Staying in the same public sector contract after April 2017

[bobspud]

Roles at consultancies, not owned by public funds, on deliverable based contracts should be outside of scope.

And this is where it gets really bloody messy. None of the big SI's are currently owned by public money. ALL of their contracts are ultimately outcome driven. But nearly all of them provide bums on seat contractors that are free to sit there for months doing nothing.

[eek]

But how do you define deliverable based contracts. This is a support contract with defined SLA so its a grey area methinks.

Actually that may be a better question to ask on IPSE

[jamesbrown]

The exemptions are for, and I quote:

• workers who only provide their services to private sector organisations
• fully contracted - out services delivered in the public sector

Consultancies that operate in a similar way to agencies and supply workers to public sector authorities are treated like agencies, i.e. within scope. In other words, the consultancy must fully deliver a service. This could be a support contract, but if the consultancy provides bodies that assist in delivering a service that is managed by the PS, that's inside. One obvious hallmark would be whether other consultancies and agencies are also providing bodies to deliver the same/similar services, but the only way to be completely certain, as the date approaches, is to ask the client for a definitive answer.

[bobspud]

Yep. Consultancies providing bodies to FOI agencies: those bodies are emphatically subject to the new rules, for which examples are provided. Consultancies fully delivering a public function and then recruiting contractors to deliver parts of that function (not at the PS client or taking instructions from the PS client): almost certainly not subject to the new rules (again, this was stated in the response to the consultation). Everything in between: anyone's guess, but I can guess where the balance will be!

And here is the crux of the problem. That latter example about "go do this and come back with the result", is complete and utter rubbish. If that is how HMRC buy services then I can see why they have had some of their problems in the past but in my world and most others here too: Government departments assign a product owner and they have the job to keep the delivery pretty hard on track in terms of features and budget. (* Some of them are less than useless in this role but it does work)

Even without a tech product owner the contract will have direction and controls in place. There will never be an excuse for a government department to say: "I no have a first clue what you going to do... so just do it and I pay you si?...."

[jamesbrown]

And here is the crux of the problem. That latter example about "go do this and come back with the result", is complete and utter rubbish. If that is how HMRC buy services then I can see why they have had some of their problems in the past but in my world and most others here too: Government departments assign a product owner and they have the job to keep the delivery pretty hard on track in terms of features and budget. (* Some of them are less than useless in this role but it does work)

Even without a tech product owner the contract will have direction and controls in place. There will never be an excuse for a government department to say: "I no have a first clue what you going to do... so just do it and I pay you si?...."

Indeed, although this test on fully delivering a public function won't be down in the weeds w/r to pointers on IR35; that comes afterwards. It will be an administrative test of some nature, related to end-to-end delivery of a function, rather than people, and the associated budgeting.

[LondonManc]

I think that people are muddying the water with talking about consultancies and then the contractor. The easiest way is to determine this is to consider the contractor's relationship with the client from what I've read.

Safest way of working for a consultancy that deals with PS is to never go on to a PS site. That way, your customer is other consultancy people. Similarly, if anyone else on the PS site is doing the same role as you through a different conduit (e.g. via Venn Group or other public sector agency) then you're inside.

The grey areas would need a cast iron responsibility email from someone at agent/consultancy for me to touch them.

Either that or I'll happily be inside for an extra £200 per day plus expenses.

[Andy Hallett]

It is up to the Public Sector body to confirm whether IR35 deductions should be applied, if they don't after 31 days of an engagement starting, I believe it's their risk.

I assume therefore they should be looking at all of their consultancy and agency contractors accordingly.

[eek]

I think that people are muddying the water with talking about consultancies and then the contractor. The easiest way is to determine this is to consider the contractor's relationship with the client from what I've read.

Safest way of working for a consultancy that deals with PS is to never go on to a PS site. That way, your customer is other consultancy people. Similarly, if anyone else on the PS site is doing the same role as you through a different conduit (e.g. via Venn Group or other public sector agency) then you're inside.

The grey areas would need a cast iron responsibility email from someone at agent/consultancy for me to touch them.

Either that or I'll happily be inside for an extra £200 per day plus expenses.

I think it's more one poster trying to justify to himself that he is safe when he clearly isn't and to be blunt has posted tons of evidence on here that screams he is inside at the moment regardless of april.

[LondonManc]

I think it's more one poster trying to justify to himself that he is safe when he clearly isn't and to be blunt has posted tons of evidence on here that screams he is inside at the moment regardless of april.

The PC gambit is used by many - they simply believe the agent that the gig is outside IR35 (if they ask at all), don't have it checked and are oblivious to the actually rules. The difference is that the vast majority are happily oblivious to their situation so don't care. They'll only care when they get an inside IR35 extension and suddenly see the amount put in their company account reduce significantly in May.

[perplexed]

The PC gambit is used by many - they simply believe the agent that the gig is outside IR35 (if they ask at all), don't have it checked and are oblivious to the actually rules. The difference is that the vast majority are happily oblivious to their situation so don't care. They'll only care when they get an inside IR35 extension and suddenly see the amount put in their company account reduce significantly in May.

I quite like the agent who told me a PS gig would be outside IR35 because they didn't have the permies to do the work due to the massive workload there, therefore they'd determined it was a contract role and thus outside IR35.