Disguised employees v contractors

[MyUserName]

How many contractors are actually not disguised employees?

I worked at BNPP and we had many contractors in the team but none of them did anything functionally different to the permies. Therefore I would have thought they were all disguised employees. All of the work processes followed was the same etc but the ones I chatted to generally considered themselves to be outside it (the contract I had was - but that was only the contract).

Where I work now there are other engineers in the team with similar skills to mine. I specialise in a certain aspect of the product which others do not generally work on but that is it. I have various clauses in my contract that permies do not (MOO, sub etc) but I have never exercised them. If you walked in and looked around you would not know who was a contractor and who was perm.

The department manager allocates tasks out and I complete mine and check the code in, he reviews all code changes before it goes to the customer and will request changes if he does not agree with the implementation - this is the same with the permies. I do not know how similar my contract is to a perm one as I have never seen a perm one.

I have only been here almost 6 months so far but I am considering renewing soon and am thinking of changing my IR35 status.

Am I just being paranoid in thinking I am within IR35?
Does anyone else have this kind of work environment, if so how do you see yourself with regards to IR35?

[SarahL2012]

How many contractors are actually not disguised employees?

Bit of a mix where I am. Majority are 'true' contractors engaged to develop discrete pieces of work, but there are 3-4 who I actually thought were employees. They've all been on site for years, get direction from the client and and get upset when they're not invited to team meetings!

Personally I only accept pieces of work where I am definitely outside IR35. I did have one that I thought was borderline a while back (covering maternity leave), but got a letter of comfort as to working practices etc from the client on that one.

[MyUserName]

Hmmm, I attend a team meeting once a fortnight and have done various bits of work on 'the project' but that is what my contract states I am to work on.

I have never done anything else so I guess IR35 is not going to flare up on that one. I am still a little worried that there are permies working on the 'the project' too and they seem to be doing pretty much the same day to day things I am.

[kingcook]

How many contractors are actually not disguised employees?

<snip>

The department manager allocates tasks out and I complete mine and check the code in, he reviews all code changes before it goes to the customer and will request changes if he does not agree with the implementation - this is the same with the permies. I do not know how similar my contract is to a perm one as I have never seen a perm one.

I have only been here almost 6 months so far but I am considering renewing soon and am thinking of changing my IR35 status.

Am I just being paranoid in thinking I am within IR35?
Does anyone else have this kind of work environment, if so how do you see yourself with regards to IR35?

A manager dishing out tasks may or may not be good, depends if you're working on a specific project. The fact that (s)he is reviewing all of your code and requesting you change bits is definitely not good in my eyes.

I'm currently working (as a developer) on a specific project. No one checks over my code or requests that i change anything. If they did i would say no. However, I do get told what i want the code to do at high level (e.g. we need X file reading and converting in Y format). This is not D&C in my opinion. It is the customer telling me what they need - not how to carry out the job.

[MyUserName]

A manager dishing out tasks may or may not be good, depends if you're working on a specific project.

Yeah, I am working on a specific project for a specific customer for whom he is the contact. They request stuff and it comes to him, he them juggles the various tasks and allocates them. I think that this would be okay, as you described, it is just the client saying what they need done.

The fact that (s)he is reviewing all of your code and requesting you change bits is definitely not good in my eyes.

Agreed. I am not sure it would work otherwise. It is a legacy product which he has worked on for decades therefore there are tricks and sneak attacks in the code which are not obvious to a new team member, regardless of how clever they are. He has requested two changes since I started, once was due to an unwritten requirement and once was due to there being a function which could already do what I had written code to do.

However, I am not sure whether HMRC will actually understand this or care if they did understand.

[MyUserName]

I'm currently working (as a developer) on a specific project. No one checks over my code or requests that i change anything. If they did i would say no. However, I do get told what i want the code to do at high level (e.g. we need X file reading and converting in Y format). This is not D&C in my opinion. It is the customer telling me what they need - not how to carry out the job.

Are there other developers on your team or other teams? If so, do you work, day to day, any differently to them (not including skill level etc)?

[kingcook]

Are there other developers on your team or other teams? If so, do you work, day to day, any differently to them (not including skill level etc)?

There are permie developers who code in the same language, but (having see their code) they aren't that good at it!! But they are working on other project(s) for their employer/my client.

I'm the only developer on this project (there were a couple more who have moved on). The client hired a bunch of contractors to work on said project (not just developers, they hired a project manager, a business analyst, risk manager, etc).

So, day to day, i do work the same as them, by that i mean i sit in a chair working on the same looking computers as them, using the same programming language, connected to the same server and database. It differs because i work on a specific project listed on my contract. They get moved around onto different projects as their employer sees fit.

[MyUserName]

Hmmm, not sure I could play that card here

I have not ever transfered to another project but neither have any of the permies in my team. I do not know about other team's permies as I have never asked.

However, only one contractor I have ever met has been someone who I thought was truely a contractor and not a disguised permie so I am guessing that my criteria is skewed and I am being too harsh.

[Jeebo72]

How many contractors are actually not disguised employees?

I worked at BNPP

Me too, and they are 99.99% diisguised permies. So I got out.

[MyUserName]

Me too, and they are 99.99% diisguised permies. So I got out.

That is not what I was hoping to hear but it is helpful, thanks.

It is looking more and more like I am inside IR35 - argh!!!!