Outsourcing work to myself via agency?

en10jjp

I'm looking to leave my job and get set up as a freelancer as soon as I can; I've set myself a target of 2 months' wages of my current salary guaranteed to be coming in from freelancing before I resign.

I'm an SEO & content manager by day; I'm also a member of a freelance content network which sends over content writing jobs.

In the day-to-day of my miserable office existence I have a massive rewrite project which requires a quality freelancer to improve several hundred pages; the total budget for this is ludicrously small but in total will be just over that magical two months' wages figure...can you see what I'm getting at?

What is to stop me from having a quiet word with the person in charge of the freelance network about my current situation, signing up the agency to take on the rewriting project on the condition they assign the entire project to me, resigning and doing all of the work myself on a freelance basis? Assuming the person who runs the network agrees, is there anything illegal about this? My contract forbids me from contacting anybody whom I've met through the current company for six months after I've left to try and solicit for work, but doesn't say anything about relationships that existed outside of the company that happen to have involved the company at a later date.

To sum up:

- I hire the freelance network to take on the project
- The network assigns the entire project to me, taking me to the magic figure I need to resign from the 9-5 and do the part of the job I actually enjoy as a freelancer

Illegal? Cheeky? Or fine? Would be interested to see what people think...cheers.

IAmWales

If your current employer would be happy with this then suggest the idea to them.

If not, you'll be burning a lot of bridges and anyone that colludes with you would be an idiot. Going about things in such a devious way will destroy any existing trust, and the network/ agency could forget any work going their way in the future.