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TEMPORARY WORKERS CHARTER
The aim behind setting up this charter is to ensure that we provide you, the temporary worker with the highest quality support service when you are working through us on a freelance basis.
Once you have commenced your contract, we will endeavour to meet with you either on site or outside of work, within the first six to eight weeks of your temporary assignment.
The basis for this meeting will be to:-
1. Discuss how happy you are working on a freelance basis, i.e. whether it suits you, is it what you expected when you started, and whether you feel it is something you would like to be doing long term. This information will enable us to try and identify other parts of our service that we can provide to you, e.g. if you are not happy working freelance then we have a permanent recruitment service which deals with positions in all technical/professional levels.
2. Ensure you are happy with your payment method. Contract Scotland operates on definite guidelines when outlining the various payment methods we offer. We are constantly reviewing these and will only recommend the safest possible options to try to prevent temporary workers being left open to any potential Inland Revenue investigation.
There are three options to choose from when deciding on how to pay your tax whilst working on an hourly rate on a contract for services:-
PAYE
Contract Scotland is responsible for paying all tax and National Insurance contributions over to the Revenue, and we also pay the Employer's National Insurance contribution too. You submit the P45 from your previous employer to us like you would if you were a permanent employee, and will receive a P45 from us when you leave. As we pay Employer's National Insurance for you and you pay all your tax and NI contributions, you will also be eligible to receive all State benefits such as sick and maternity/paternity pay, provided you meet the Revenue’s criteria. We will also pay you holiday pay.
OWN LIMITED COMPANY
If you are currently running your own Limited Company, we can pay you gross via this method, provided you can present us with your Certificate of Incorporation, VAT Registration Certificate (if applicable) and you have a valid Limited Company Bank Account. You must also be the Director of your Ltd Company, have full financial control and submit an invoice each week along with your timesheet.
You will be expected to make all appropriate PAYE and NI deductions from your weekly payment and ensure these are paid on time and accurately to the Revenue.
CIS
For those of you within the Construction Industry Scheme, we can put you in touch with companies that can pay you in this fashion, making the appropriate tax deductions from your wage and paying it over to the Revenue for a small weekly fee.
You must be registered as self-employed and registered for CIS to be paid this way and have your Unique Tax Reference from the Revenue to enable you to be verified by the Revenue as a legitimate contractor.
We appreciate that circumstances can change during the time that you are working for us and that your own personal aspirations can change; this is why we will, at regular six monthly intervals, be in contact with you to discuss market changes, any increases in salaries, hourly rates, disparities in supply and demand for temporary disciplines and our current view on the likelihood of you gaining continuity of work in your chosen freelance discipline.
At any time you can check the permanent recruitment market by visiting our website at www.contractscotland.co.uk and click on the “are you getting paid what you are worth?” feature.
ADDITIONAL SERVICES
As well as ensuring you are happy with your assignment and you fully understand your tax situation and its implications, there are a number of other areas that we can assist you with in terms of your time with us as a temporary worker:-
1. We provide stamped addressed envelopes each week for you to submit your timesheet to us so that you don't have to bother finding stamps for postage purposes
2. We will contact you in the event of us not receiving a timesheet by the prescribed deadline of 5.00pm on a Monday, just to check that there hasn't been any problem in terms of postal delays, faxes not coming through correctly or emails not arriving etc
3. As a matter of course, we send you out a birthday card signed by all the staff at Contract Scotland
4. We will obtain a Risk Assessment from the client, ideally prior to, but certainly once you have started on site and forward this to you and advise you of any Health & Safety issues that you need to be aware of within it. If there are any Health & Safety issues that you feel need to be addressed on site, please make your Consultant aware of them immediately and we will take action with the client organization. In 90% of instances, we have already visited sites that the client has or are aware of the site that you will be working on. However, there are certain situations where new clients and new sites require staff prior to us being able to go and visit them before you commence work. If there is anything that is lacking in terms of basic site amenities i.e. hot and cold running water, toilet facilities, welfare facilities etc or Health and Safety issues such as lack of Inductions or First Aid or Health & Safety on site, please make us aware of that as soon as possible
5. We will pay your CSCS Card Registration Fee on completion of 3 months continuous work through ourselves. CSCS Cards are vitally important with regards to having a basic standard of safety training for any individual working on site. To obtain your Basic Site Safety Training or Managers Certificate you will need to sit the Touch-Screen test, which is £17.50. You then need to register with the CITB who will send you out an application form for the card itself. All you need to do is quote your reference number when filling in the application form and enclose a £30 fee, which we will pay on your behalf, for your card. Please contact Carolyn Murray to take up this opportunity
6. Continuous Professional Development. We are aware that there are a number of key pre-requisites that are required for all temporary workers working on construction sites in a technical/ professional capacity. Working with a training provider we are able to provide heavily discounted 5 day Site Safety Management Courses and 3 day First Aid Courses compared to the industry standard price. To take advantage of this training opportunity, ring Carolyn Murray on (01786) 446651
7. We will keep you up to date with changes to CIS, Composite/Umbrella Companies and any other Industry issues that will affect you either by arranging seminars on the topics or through our regular quarterly newsletter
8. In the event of a dispute arising on the contract you are working on, please advise us as soon as possible of the circumstances and background to the dispute. We will take up the issue on your behalf and keep you informed of how things are progressing. Rest asssured there will be neither any financial or professional comeback arising from this
9. In the event of you having an accident on the site you are working on, please inform Carolyn Murray of the circumstances immediately and she will take up your claim with our Insurers on your behalf and advise you of how things are progressing.
For further information on any of our policies and procedures please contact:
Carolyn Murray, Training & Development Manager, 01786 446651, carolyn.murray@contractscotland.co.uk
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