Results of the public sector consultation is up

[MrMarkyMark]

I'm surprised you are surprised. It was blatantly obvious at my PS gig and many posts has suggested the masses won't know or understand. How come you haven't spotted this before?

Correct, The Mrs did a PS gig a few years ago, the lack of knowledge, with regards to, contracting issues amongst the contractors I met really was quite staggering.

[eek]

I just expected them to finally pay attention when I told them explicitly what they were in for...

Nah. As I've discovered when talking about tax only 2 things matter:-

1) people want to pay as little as possible
2) people won't look at things until its too late i.e. only when they see their pay pocket fall. In this case most people won't know anything unless their agent draws attention to it and most won't. They will just sleep walk into it.

[jamesbrown]

I just expected them to finally pay attention when I told them explicitly what they were in for...

No one likes to entertain the fact that they're about to witness a carcrash, from the driver's seat. Some of them probably made a mental note to look into it. Others probably buried their heads. It's human nature, to some degree. Most contractors are clueless, public sector or otherwise. CUK isn't representative, and a fair fraction of CUKers are clueless The vast majority will only notice this properly in ~June next year when they start to notice that their invoices are short, possibly before for those on short payment terms that are currently in the public sector (because the rules are based on when the "payment" is made (exactly what payment is TBD), and not on when the work was done).

[northernladuk]

Correct, The Mrs did a PS gig a few years ago, the lack of knowledge, with regards to, contracting issues amongst the contractors I met really was quite staggering.

To be fair I've seen exactly the same in the private sector. A tulip contractor is a tulip contractor wherever they are working.

[m0n1k3r]

Banking and large companies are normally weekly.
Smaller companies are normally monthly.

Those are the two generalisations that I've experienced but I guess agencies can sanction weekly if it's a deal-breaker.

I've been direct with a few large companies. They abhor unnecessary work, so it's always been monthly billing and 60-120 days payment terms (not because they always don't want to pay, but because their internal systems and procedures really are that slow, such as not sending notifications to the manager that he/she has an invoice to authorise - and then they log in to the authorisation system once a month or once a quarter and do it in bulk).

[m0n1k3r]

Recently I had been pulling £650 per day. I then hit a slow patch and wanted some revenue coming in before the end of my company year so I went for interviews at £450, even as low as £349.

The same is going to happen when tax goes up for everyone. You'll just have to accept less cash coming in.

To some extent I think rates will go up but not by anywhere near enough. You've got to realise that clients will just be getting exactly they same as the ever did so why would they want to swallow a big uplift? They like contractors because they are easy to recruit (put out an advert and you get 10 good people by late Thursday. For permies it can take ages to find anyone who can walk and chew gum at the same time). They like contractors because they can flex their numbers without hassle. But already firms feel pain from contractor costs. This will just tip the balance towards filling roles with permies

I think there will still be an active contractor market but noticeably less financially attractive.

Not necessarily permies. But unless the government change the tax rules wrt self-employment, there will probably be far more contractors on FTCs than through PSCs.

[m0n1k3r]

That - and EXACTLY that - kind of moronic behaviour is what caused this all in the first place. Idiots like that have jeopardised the Ltd Co. model and trashed our reputation in the process. Out of interest what body was it ? They should be reported to HMRC immediately as an example of how abusers have helped usher in unthought-through legislation. That is utterly deplorable. Both his manager and Procurement should be reprimanded for flagrant abuse of public funds.

They are encouraged by accountants who need more contractor clients. No mentioning about the downsides.

[seeourbee]

One thing that particularly irks me about these so called comprehensive tests is the question about whose equipment you use. Most times out of ten I am handling data that is very sensitive and restricted. If any of that was transferred to a contractors own equipment there's a massive security breach. Anyone ever work the Foreign Office ? You have to turn off your phone and put it in a lead box. I am not kidding. So, so much for that guy who claims he can bypass the tests using his own phone ! But he's still doing the same work ...
I'm at Downing St soon so will be interesting to see what security surrounds that.

[DaveB]

One thing that particularly irks me about these so called comprehensive tests is the question about whose equipment you use. Most times out of ten I am handling data that is very sensitive and restricted. If any of that was transferred to a contractors own equipment there's a massive security breach. Anyone ever work the Foreign Office ? You have to turn off your phone and put it in a lead box. I am not kidding. So, so much for that guy who claims he can bypass the tests using his own phone ! But he's still doing the same work ...
I'm at Downing St soon so will be interesting to see what security surrounds that.

Under the current "rules" using client co. equipment in that scenario is not a pointer to being inside IR35 as it applies universally to anyone doing work on behalf of the client where access to data is needed, regardless of how they are engaged.

[eek]

Under the current "rules" using client co. equipment in that scenario is not a pointer to being inside IR35 as it applies universally to anyone doing work on behalf of the client where access to data is needed, regardless of how they are engaged.

Surely its one of those questions which work:-

Use own equipment - slightly further outside
Use office equipment - no difference...