Public sector IR35 consultation launched

[bobspud]

No worse than?

Yeah thats like saying I only lost 8 quarters of my salary

[MarkT]

Some of this has already started, I was invited to apply for a Head of PMO role this week which payed £150 a day more than the private sector rate.
Agent said they were having significant issues with placing contractors into public sector roles, even though the private sector was becoming flooded.
The net effect of this will be to drive down private sector rates as the market floods for a few years.

Meanwhile Cap Gemini and KPMG clean up and give directorships to ex-cabinet ministers.

[Gaz_M]

Sorry to be stupid but what's an FTC?

Also, if 90%+ of contractors walk away from public sector then the private sector will become flooded & the opportunities fewer overnight. Whichever way you look at it, it's just about the end of contracting.

[LondonManc]

Sorry to be stupid but what's an FTC?

Also, if 90%+ of contractors walk away from public sector then the private sector will become flooded & the opportunities fewer overnight. Whichever way you look at it, it's just about the end of contracting.

FTC = Fixed Term Contract

Most public sector folk are in there because they aren't up for private sector. Why work for £250 a day when you can work for £400?

[MoroccanMole]

Yeah thats like saying I only lost 8 quarters of my salary

Fixed term contract

[bobspud]

Sorry to be stupid but what's an FTC?

Also, if 90%+ of contractors walk away from public sector then the private sector will become flooded & the opportunities fewer overnight. Whichever way you look at it, it's just about the end of contracting.

Fixed Term Contract. Its currently an undead half life where the poor sod gets no benefits of being freelance and no employee rights.

We have already been through this process. A few years ago the treasury tried to totally destroy contracting in the Public sector. Yet here we all are...

Most likely thing to happen is that lots of contractors will skip out of public sector for six months or so. The public sector will realise that its in a lot of trouble and the whole thing will be forgotten.

There was always a reason that its hard to get government work without an SC. It can take months to earn one and as a result the pool of resources are well sort after. I witnessed a department try to go directly for ex bank staff and private sector guys as an experiment and the fall out was shocking there were at least 5 people that failed their clearances while I was there (some of them spectacularly) and the security team got totally <pick a word for annoyed>. It almost cost a few guys their jobs.

Imagine being in a position where you have 100+ people on DV clearances that all say I am not renewing. You can't magically find a replacement. it will take months to got through DV normally and once a candidate understands the process quite a few people don't want their wife/significant other to find out that they use strippers,hookers or gamble heavily behind their back. DV can cause divorces.

I expect the support desk people to find themselves inside IR35 as they should have always been. The other roles will be a little more pragmatic. For instance my last government role demanded that I provide my own tools and equipment and provided me the right to carry out work as I saw fit, and a right of substitution subject to clearances. No IR35 issues in that regardless of what HMRC put in unlawful guidance.

[bobspud]

Most public sector folk are in there because they aren't up for private sector. Why work for £250 a day when you can work for £400?

Actually it turns out that it works the other way... Over the past decade the architecture guys have got their heads together and are more like real architects rather than the dross that gets touted in the private sector.

We chewed up and spat out a bunch of guys from a well known bank because they thought that they were the dogs dangly bits.

Watching them go through a formal security review could have been a ticketed event.

[LondonManc]

Actually it turns out that it works the other way... Over the past decade the architecture guys have got their heads together and are more like real architects rather than the dross that gets touted in the private sector.

We chewed up and spat out a bunch of guys from a well known bank because they thought that they were the dogs dangly bits.

Watching them go through a formal security review could have been a ticketed event.

No comment on banking IT, as much as I'd like to.

[Danglekt]

I contract with a private company that receives public funding - I spend a lot of time in meetings with people who work in the public sector, and know quite a few who are contractors.

This is going to have a big impact on them, and potentially on me too - as my currently transferable skill set just got rather less valuable.

What I find hard to stomach is, yes there are some people who are inside IR35 pretending they are not, but there are also some people who are outside who will get caught by this unfairly (including me in the future potentially).

All this will drive is more work on the fixed headcount, who are all public sector lifers, who will get even more behind and everything will grind to a halt, add to that the fact that none of them (even the crap ones) get sacked, have stupidly soft HR teams, pay generous long term sickness rates and huge pension and annual leave costs (35 days leave anyone?)...

It's not going to save very much in terms of true value.

Dammit, I like doing what I do and I'm pretty good at it too - why does someone always need to screw it up

[missinggreenfields]

What I find hard to stomach is, yes there are some people who are inside IR35 pretending they are not, but there are also some people who are outside who will get caught by this unfairly (including me in the future potentially).

It won't inadvertently catch people who are outside - HMRC have been very clear about that, and why wouldn't you trust their word on it?