Well, here I am...

[cojak]

Oh, and I just put these here, just incase you forget why you're here in the first place.

Issues with 'Tax Efficient' PAYE Umbrellas - Contractor UK Bulletin Board

IR35 post April 2020: Choosing a legitimate Umbrella - Contractor UK Bulletin Board

BEWARE Umbrella companies bring cloned for tax avoidance purposes! - Contractor UK Bulletin Board

Comparison and broker websites marketing umbrellas are not always what they seem - Contractor UK Bulletin Board

README: Dodgy/'Mini' Umbrella threads - Contractor UK Bulletin Board

[eek]

PCG was primarily for the group people on here call "contractors", and that agencies sell to their clients as the agency's resources. In the real world, most organisations, and especially HMG ones, see "Contractors" as either external providers of services through BigCo structures who are not part of their organisation or as people who build stuff that you can kick. They did not and do not recognise you and me as "contractors" since we were clearly one man bands; after a while they got tired of the inherent confusion and stopped listening.

IPSE was a deliberate change to broaden the scope to all freelance workers, which includes SE people, agency workers and all the other one man bands, including us "contractors". It was never the intention to abandon our comparatively small group (50k out of around 5.5 million and rising) despite what various disaffected (mostly-ex) PCG members thought.

If you're going to quote history, can we at least start from the right place in the book.

I wasn’t quoting history - any PCG / IPSE debate is a complete red herring and distraction here.

As a business the change from PCG to IPSE made perfect sense

[eek]

Oh, and I just put these here, just incase you forget why you're here in the first place.

Issues with 'Tax Efficient' PAYE Umbrellas - Contractor UK Bulletin Board

IR35 post April 2020: Choosing a legitimate Umbrella - Contractor UK Bulletin Board

BEWARE Umbrella companies bring cloned for tax avoidance purposes! - Contractor UK Bulletin Board

Comparison and broker websites marketing umbrellas are not always what they seem - Contractor UK Bulletin Board

README: Dodgy/'Mini' Umbrella threads - Contractor UK Bulletin Board

I don't think they are the best examples here - the FCSA has always been clear that they don't want to police the entire industry as that is something many people have tried to get them to do through all 3 leaders...

The issue that the FCSA has is that because of it's ownership and the true nature of an umbrella's sales cycle (to get on agency PSLs rather than get individual workers) a lot of bad habits have been created over the years which the FCSA hasn't paid close enough attention to.

Hence we have the holiday pay issue, and various tricks and trades to skim a few quid off every payslip. Now none of that is outright illegal (because the money paid to an umbrella is not the contractors it does belong to the umbrella) but it doesn't fit right because we are talking about money we worked for and we are paying the umbrella a fee (which they call margin for various reasons)

However I can give Chris a very easy starting point.

The new Code of Conduct started in October 2021. Workwell's Holiday year end was on October 31st 2021 - so what happened to all the unused holiday pay on November 1st 2021?

Was it:-

1) paid to the appropriate workers within their November pay packets (easily demonstratable)
2) kept and will be paid to the appropriate workers as they left Workwell (again easily demonstratable as some people will have left)
3) pocketed - at which point the issue becomes does it breach the FCSA code (which I actually don't think it does so that's a problem).

And again I'm not trying to catch Chris out here - just pointing out that I don't think the current code is clear enough here and has a gapping large gap within it due to it the references to holiday years.

[cojak]

Dodgy Umbrella Companies are not dodgy with ALL their contractors. They are way smarter than that. Each contractor's pay needs to be audited every week. That is the only way forward. The technology is here, the industry just needs some courageous leaders to put it in place. If that happens, the industry will be regulated before regulation.

And you have NO idea what we mean by Dodgy, do you?

FFS…

[eek]

And you have NO idea what we mean by Dodgy, do you?

FFS…

Oh he does have a very good idea on what we mean by Dodgy - imagine Andy with a conscience - I know his background so will vouch for him - and he's only here because I cruelly pulled him into the conversation..

His point is that

1) there are some outright dodgy umbrellas
but equally
2) there are a lot of umbrellas who are only dodgy against some of their workers. So they run different skims against different workers - some won't be skimmed at all, others will have skim type 1 run against their payslips, others skim type 2.

Let's go back to the employer NI pension skim I referred to above - not every worker is subject to it but some are....

The issue is that unless you look at every single payslip it's very easy to hide some dodgy behaviour if you control the samples an audit can select from...

On CUK our main focus has been trying to ensure people don't end up using outright dodgy umbrellas but there are a whole different level of issues here once you get into the detail

[cojak]

OK, but I’m still tapping my foot on this…

[SHere2Help]

And you have NO idea what we mean by Dodgy, do you?

FFS…

I genuinely don't understand this comment. I feel you haven't read my post and what we are bout to launch?
We spent the past 24 months studying and coding Umbrella's unlawful AND unethical practices - so I have a pretty thorough understanding of what "Dodgy" means.

On what I was trying to explain I totally echo the response from eek, this is exactly what I meant.
Nothing more to add.

OK, but I’m still tapping my foot on this…

Stop being frustrated. We are here to give power to contractors.
I 100% agree with you that some Umbrella Companies ripped off contractors for over 2 decades. And it needs to stop.
Trust me I speak with eek every 2-3 weeks, it offends me every single time, as it should every person that is aware of it.

In 2 weeks' any contractor will be able to drag and drop their payslip and audit their Umbrella Company. First Umbrella audit where the Umbrella won't know about it.
And we spot everything - Anything that is not vanilla compliant.

We are genuinely bringing a solution to empower contractors. If you are open-minded and want to have a look at it, please get in touch.
My name is Sebastien Sauca. Come talk to me on LinkedIn. My door is open if you want to be involved and be part of the solution.

On my side, I sincerely apologise if any part of my email irritated you in any way.
I was genuinely trying to be honest and transparent after being dragged into the conversation.

Hope I clarified a few things ?
And if I need to clarify more, please let me know. More than happy to answer any questions!

[courtg9000]

Can someone explain what FCSA does please?

[malvolio]

Can someone explain what FCSA does please?

Not a lot. Mainly a badge provider for lazy agencies. However, that may be about to change....

If Seb and Chris get their act together and if the audit processes on offer are both reliable and accurate and if they can avoid some obvious legal pitfalls, self-regulation of the umbrella industry might - just might - become an option.

Personally I'm not betting on it, but we can live in hope!

[NotAllThere]

I do apologise if this comment triggered you, it obviously wasn't my goal.
...

On my side, I sincerely apologise if any part of my email triggered you in any way.

Just a friendly note from a moderator that your use of "triggered" is somewhat patronising and probably not appropriate for this part of the forums, so please find another way of expressing yourself. Thank you.