Trading on a PO basis without formal contract?

[Wanderer]

I set my own hours, and complete work away from the client's office. I am working from high level deliverables and have complete freedom to deliver these as I consider appropriate (indeed, the ability to deliver without being babysat and micromanaged is why they want me)

on the substitution, I asked (just as a courtesy) whether they were happy with me getting a cisco guy I know to do some of the network design... and I quote "I want on time, on budget and works. I don't care if you use an army of flying monkeys..." I have subbied a couple of small bits of work so far, and expect to do some more by the end of this. My company pays this, there's no pass through to the client for subbied work.

You are definitely on the right track here. Subcontracting work isn't a silver bullet to IR35 but it's a pretty strong pointer and it sounds like the client understands that you are now running a consultancy business rather than working for them as a permie. I can't t think why HMRC would be that bothered with people doing short contracts. It's the permietractors who spend 5 years at the same client taking > £100k/year that are the big earners for them. Someone who does 3 or 6 months and subcontracts work isn't going to be an easy win for HMRC so hopefully they will pick their battles and look elsewhere.

Look at the test cases so far - weren't they all long term contracts, years not months.