Staying in the same public sector contract after April 2017

[maxm]

@northernladuk, you are right, the agency does not have a clue and has been avoiding me for the past couple weeks to start conversation regarding this. Which is why I started talking to the client directly and be in control of my own situation.

@RonBW, the new contract will reflect the working practices for a new project, and this will be determined to be outside. However, the current contract is borderline, as there elements of BAU to my current working practices.

[MrMarkyMark]

@northernladuk, you are right, the agency does not have a clue and has been avoiding me for the past couple weeks to start conversation regarding this. Which is why I started talking to the client directly and be in control of my own situation.

@RonBW, the new contract will reflect the working practices for a new project, and this will be determined to be outside. However, the current contract is borderline, as there elements of BAU to my current working practices.

Low hanging fruit, in other words

[maxm]

Low hanging fruit, in other words

That is one way of putting it, but I am not letting anyone make example out of me .

[northernladuk]

@northernladuk, you are right, the agency does not have a clue and has been avoiding me for the past couple weeks to start conversation regarding this. Which is why I started talking to the client directly and be in control of my own situation.

@RonBW, the new contract will reflect the working practices for a new project, and this will be determined to be outside. However, the current contract is borderline, as there elements of BAU to my current working practices.

Oh yeah baby... I got it right.

Maybe you have the right idea but I'm not so sure about the execution. Your contractual relationship is with the agency, not the client. It doesn't really matter what the contract between the client and agent is. It's the one between you and the agent that matters. If the agent had their own fixed contract that they aren't will to alter then nothing will change.

The old contract should have reflected working practices anyway (didn't you get it checked by QDOS?).
We can only guess but what the contract reflects is a bit hypothetical anyway, it's what you do on site that matters. If your are BoS no fancy contract will save you.

[northernladuk]

Low hanging fruit, in other words

I'd be willing to bet a decent amount the first case that fails an inspection will be one where the contract was changed and they think they've sorted without fully understanding. Head in the sand BoS guy trying to polish a turd.

[MrMarkyMark]

That is one way of putting it, but I am not letting anyone make example out of me .

Working practices are a difficult one.

However, I believe that if you are there driving change, i.e. telling / advising the collective client what to do and successfully changing the status quo on a very regular basis, then you should be outside.

D&C on the client, if you like

[MrMarkyMark]

I'd be willing to bet a decent amount the first case that fails an inspection will be one where the contract was changed and they think they've sorted without fully understanding. Head in the sand BoS guy trying to polish a turd.

Lets put it this way, going forward I'm hedging polish with glitter

[RonBW]

I'd be willing to bet a decent amount the first case that fails an inspection will be one where the contract was changed and they think they've sorted without fully understanding. Head in the sand BoS guy trying to polish a turd.

I'd bet that the next case that fails an inspection is one where the contractor tries to go it alone at the start and says something that they later regret.

But again, if the working practices are outside now then having a client decide that they are taking the safety first approach and deciding to apply a blanket "we will treat everyone as inside for tax purposes" isn't going to fail with decent representation.

[Andy Hallett]

Andy, a couple of questions from this if you could please?

Is there a suggestion that they may be forced to put a contract outside IR35 if, say, they're in the middle of nowhere so inside IR35 makes expenses a killer?

Also, has there been any discussion on clients paying expenses now to counteract the determination of inside IR35? A double whammy of Inside IR35 taxation *and* no Inside IR35 lack of expenses makes PS work at any significant distance completely off-putting.

1) No, however I've seen some requests / acceptance that PSEC will need to alter working practices. Hence bend, not flout.

2) where we have had these circumstances we are pricing it up accordingly! Again, surprisingly, we are having the "ok so it's another 25%" chat.

[Andy Hallett]

The strangest discussions I'm having now are between me and my baffled end client, who has been sent this email by my agency asking him to 'make an IR35 determination' on my role despite my leaving at end of March. He is saying 'I don't have a tool, but even if I did what happens if it says inside IR35?' My agency said to me that any determination made would be a moot point as I will be leaving and so there will be no inside IR35 contract with my name on it - and that HMRC will not be informed.

If you are leaving at the end of March some of your payments COULD be in scope. Sounds like your agency is one of the few that gets this.