Is this a case of bogus self-employment/misrepresenting a worker?

[CranberryBread]

A few months ago I began working for a limited company on a supposedly freelance basis. I've never been a freelance worker before, and when I started I didn't know much about the technicalities. Various things are making me think that the workers are all basically employees and the company are falsely declaring us to be freelance to maximise their profits. The situation in brief:

• The vast majority of workers (except for the company owner's family members and a couple of others) are freelance, but the the handbook we were asked to agree to follow on joining describes us as staff.
• The handbook contains an exclusivity clause forbidding us from accepting work from any client we meet through this company and saying 'disciplinary proceedings' will be followed if this happens. The nature of these proceedings isn't discussed.
• The handbook stipulates that we must remain with the company for two years or else repay our full training costs.
• All freelancers must complete mandatory training before we can be offered any work. This training is provided by the company and is five full days of unpaid time (approximately 40 hours). Not only is it unpaid, but new freelance workers are expected to pay the training fee ourselves either upfront or by a monthly repayment plan. It's over £600 in total.

Aside from all this, it didn't take long for me to become unhappy with the work culture in general. I often feel as if my skills in the field aren't being respected and I'm being pushed to work in a way that goes against my professional and ethical judgement, so last week I told the company that I wouldn't be accepting any more work with them.

In reply I had an email from the HR person headed 'Resignation' (how can I resign when I'm freelance?), which stated that as I'm leaving within two years, I need to repay "training costs in full". Apparently - and I'm sceptical about this - the actual cost of my training was £1500 and I got it at a discounted rate as I would be working for them. I've double-checked all the documents they sent over when I started and this wasn't mentioned anywhere. They've said that they're withholding part of my last month's pay to cover the debt.

Does anyone know if this is a legitimate demand to make of a freelance worker, and if not, my best way of dealing with it? Presumably I can't take it to employment tribunal, even if my freelance status is only on paper.

I’d call ACAS.

You could take it to a tribunal, with part of the claim being to determine employment status. Based on what you have said, I am guessing that the only thing that you want is your money that they withheld back? If so, then they'd be idiots to resist a claim because even if they won (and I have some doubts they would) they would end up paying more in legal fees than they owe you!

In order to legitimately claim training costs back from an employee, an employer must jump through a number of hoops, and one of those is that the training costs must be provided up front, and you must sign a seperate agreement about repayment - it can't be a hidden cost and it can't be a generic "mention" in a handbook.

I'd suggest lodging a claim via ACAS for the repayment of monies illegally held back and a detemination of employment status. You have nothing to lose. They do.

Hi @CranberryBread , the set up certainly sounds dodgy. There is an employment status info on Gov.UK which may help - https://www.gov.uk/employment-status

ACAS may also be able to advise - https://www.acas.org.uk

https://www.gov.uk/employment-status/selfemployed-contractor

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/understanding-off-payroll-working-ir35

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/check-employment-status-for-tax

Thank you all for the advice. I'm going to contact ACAS. It's tricky for me to work out where I stand based on the info I've found online, as I'm classed as a freelance worker rather than self-employed. Before I got involved in this mess I didn't understand the distinction.

@EmmaMaria The main thing I want is the money they owe me, but if possible I also want them to be more transparent in their hiring process. They have difficulty recruiting anyone, which I suspect is due to other people being much more savvy and discerning about the situation than I was, but there have been several other instances of freelancers ceasing to work for them after a short time and at least one worker accused them of running a scam. It would be difficult to share more details without doxxing myself, but I think their hiring process lies in an unethical grey area without being technically illegal. Their adverts say "Full training provided", for example, but you aren't told that you'll be paying for this training until after the interview. In my case it was after I'd verbally accepted their offer. Of course it's still fine to back out at that point (and I've heard that this is exactly what most interviewees do) but I really needed the work and I'd turned down another offer in the interim because I thought this sounded like the best option for me. At the time I blamed myself for not clarifying the details at interview, but having worked with this company for a few months I've seen that vagueness and evasiveness to the point of dishonesty is part of the organisational culture - it is very difficult to get a straight answer about anything when you need one. I don't know if a tribunal could compel them to clean up their act, but it would be great if it could.

@CranberryBread - with respect, you do you and leave others to sort themselves. You won't change anything about how they recruit, you will just waste your time and energy.

I doubt you are freelance (which actually is a form of self-employment). One of the fundamental tests is that you are free to offer your services anywhere you like, and you said that you weren't allowed to.