freelance trainer -issues?

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Hi, I have been offered work as an associate trainer. I am going to meet owner of training comp next week, but wanted to know what is the norm so I can ask the right questions.

Obviously I know I will have to do own Tax/NI but what about insurance. I am training on private premises not owned by this company.

Is it the norm to get your own indemnity insurance or should I be covered by training company. This is the first work I have done and I don't know if there will be much work so don't want to go out and spend hundreds on insurance.

Are there any other issues I need to think/ask about?

make sure they are fair about preparation time compared with delivery time - especially if they talk about daily rates. if you are giving a 2-day course you might either seek 4 days pay or 2 days at a much heftier rate if they don't pay explicitly for prep time iyswim. also. if you want to compare daily rates with a salary bear in mind that a freelancer doesn;t get paid for admin, sick days, touting for work, holiday, bank holidays or a pension - all these need to be accounted for when you work out a daily rate. on no account think that a fair daily rate is equivalent salary divided by number of working days in a year.

Your daily rate should be at least double what a permanent member of staff would be paid for a days work.

if you are an associate trainer with a company i'd expect you to be paid a daily rate plus actual expenses, eg travel, overnight accom when required. But by no means all offer that. You should be covered by their insurance because you are a subcontractor but responsible for your own tax/ni etc. Are you already self employed? If not you'll need to register as such.

I am a freelance trainer. My daily rates vary from very reasonable to the absolute crap. Prep time is rare.you'll need to think about that plus assessment time if relevant. IMO daily rates are falling and people are taking longer to pay.

What's your specialism?

And good luck!

I teach health and social care. I have meeting next week so will ask about insurance. I know about registering and will do as soon as I have my first job.

Thanks for all the advice.

well good luck with that. I also teach H&SC sometimes and am finding the market diminishing rather than stretching - as LAs shrink their budgets. But there is work to be had if you are flexible - I am simply offering a wider range of courses and proactively offering new ones to LAs to try out at reduced rate ? Also used by a firm but the rates are low (my day rate used to be £650 and now rarely tops £350 and often comes in at £150). But I need the money...

oh also if you are V1 or A1 qualified you will always get ad hoc work from colleges

You should also ask who owns materials that you produce for training. A friend of mine produced a wonderful model for cost benefit analysis in the public sector but then found out that due to the contract terms she'd worked under, she couldn't use it with other clients.

Same friend also had problems in December due to the bad weather. The clients that she was contracted to deliver training to cancelled at the last minute and she was not paid. This left her effectively without money for the month . Find out what the company policy is for cancellation and make sure that you are treated in the same way.

yes, cancellations - definitely get something written in. I don't get paid if they cancel at all- so this week i have a day's work that has just (today) been cancelled ('hope this is alright') - so I lose a whole day's pay plus prep time etc. A real pain. During the snow before Christmas I lost £1500 worth of work.

I have my own terms and conditions for cancellations 7 days - 10 days is 50% and less than 7 its the full amount, but I'm flexible if they are just moving the date. If it was cancelled 24 hours beforehand I would be billing as I couldn't fill the day with work.

I work via associate but dont have my own insurance as they are purchasing from the client so I'm classed as a subcontractor.

Hope this helps