agency asking for 4 weeks notice for contractor

[MPwannadecentincome]

Are people feeling more confident about IR35 getting canned now? Why would a contract agency want 4 weeks notice to terminate a contractor - if I wanted to give someone that much notice I might as well hire a permie!

[d000hg]

A proper B2B relationship between supplier and client might have a 3 month notice period or more, if the cessation of services supplied would require getting a new supplier on board to avoid any major problems. The "I'm a business" card can go either way depending if you're just a disposable cog brought in to bulk up the numbers, or supplying some critical skill the company will lose money without.

[northernladuk]

Nothing wrong with a months notice. I dunno what level you worked at as permie but 3 months is becoming normal for more senior people not a month. Why does everyone assume that when things are done on a month it relates to permie. 4 weeks (month) is a nice round figure, what does it matter if contractors use it as well?

Its just another variable that can change with every contract and as long as it isn't too long over a month then it isn't a problem with IR 35 at all.

[MPwannadecentincome]

Nothing wrong with a months notice. I dunno what level you worked at as permie but 3 months is becoming normal for more senior people not a month. Why does everyone assume that when things are done on a month it relates to permie. 4 weeks (month) is a nice round figure, what does it matter if contractors use it as well?

Its just another variable that can change with every contract and as long as it isn't too long over a month then it isn't a problem with IR 35 at all.

Yes I agree 3 months is normal for a senior person, but I am offering to a tester. Clearly all the threads I have read in the forum about not looking like a permie I must have misunderstood!

Besides I thought the argument for paying high daily rates was to offset the uncertainty of being on the bench at short notice, a month's notice does not justify this IMHO - when I was a contractor I was only on 1 day's notice and if the client had no work for me they told me not to turn up for work that day so I was not paid.

[d000hg]

Not turning up one day because there's no work is not the same as having your services retained with a month's notice. You can have both in the same contract... you have to give them 4 week's notice you'll not be available and they have to do the same if they no longer want to use your services, but day-to-day there's no obligation for them to give you 40 hours a week.

that level of uncertainty on your part is worth the extra money, that (in theory) you don't know you'll be fully busy, even though in reality most contractors would be unhappy if it worked that way. On a current contract there were 2 such incidents, one I pointed out there didn't seem to be anything and suggested I'd come back in the following week, the other they asked me to skip a day. Good IR35 material to have on file...