My question has two parts, i’ll try and keep it to the point.
I work full time and have helped a group of professionals also in my industry get part of an external project off the ground – I say external project as they have been awarded a seven-year grant after a recent successful bid to an external funder. This was part of my FT role and the successful applicants and I are employed by the same organisation. The plan was always to have me help them initially, then to hire an ad-hoc freelancer/consultant to work solely on the project as it gains traction. As I know a fair bit about the project now they have asked if I would work on it outside of office hours and bill them for my time, rather than getting a freelancer/consultant.
Q1) Would this be seen as a conflict of interest and therefore not permitted by my employer? The pot of money that would pay a freelancer/consultant has been successfully bid for and is separate to where our wages are paid from
Q2) If I was permitted to do this, is it more likely that this would have to go down as overtime and I get paid my hourly rate as its calculated from my annual salary and receive these earnings in my wage slip which is taxed accordingly; rather than billing them directly and doing a separate tax return for these earnings?
I imagine i’ll probably have to just ask HR direct if it’s allowed; it’s just a bit of a confusing one as the pot of money and how they choose to spend it effectively/efficiently is the decision of those who were successfully awarded it.
TIA