self employed caretaker?

julieewright

We are a small community based organisation about to take on a part time caretaker to clean and maintain out premises. The caretaker will work approximately 10-16 hours per week, spread out over the whole week. As our organisation is staffed by volunteers, we are reluctant to employ an individual as PAYE/NI contributions will be an extra commitment out of our time.
If we took on a caretaker who was self employed, how would we stand re tax, liability insurance etc. What would be our responsibility towards the caretaker as regards holiday, sickness etc

martindow

Whether it is self employment or employed is not a decision to be made by you but is dependant on the nature of the work.

You need to sort this out with HMRC as there would be repercussions if you got it wrong. This could be a good starting point

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/employment-status/index.htm

paddyrg

It sounds a lot like he would be deemed employed, no matter what you think - probably best to just face it, you will be employers, unless you pay a premium to an agency and they pay his paye/ni

Premier_2

julieewright wrote: »

.... As our organisation is staffed by volunteers, ...

Have you considered asking for a volunteer to carry out the caretaking duties?

Jowo_2

Invite a number of local handyman companies to quote for a contract to do the work? I don't expect they'll mind adding a bit of cleaning/housekeeping to their basic DIY skills they offer since they will get a nice few hours work with you each week.

I'm not sure how you would identify and screen them. Hopefully other members will suggest this.

My assumptions are that you would first perform a bit of due diligence to check the status of their company (use the Webcheck service at the companies house website to ensure they are a registered company whose accounts are regularly submitted), take up written references from recent similar clients, ask for copies of their indemnity insurance. Get a proper contract drawn up.

You don't want to end up with some cash in hand geezer from the Gumtree who sticks a nail through a pipe and scarpers but a reliable established business with proper insurance and happy customers.

As far as I know, you would have no responsibilities with regards to holidays, sickness and insurance. You would simply employ Happy Handyman Ltd to perform x duties for x amount via a contract. They would invoice you each month (or the period of your choosing) and you would simply pay them the invoice within whatever agreed terms you have.

Premier_2

Ah, the magic words...

Jowo wrote: »

...As far as I know, ...

:cool:

The advice given by martindow previously covers the situation correctly.

One of the possible outcomess of hiring a company is that you get the smooth patter of their sales agent who doesn't know one end of a hammer from the other ... and the person they may elect to send does but puts that nail through the water pipe.
As soon as you start demanding the attendence of one specific person, that may be an indictor towards employing them (as per HMRC quidelines) even if only on a part time or casual basis.

Jowo_2

Premier wrote: »

Ah, the magic words...

:cool:

The advice given by martindow previously covers the situation correctly.

One of the possible outcomess of hiring a company is that you get the smooth patter of their sales agent who doesn't know one end of a hammer from the other ... and the person they may elect to send does but puts that nail through the water pipe.
As soon as you start demanding the attendence of one specific person, that may be an indictor towards employing them (as per HMRC quidelines) even if only on a part time or casual basis.

I did not say that the OP should demand the specific attendance of a sole person, I suggested they engage a business and organise it on a contract basis. The OP would not have any HR responsibilities towards anybody that the Handyman company sends in to their work.

Businesses market their services, smooth or otherwise. Some businesses operate poorly, nothing new there.

From the link provided by Martin Dow, the HMRC suggest the following pointers.

If the answer is 'Yes' to all of the following questions, it will usually mean that the worker is self-employed:

• Can they hire someone to do the work or engage helpers at their own expense?
• Do they risk their own money?
• Do they provide the main items of equipment they need to do their job, not just the small tools that many employees provide for themselves?
• Do they agree to do a job for a fixed price regardless of how long the job may take?
• Can they decide what work to do, how and when to do the work and where to provide the services?
• Do they regularly work for a number of different people?
• Do they have to correct unsatisfactory work in their own time and at their own expense?

The Handyman company sorts out PAYE, holidays, insurance and so forth with its own employees and has to demonstrate to the HMRC that they operate as a genuine business in the usual way (demonstrating multiple clients, the right of substitution, etc).

The simplest example is a contract cleaning where a company engages 'Office Cleaning' Ltd to perform x, y, z cleaning duties and leaves it up to Office Cleaning Ltd which cleaners it sends it to fulfill the terms.

DCodd

Premier wrote: »

Ah, the magic words...

:cool:

The advice given by martindow previously covers the situation correctly.

One of the possible outcomess of hiring a company is that you get the smooth patter of their sales agent who doesn't know one end of a hammer from the other ... and the person they may elect to send does but puts that nail through the water pipe.
As soon as you start demanding the attendence of one specific person, that may be an indictor towards employing them (as per HMRC quidelines) even if only on a part time or casual basis.

We had this argument with HMRC, we argued that if we retained the services of a Company and requested a specific individual, we would not have fallen foul of the regulations. We pointed out that Music professionals and sports professionals have their own company and it is that company that is employed and not the individual but you would, by the nature of the services they provide, demand that specific person to carry out the duties and that subsitution was never an option for these type of companies.

HMRC took the matter no further, not that that means it would have stood up in court I hasten to add and it was 5 years ago.

We had expensive, expert, professional legal advice at that time and their view was that the contracts that were in place had to be highly specific.