Have been offered an NHS role but offered an extension in current private sector role

[centurian]

Yes, until a gaggle of people take the issue to court and companies have to stop putting it in the contract.

Well firstly we are assuming that those clauses are not legal in the first place - and I do not believe that to be the case. Clauses to inspect supplier's accounts are not completely unheard of in a B2B arrangment.

But let's just assume for one moment that an inspection/assurance clause might not be legal. Can you see a slew of contractors queuing at the doors of courts, ready to slap down 10K as a bet to what would be, at absolute best, a 50/50 shot to get a clause removed.

And even if you were successful, the cancellation clause would still be legal. They could still issue notice the following day - or even if you had scared them sufficiently with your court action - simply not offer you a renewal.


Maybe I'm completely wrong about this, but unless you can show some actual case law supporting your point, rather than how you feel the law should operate, you're barking up the wrong tree here.

[eek]

Maybe I'm completely wrong about this, but unless you can show some actual case law supporting your point, rather than how you feel the law should operate, you're barking up the wrong tree here.

+1. You have a ****ly written Government policy and risk adverse (slight understatement) and vindictive public sector management. The only thing that will happen is they will ask for confirmation of IR35 compliance and either accept it or bin you.

To be honest I reckon many places will simply bin all contractors after 6 months regardless of their status. that's the easiest way to comply with the rules. Especially as those who will care about meeting this objective (top level management) won't care about the consequences of it.

Why can I see the larger consultancies doing well out of this change?

[d000hg]

Maybe they'll start letting sole traders in and avoid the whole sorry mess. How does that stack up take-home-wise compared to IR35-caught?

[Sausage Surprise]

For those interested I binned the NHS gig. The agent was mighty miffed when I explained why, but he must have come up against this already as he started giving me some guff about how you could make yourself definitely outside IR35

[BoredBloke]

To be honest, there could be a silver lining in this. Up to now agents and the client have not been interested in IR35 because there was no downside to them - if a contractor is caught the financial penalty falls on them and only them. Now there is. While the financial fall out will still hit the contractor, if the chances of that happening are increased, then its going to be harder to place contractors. Agencies who deal with the public sector will see a drop in income as their source of contractors dries up. So it will be in their interests to ensure that the contractors they place are outside IR35. From the clients perspective they are not going to want to have to change and rerecruit conctractors every 26 weeks, so again they will be more open to contracts that ensure that contractors are outside IR35. The status quo isn't an option. Only a small silver lining!!

[centurian]

To be honest, there could be a silver lining in this.

You could have a point there. Another silver lining is that if you are able to convince ClientCo that IR35 shouldn't apply to you, it might give you an extra shield against any IR35 investigation. It wouldn't be a silver bullet - it may be easier to convince a procurement/finance bod at ClientCo than an HMRC status inspector. But it is quite a defence to point out that the ClientCo is applying the rules that their boss at the Treasury told them to do.