Delphine Strauss reports on union warnings that employers could sidestep Labour’s workers’ rights upgrade by hiring people as self-employed contractors (Report, September 16). While I agree this is a palpable risk, a Supreme Court ruling last week has made it harder to prove that someone is genuinely self-employed. This is not the positive development that it may appear to be to some.
In an employment status dispute between HM Revenue & Customs and Professional Game Match Officials Limited, the body that assigns referees to professional football matches, the court ruled that some casually self-employed referees should actually have been paid and taxed as employees. The judges looked at whether PGMOL and the referees had “mutual obligations” to each other to offer and complete work — a key indicator of employment. HMRC has long argued that merely by agreeing to take on work, a contractor has established “mutual obligations” with their client, regardless of the length or frequency of that work. This view was backed by the court.
This will not only affect future employment status rulings, but also the advice that employers will receive before attempting to classify their workforce as “self-employed contractors”. However, those who want to be self-employed have just lost one of the legal avenues to prove that this choice is legitimate.
Having a thriving self-employed sector is great for the economy, for hirers, and for the people that choose to work independently. But while workers with employment contracts are set to be granted greater flexibility in work, the traditionally flexible freelance sector is being placed in a bind.
The unions are right — our employment status rules are in dire need of reform. If government proceeds with its plans for a single status of “worker” without updating the rules that decide who that status should and shouldn’t apply to, it risks placing even more strain on a struggling labour market and shutting down the ambitions of those who one day may wish to work for themselves.
Andrew Chamberlain
Director of Policy, IPSE — The Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed, London WC1
