Right To Substitution

[dty]

Agree about the sub thing. Not yet one client who wouldnt look at me funny if I even suggested the idea.

As an example. Your a java developer with 20 yrs experience. Your mate who is your subbie has the same.

You go to client for 3 months and crack on. Then you tell client your mate will be in tomorrow. Do you think they'll he happy. Hell no - why would they? They're paying for someone to come in fresh again without 3 months knowledge of how they do things.

I don't know. If you'd prepped the work well enough. "Hey, Bob! Just bang out these VOs to match the interface and knock up a couple of DAOs. I'll be back on Thursday." I known plenty of guys who would crack on with that for a couple of days with zero guidance and it shouldn't scare the client too much.

[psychocandy]

Had a good one current gig. During contract negs told the agent, hope contract has got ROS in it.

He said no way will client allow that.

So contract turns up. Its in there. So I speak to agent - he says no its not in there. Yes it is I say in black and white. Never seen that before he says.

Can imagine what would happen if I tried to pull a subbie......

[TheFaQQer]

As an alternative to RoS...
if the project I'm working on ends - lets say 6 weeks before the contract end - and I then stop turning up (regardless of whether there is alternative work on offer or not) even though I've not submitted any notice to terminate, then is that a bullet-proof lack of MoO?

And if so, is that then a bullet proof IR35 defense?

Yes.

[malvolio]

Oh FFS...

It's the Right to send a subbie that's important and relevant: employees cannot possibly have that right. The right has to be reasonably unfettered - i.e. the client will consider it as an option and can only object on the basis of suitable skills - and you need to be in a position to manage a subbie, with VAT and ELI covered.

You don't have to exercise it, and it's not a way for you to send in your oppo because you fancy a few days off.

[TheFaQQer]

Agree about the sub thing. Not yet one client who wouldnt look at me funny if I even suggested the idea.

As an example. Your a java developer with 20 yrs experience. Your mate who is your subbie has the same.

You go to client for 3 months and crack on. Then you tell client your mate will be in tomorrow. Do you think they'll he happy. Hell no - why would they? They're paying for someone to come in fresh again without 3 months knowledge of how they do things.

If you have managed the handover correctly, then I can't see why not.

For example, for some of the work that I've been doing for this client, I could get any Oracle developer who was as good as me to pick up the work and cover for me, and as long as I tell them how to deploy it, there would be no interruption of services supplied to the client.

indeed, since this project is 100% WFH, I could probably get away with doing that and not even telling the client that it wasn't me providing the services.

[tomtomagain]

If you have managed the handover correctly, then I can't see why not.

If you were contracted to do a simple, low skilled job, for example window cleaning. Then substitution is trivial.

If you are doing a high-skilled, complex job in a complex environment then substitution is time-consuming and costly. As anyone who has been involved in "KT" will testify.

But here's the rub. You might have a RoS within a contract. It may or may not stand up in court ...but 99.9% of contractors do not have anyone to substitute. They do not have unassigned resources on a bench, ready to go. ( Thought : Maybe there's a business idea there for unboomed contractors ).

So in reality the whole RoS is a sham.

[Bunk]

To look at this another way:

I've worked at a client which had one of it's websites maintained by a consultancy. The consultancy had the same guy working on it each time. One day, another guy handled the change requests raised. It took longer and there were more bugs so Clientco requested that the other guy handle it from now on, so effectively removing a genuine consultancy's right of substitution. I would also argue that they were under Clientco's direction and control. They were told what to work on and how they wanted it done. Sometimes they were told "Stop what you're working on, we need something else done urgently". Not sure they even had MOO either as they couldn't really say "no, we can't work on that" to Clientco without causing serious problems and potentially costing them the contract.

But they're not caught by IR35 because the guy doing the work was an employee, not the owner of the company.

I'm not sure what my point was but I'm sure I'll think of it in a while

[northernladuk]

Had a good one current gig. During contract negs told the agent, hope contract has got ROS in it.

He said no way will client allow that.

So contract turns up. Its in there. So I speak to agent - he says no its not in there. Yes it is I say in black and white. Never seen that before he says.

Can imagine what would happen if I tried to pull a subbie......

So you prove to him it's in there and have him remove it because it doesn't match the working practices?