Advice on becomming self employed as a courier

PlutoinCapricorn

I have just noticed that you said there is currently no paid holiday or sick leave: if he has a day off he does not get paid. That sounds like self employment: what is going on here? If he is an employee and the company deducts his income tax and NI, then surely he is entitled to all the other things. It is all or nothing!

fengirl_2

He cannot be a subcontractor - as I pointed out in my first post, he is hit by IR35.

jimbugalee

Found out last night that he'll become an 'owner driver'. Apparently this is the norm for most big courier firms now. How they get round making him redundant I don't know. They will spray his van in their colours etc and I think he gets a bit more money for that and if there's no work at the depot where he works now they'll send him off to another.

I'm still not sure how it will work but it seems this is what they all do

fengirl_2

And if there is no work at the other depot....? And no holiday pay, sick pay, etc. All running costs will fall to him - the courier company can't lose, can they?

AirCooledHeaven

jimbugalee, I suggest you post your question here for a full warts and all appraisal of his situation:

http://www.codforum.org.uk/

jimbugalee

That's great - thanks AirCooled ...ps hope you went to BugJam pps if you don't have a clue what I'm talking about then I took ur username the wrong way lol

AirCooledHeaven

jimbugalee wrote: »

That's great - thanks AirCooled ...ps hope you went to BugJam pps if you don't have a clue what I'm talking about then I took ur username the wrong way lol

My penchant is for two wheels not four

jimbugalee

haha well I was almost right! sorry post hi-jack

chalkie99

When you say a "national courier company" is this driving allover the country with smae day urgent deliveries or is it really a national overnight parcel company" where he does "multi-dropping" in his own designated area?

I have previous experience of both of these and it really is a can of worms, quite apart from the legalities mentioned it is very unlikely to be financially viable.

Can you divulge the name of the company? I may be able to make you aware of some of the pitfalls.

jimbugalee

He is going to be doing multi-drop in one area (the same as he currently does). It doesn't really matter if I mention the company but didn't know whether it was a good idea?

What I don't understand is all the big courier companies do this as I have other friends who have worked with 'owner drivers' in their courier companies. It's not like this is a one off.