Anyone know anything about ins and outs of using self employed workers?

[chezlouise1980]

Hi,
Am currently thinking about expanding my ironing service for when the demand is too great for me to cope with alone. Have researched becoming an employer, but not ready to take that step, and dont think its necessary at present as work will be carried out in workers own homes. Am now looking at using self employed workers, does anyone know if there still has to be contracts made up? What could i do to stop the workers from taking customers from me by offering cheaper rates? Thanks in advance

Cheryl

As far as I know if using ad-hoc workers then there are no contracts made. With a small business its impossible to stop anyone pinching your trade as its hard to prove and not worth any court case.

As for employing self employed you must obtain the UTR certificate confirming their UTR number otherwise you could be done for them not paying their tax and NI contributions. You need to have receipts from them too.

Not sure if anyone else can come up with more useful stuff???

Advice to my business regarding self employed workers detail that to be self employed they need to be able to set their own hours of employment, substitute someone else to do the job and finally work for more than one employer. If we do use a self employed person for example our gardener we ask for an invoice and pay on that invoice.

UTR number does not guarantee that you can pay the person as self employed. I am self employed and have a UTR, but I also do work for AHVLA and have to be employed for this as I have to work in their hours and can not substitute anyone else.
Even if you employ the workers as I understand it currently binding out clauses in contracts (preventing them set up againist you) are very difficult to enforce in court.

if they only work for you they are not self-employed
a self employed person needs to work for, and invoice separately more than 1 source of earned income, be able to work hours that vary, be able to supply another person to carry out the work requested, they should have their own liability insurance and be able to give you their tax reference number, they should be filling in a self assessment tax return annualy. if you look on the HMCE website it will give you more guidance

Hi,
Thanks for the advice everyone! Very helpful, and reinforcing what i thought. The person interested in doing some ironing on demand is self employed offering a completely different service, and they want to quit that if they start ironing, so they would only be working for me then, making me liable to register as an employer. Its such a landmine for such a small business! Am seriously thinking about just keeping on doing it all myself until its big enough to expand into a commercial premises when i will need to become an employer.
Thanks again,
Cheryl