AIBU to resent my agency social worker colleagues?

[jollo]

I'm a social worker. Work alongside 'agency' workers who are paid between 25-30 quid an hour, have a 'LTD company' set up and pay themselves £11,000 a year, claim working tax credits, and squirrel away the rest. 'They also get agency bonuses of £500 at xmas and for staying with them for a year...

This is the public sector of today. I'm paid £34,000 a year. They cost minimum of £45,000 and have the gall to claim tax credits!

Don't resent your colleagues resent the system

I think agency workers in social work should be made illegal. It would save so much money

Whistle blow.

I used to work with contractors and I think some changes are coming in so they can't do the ltd company tax thing anymore - one lady I used to work with said she'd be 15k a year worse off. So things will change!

Id be more Pissed at locum doctor rates than agency social workers.

YABU. There was an article on Community Care which did a comparison and over the course of a working life, it all evens out.

Actually, I lie. I've re-read the article. Cash in pocket, you will earn more as a locum but the benefits of being employed vs. agency benefits are about equal. www.communitycare.co.uk/2016/02/26/much-can-earn-agency-social-worker-worth/

My local authority have put an embargo on locums and instead of creating a more welcoming environment (as they would claimed), we are more stressed because there aren't enough workers to spread the load. That said, we did have particularly great locums before they got rid.

llhj there's nothing to whistleblow; it's all perfectly legal. Just immoral IMHO.

Your agency colleagues are self-employed - they won't get sick pay, maternity leave, paternity leave, pension contributions etc etc. I'd rather work for less and have my in-work employee benefits

wayfaring fair-ish point but I think the 'benefits' to permanent staff basically just encourage people to take full sick leave 'entitlement' to even out the pay gap inequality. All in all, is it a good use of public money?

What Bonkers said.

You'll probably find they have to pay for their own ongoing training, supervision and CPD, which is a considerable expense.

I don't know if I quite follow. Do you mean set up ltd companies, invoice the council, pay themselves under the income tax threshold this not paying tax and claiming TC? But then what happens to their company "profits?" Surely they then claim this as dividend for themselves and pay corporation tax on it (23

yeah, poor things. they're probably out of pocket with all their extra tax deductible 'expenses' aren't they. Come on, no one is an agency worker if works out detrimentally to them!!!

The trade off they are making is giving up a degree of security in exchange for more cash. They have no guarantee that another agency won't come along and undercut them, or that councils won't decide to go in-house. The extra cash is the 'reward' for taking the extra risk and to cover the times when the work isn't available. They have to arrange their own pensions, sort out their own tax, if they go sick they have to live off savings. Being self employed is great when it's all going well, but if something goes wrong they don't have a safety net unless they've arranged it themselves. You have to decide if the risk is worth the reward.

Posted too soon-
23-ish % tax on that, which agreed means they pay way less tax than they would under PAYE but surely they repay the tax credits when they do their self assessment? And they miss out on annual leave sick pay and pension.

If it's so great why don't you do it?

Sorry, reposting split post

I don't know if I quite follow. Do you mean set up ltd companies, invoice the council, pay themselves under the income tax threshold this not paying tax and claiming TC? But then what happens to their company "profits?" Surely they then claim this as dividend for themselves and pay corporation tax on it (23 ish % tax on that, which agreed means they pay way less tax than they would under PAYE but surely they repay the tax credits when they do their self assessment? And they miss out on annual leave sick pay and pension

HMRC is stopping this!

They need to be paying PAYE and Income Tax on those earnings in full somehow... this known loophole is being closed down.

Yabu

It's not that much money more that companies or authorities pay out for locum/supply/contractor staff etc than they do employed staff. And if companies have short term projects or an unmanageable peek in work load, it's very attractive to them to get these type of people in, rather than put someone on payroll and have a load of people doing nothing or pay redundancy when the work dries up..:

On paper it looks loads, but when you factor in; wage, employers NI, holiday, average sickness, pension, bonus, and other benefits, the cost to the company is just fractionally more to have a completely dispensable workforce.

Chosing to be paid through a LTD or Umbrella is a risky choice, you either get loads of work and through tax efficiency and high day rates, can earn 2,3,4 times that as you would employed. (Industry dependant)

Reality is though unless you are well connected your lucky these days to get more than 6/7 months of work per year.

If you want to be annoyed at someone, be annoyed at agencies, who can charge £100 a day on top of the contractors day rate, for doing bugger all....

I don't agree with claiming benefit though. Dividend tax is only 5% and keeps going up, so who ever is doing this is bunkers... They would be better off just taking the money out of the company and using their spouses tax band to take some out too (if they earn under thresh hold)

If your so bothered why don't you become an agency worker?

The agency fees are what they are because these are jobs they struggle to get people into these jobs and there's no security. You could end up like a friend of mine who moved to agency nursing to fit around her family, only to have a horrendous medical diagnosis the very same week. 20yrs in the NHS, and all the benefits lost. If social work, or nursing, or medicine was magically made into a great job, there would be no skills shortage, and we wouldn't need to pay agency. Until then, it's supply and demand, and this current nonsense of capping the pay just leads to people not taking the shifts.... funny how it wasn't okay to cap bankers pay during the crisis, but a SW on £45k is a threat to our national budget and must be stopped

As others have said, they don't get the benefits of sick pay, paid holidays, maternity/paternity etc They could also all be unemployed tomorrow as they don't have to be given any notice. The cost to the company will be the same for both of you, when I worked in HR we would always add on at least 20% to a persons salary and that's how much it would be costing us to employ them once you've added in benefits and pensions. Would you be able to become a contractor?

marmalade I don't want the job insecurity of potentially being given a week's notice.