Will Hector come after Public Sector Contractors

[SueEllen]

What would you define as specialist roles - a technical specialist, a subject matter expert, someone with niche skills, etc.?

I like your line of thinking on this, just wondering what a good definition would be?

It's already been stated:

If a department hires a contractor for:

A clear project or programme
That requires a specific skill set
And that the contractor has the skills
And as such needs minimal intervention to delver to the schedule


Then the contract must be based on the deliverable not time on site and the contract will fall outside one of a controlled person.

The reason for this is what is niche or specialist in one company is not in another.

[SueEllen]

The government currently defines a contractor/self-employed person as:

A person is self-employed if they run their business for themselves and take responsibility for its success or failure.

link

[eek]

It's already been stated:



The reason for this is what is niche or specialist in one company is not in another.

Downside of that approach is that all consultancies I know adopt a very simple method for accepting the risk:-

Estimate the work required, double it and add 50% more for contingency.

or Time and Materials and we will keep the costs as low as possible....

Contractors are time and materials because it mitigates the risk all round and avoids using the consultancies...

Saying that I'm happy to quote for fixed price work but even that will require 1-10 days up front to define the specifications and write the proposal - and I won't do that for free...

[bobspud]

Which brings us full circle to the Business Entity Tests and independent reviews from a couple of years ago, that got hailed as the solution to the problem and then binned when it became clear tat they didn't work and actually 95% of contractors who completed them were outside IR35.

Thats not how I saw the entity tests. To me they were almost impossible to pass for most contractors but bore no resemblance to the way IR35 was structured. So one would fail the entity tests but then pass a contract and working practices review so that the department could say "Ah! he was high risk but we checked him out and he is actually compliant..." box is ticked move on nothing to see.

It was the hysterical stupidity of departments that basically panicked and dumped thousands of names on HMRC without merit that broke it.

[bobspud]

Downside of that approach is that all consultancies I know adopt a very simple method for accepting the risk:-

Estimate the work required, double it and add 50% more for contingency.

or Time and Materials and we will keep the costs as low as possible....

Contractors are time and materials because it mitigates the risk all round and avoids using the consultancies...

Saying that I'm happy to quote for fixed price work but even that will require 1-10 days up front to define the specifications and write the proposal - and I won't do that for free...

Ok I would structure it as follows. Lets make up a fictional 6 month architecture role

Phase one: Scoping and Discovery - (2 sprints) to find the current documentation/background help scope requirements and sign them off as acceptable and measurable with the client.

Delivers - Signed off credible requirements and background to the project.

Phase two High Level Design work (2 sprints) to write up proposed solutions

Delivers the option paper with high level design options and recommendation for best solution.

Phase three - Low level design - (2 sprints) details low level solution

Delivers LLD + rough data model and any other collateral documents

Phase four - break design into Epics and Stories (1 sprint)

Delivers - Project plan for client to agree.

Phase five - Delivery sprints Lots of them (2 sprints to an epic) rinse and repeat

Delivers detail design work for each of the stories and epics according to plan. (that by now has enough work to cover the rest of the year for the work)

Support and Admin 2 days a week for the duration to cope with meetings...

Roughly works out at 3 months of regular payment milestones. followed by an epic per month as a milestone till completed...

Its not hard. just takes some thought.

[SueEllen]

Ok I would structure it as follows. Lets make up a fictional 6 month architecture role

Phase one: Scoping and Discovery - (2 sprints) to find the current documentation/background help scope requirements and sign them off as acceptable and measurable with the client.

Delivers - Signed off credible requirements and background to the project.

Phase two High Level Design work (2 sprints) to write up proposed solutions

Delivers the option paper with high level design options and recommendation for best solution.

Phase three - Low level design - (2 sprints) details low level solution

Delivers LLD + rough data model and any other collateral documents

Phase four - break design into Epics and Stories (1 sprint)

Delivers - Project plan for client to agree.

Phase five - Delivery sprints Lots of them (2 sprints to an epic) rinse and repeat

Delivers detail design work for each of the stories and epics according to plan. (that by now has enough work to cover the rest of the year for the work)

Support and Admin 2 days a week for the duration to cope with meetings...

Roughly works out at 3 months of regular payment milestones. followed by an epic per month as a milestone till completed...

Its not hard. just takes some thought.

The problem with that is the people who do the work aren't the same as those who write the contract.

So while I can easily write my own schedule which the client staff dealing with the budget will agree with, the agency will block it.

[MrMarkyMark]

The problem with that is the people who do the work aren't the same as those who write the contract.

So while I can easily write my own schedule which the client staff dealing with the budget will agree with, the agency will block it.

Or just write their own BS one in (if you are lucky enough to get one in the 1st place).

[LondonManc]

Or just write their own BS one in (if you are lucky enough to get one in the 1st place).

It does make you wonder what their purpose is; clearly there's no sense of account management with many of them and they're simply sales people without commercial acumen.

[eek]

It does make you wonder what their purpose is; clearly there's no sense of account management with many of them and they're simply sales people without commercial acumen.

They are tasked to find a body, they find a body....

I thought it was obvious - if you want to move out of the body shop game you need to escape the agency....

[MrMarkyMark]

They are tasked to find a body, they find a body....

I thought it was obvious - if you want to move out of the body shop game you need to escape the agency....

The problem in IB is even if you are direct, you have to usually engage with the in house agency, in any case.
You then have a fight on your hands getting all the nasty clauses removed that are not relevant due to the direct engagement.
This fight delayed my start for a week this time around and required around 30 mails and the intervention of senior management to "fix" the problem.