by Russ on January 11, 2012
ContractorUmbrella Ltd has emerged as outright winners of the ‘Best Umbrella Company’ category in the industry renowned reader’s awards, hosted by ContractorUK, the UK’s largest contractor website.
Thousands of visitor’s flock to ContractorUK’s website everyday and they have picked ContractorUmbrella, a previous winner of the award, as the umbrella company that surpasses all others.
- “Contractor Umbrella Ltd are consistently responsive, very helpful, polite – they go the extra mile. I can call in a flap and have my concern looked at immediately. They are also very friendly and very ‘human’ – I know someone will listen, I know I’ll get a follow up, and it’s personal. The way it should be.”
- “Contractor Umbrella – everything happens near instantly, reliably and first time with cheerful communication at a great price. What more do you want from an umbrella?”
- “Contractor Umbrella Limited are always extremely helpful, rapid to respond and follow up and have a real personal touch. Though I’ve never met the people I deal with at the company, they feel like friends.”
- “It’s a pleasant surprise to have a real ‘body’ on the end of the phone that is proactive and understands your situation.”
Lisa Keeble, managing director commented “We are absolutely delighted with the results. There are over 250 umbrella companies in the UK and to be voted as Best Umbrella Company by our core market ‘contractors’, really means a great deal to us”
To benefit from our award winning service, please contact a member of the team on 01206 713 680 or email info@contractorumbrella.com.
Alternatively you can visit our website http://www.contractorumbrella.com.
by Russ on November 25, 2011
The introduction of the Agency Worker Regulations on 1st October this year has had an apocalyptic effect on the recruitment industry which has already had more than its fair share of legislation to deal with over the years. This latest offering from the EU was gold-plated, thanks to Union intervention, and is backed by a comprehensive guidance manual published by BIS. It would seem, however, that, despite BIS’ best efforts, misinformation is spreading fast and furiously and is becoming ever more distorted as some recruiters make desperate efforts to avoid the legislation that is costing them a fortune to implement and swiftly reducing demand for temporary staff. The problem with many of the ‘solutions’ that are being discussed on the internet is that they may well result in huge fines for recruiters and even business wrecking penalties applied by HMRC using the debt transfer legislation.
Lisa Keeble, MD at umbrella company ContractorUmbrella Ltd, works closely with recruitment agencies and is concerned that many are being misled by bad advice being offered on the internet by those without the technical legal knowledge required to interpret complicated new legislation. Mrs Keeble engaged the services of leading specialist recruitment sector lawyers, Blake Lapthorn, to help tackle the thorny issues arising from the AWR and both organisations feel that it is essential to raise awareness over the potential pitfalls for recruitment agencies. The intention of this article is to dispel the common myth that all limited company contractors will be outside the scope of the Agency Worker Regulations.
Oliver Weiss, a senior solicitor at Blake Lapthorn, goes on to explain:
It may be a while yet before the industry sees the first AWR cases being litigated in the Tribunals but, six weeks since their introduction, both Lisa and I have had the chance to reflect on the initial impact of the AWR on the temporary recruitment industry. We would like to set the record straight on what appears to be a commonly held belief, that one can avoid the impact of the AWR solely by drafting amendments to contracts, or by having the parties agree to designate their relations as being outside the scope of the AWR, none of which is necessarily correct.
In response to the AWR some recruitment agencies have insisted that they will only deal with and supply workers who operate through limited companies. This appears to reflect the fact that it has become something of an AWR truism that if you work through a limited company you will be “self-employed” and therefore automatically fall beyond the reach of the AWR.
It can certainly be said that those individuals who are genuinely self-employed will not satisfy the definition of an agency worker, either because such individuals are by definition not going to be working under the supervision and direction of the end user client or because either the agency or the client can be said to be a customer or client of a profession or business undertaking carried on by the individual. However, one should not underestimate how difficult it can be to show that the above conditions apply and in reality many individuals who work through their own limited companies are likely not to be self-employed. Determination of employment status is nuanced and complex, involving questions of mixed fact and law, and will depend on the circumstances of each case. It is therefore overly simplistic to adopt the mantra, as some agencies and clients appear to be doing, that a person who is working through a limited company is self-employed and therefore need not worry about the AWR. The law is very clear that it is not of itself sufficient that the parties have labelled the relationship to be one of self-employment if upon closer scrutiny what happens in practice does not reflect this and the individual cannot objectively be said to be genuinely in business on their own account.
Agencies that are requiring contractors to incorporate on the basis that this will take them outside the scope of the AWR are in most cases doing no more than re-labelling an existing relationship. That is to say if these contractors were not genuinely self-employed before they incorporated then in many cases they are unlikely to be self-employed after incorporation.
A lot of end user clients are seeking declarations from agencies confirming that the AWR do not apply as well as blanket indemnities in respect of AWR claims and in some cases these are being given simply on the basis of the mistaken belief that the contractors that are being supplied are outside scope because they are operating through their own limited companies. Not only does such an approach underestimate the complexity of employment status issues but it may also result in the agencies and end user clients being caught by the draconian MSC legislation and debt transfer provisions.
For umbrella services visit ContractorUmbrella’s website www.contractorumbrella.com and for legal serviced from Blake Lapthorn see http://www.bllaw.co.uk/
