretty much a definitive guide to the regs and was written with legal advice and in consultation with DBERR and other informed, qualified sources. You can believe what it says, it's not the rantings of a disembodied voice on these fora (and that's not me, I've been here too long). And frankly you need to get outside your cosy little corner and look at the whole 4.1 million freelance worker world before you start accusing people of being bumpkins.

But you aren't going to listen so frankly WGAS

[Boo]

Well if you want history lesson from someone who participated in the whole negotiation and does actually understand what they're talking about...

No, Malvolio, I do not want an irrelevant history lesson from one of the clowns who sold out the contractors to the agencies interests.

I want you to explain the answer to the question which you have been set and not to continue wriggling in your vain attempts to escape. The question you repeatedly refuse to entertain was :

Why would the regs discriminate between contractors and individuals in terms of the time at which the opt in/out should be decided ?

Your failure to provide any shard of an excuse for this belief destroys your argument that the regs can bear your interpretation.
Someone, somewhere, sometime will believe the PCG's preposterous self-serving fiction and will end up in court parroting the PCG's official line. Their fate will be to be laughed out of court. It is completely irresponsible for you to continue spouting your nonsense when you know yourself that you have no answer to the unanswerable.

...snip more fatuous guff...

Hence the opt out was negotiated. It is not a mistake, provided you have the wit to understand what it means and how it should be invoked.

The opt out boils down more or less precisely to this :

1. Independent contractors may fulfil certain of the obligations wrt checking the bona fides of their staff themselves, instead of the agency doing it.
   
2. Agencies may refuse to pay ICs if the client doesn't pay them.

No. 2 above is the most massive own goal in the history of contracting and amounts to the sell out of contractors' interests to the agencies to which I referred above. It is a continual source of embarrassment to the PCG and hence their concerted wriggling, obfuscation and deception regarding the opt out conditions.

The PCG publication is pretty much a definitive guide to the regs and was written with legal advice and in consultation with DBERR and other informed, qualified sources.

The PCG document was written by the same people who betrayed their membership and sold them out to the agencies interests. It has all the credibility and standing of the Papiermark in 1924 - it is definitively paper, but entirely devoid of value.

You have been invited about 6 times in this thread to provide any justification at all for your standpoint. You repeatedly refuse to do so, instead repeating over and over the disengenuous refrain that the BERR co-wrote the PCG advisory when it was actually written by the same fools who engendered the catastrophically awful decision to sign away their members rights.

Why do you think your opinion is worth anything when you are unable to defend it except by mis-abscribing the authorship of the document which inspired it ? If your opinion as to its truth was worth anything you would be able to say why it is true.

So I repeat the quesion :

Why would the regs discriminate between contractors and individuals in terms of the time at which the opt in/out should be decided ?

Answer me now, or your increasingly frantic and irrelevant bletherings will be shown up for the self-serving pap that they are.

Answer, I say.

Boo

[SueEllen]

So I repeat the quesion :

Why would the regs discriminate between contractors and individuals in terms of the time at which the opt in/out should be decided ?

For anyone to answer your question Denny you need to define:
1. What's the difference between a contractor and an individual?
2. The difference between an temp, contractor and freelancer

[Boo]

For anyone to answer your question Denny you need to define:

Nope. What Denny/Malvolvio needs to do is answer the question or stfu :

Why would the regs discriminate between contractors and individuals in terms of the time at which the opt in/out should be decided ?


Boo

[malvolio]

Nope. What Denny/Malvolvio needs to do is answer the question or stfu :

Why would the regs discriminate between contractors and individuals in terms of the time at which the opt in/out should be decided ?


Boo

I've answered that once, in some detail. It depends who you work for and who the contract is between. I'm not going through it again.

And the name is Malvolio. I know you're not Denny, but nor am I.