Flowery - are you around? Can you give me the benefit of your knowledge and experience please?

[MarionCole]

I think that my employer is trying to pull a fast one.

Background - I left my former employer, gave proper notice on my employment contract etc. They persuaded to me to work for them on an 'as and when needed' basis and be paid for the hours I work. I am still technically an employee as they pay me through PAYE although I have no new employment contract (or any other type of contract).

We are coming up to the first payroll run under this new method of working and we are disagreeing about the rate I should be paid.

Let's for arguments sake say I was previously paid £10,000 gross and was entitled to 5 weeks holiday. I am saying that I should be paid the equivalent of £10,000 / 47 = £213 per week. They are saying that it has to be £10,000 / 52 = £192 per week as "we can?t incorporate your holidays into the rate from a legal perspective ie we have to pay you for your holidays. Holidays are an entitlement and therefore we can?t include your holiday pay within your hourly rate."

I need to work out how to respond to this. My initial thoughts are:

• in which case, I am entitled to be paid when I go on holiday (but how would you calculate the hours to pay me when I work on an ad hoc basis?)
• I must therefore also be entitled to sick pay - at the moment if I'm ill I don't work and they don't pay me.

Is there anything else I should throw at them?

Really appreciate your help :) You must get sick of questions like this.

Yes you are entitled to holiday pay, and yes they are right they can't just recalculate your hourly rate to include your holiday. Holiday pay must be transparently different and paid when you are taking it rather than just added to your hourly rate.

They are obviously not denying that you are entitled to holiday which is good. You should write back asking for a casual employee contract/agreement setting out all these things such as hourly rate, arrangements for work, holiday calculations etc.

On what basis do you feel you are entitled to sick pay? You may be entitled to SSP but that only kicks in on the fourth consecutive day of absence.

That's my misunderstanding of employee rights - I thought employees were entitled to sick pay. I won't make that point then!

I did ask for a contract but nothing has been forthcoming. To be honest, I wasn't pushing it too much because I can technically just walk away at the moment without having to give any notice, which suits me as I will jack it in as soon as I'm getting enough income from the consultancy work I'm building up.

Thanks for that Flowery, I can now go into battle with the facts.

Hope DS1 enjoyed his birthday (I used to be giddykipper).

Ooh hello!! Consultancy work eh, good stuff! It would be normal with a casual agreement to be able to walk away anyway, but as long as you get confirmation of the important stuff in writing/email you should be fine.

DS1 had great birthday thank you, how's yours? Can't believe they're off to school soon!

Yes, consultancy work. I have just done some pro bono work for a law firm that is market leader in a particular area, fingers crossed I haven't messed it up because that could potentially lead to more work than I have the capacity to do, both from them and other firms who are led by their endorsement.

They have since come back to agree (by email) that they will pay me each month for holiday that I have accrued that month based on the hours I have worked. That should suit me fine.

I still can't get over the fact that he'll be at school in a few months. That's part of the reason why I have decided to leave employment now, so that I can spend more time with him while I can. It will be just my luck if I get loads of referrals, I'll be working all through the night!