Contractor advice (civil service)

[Guitarb]

I used to work in the civil service as a grade 7 permanent employee but recently became a contractor at another government department in a grade 6 technical role. I started this week.

my new team have sent me an invite to an away day next week, but as a contractor do I need to go? I thought part of being a contractor was being able to have some distance with office politics and organisational culture. So I’d like to decline it but also don’t want to get on the wrong side of anyone! I feel this early on into the role, I’d be better off learning more about my lead area by getting actual work done as opposed to the ice breaker type activities that will occur during the away day.

my team is made up of a few contractors based around the country, but most of the staff are permanent employees and I think business support just extended the invite to me out of politeness as opposed to anyone wanting me there?

If you’re working 9.30 to 5.30 and finish at 5.24 that’s an easy round up to full day.
Are you working with an umbrella company (for example, Giant)? If that sort of timesheet I round up or down - whichever closest - to the nearest quarter. So, quarter of a day, half a day, three quarters or full day.
A lot of civil service offices have an internal timesheet to track time spent for analysis purpose, to allocate resource and funding to a project for example. This will be more detailed and I’d round up/down to the nearest 5 minutes.

+1 to what everyone has said

ask your agency who you are contracting through how many hours count as a day. It may also say this in your contract. It will normally be either 7, 7.5 or 8 hours

Then just log your timesheet to correspond to a full day. Don’t worry about exact start and finish time.

If you genuinely haven’t worked a full day, adjust to log either 1/2 or 1/4 days. But ALWAYS round up.

Very occasionally I’ve been in a situation where I am working very ad hoc hours. In that case I’ve usually kept a separate detailed log of exact hours worked, but submitted timesheet rounded to half days. I’ll sometimes include a note in the comments field of the timesheet showing what I’ve done eg if it’s a 8 hour day contract and I worked 1 h on Monday and 3 h on Tuesday, I might submit a quarter day for both days and state that I’ve timesheeted 1h for Tues against the Monday, or put a half day on Tue and state that I’ve timesheeted the 1h from Monday against the Tuesday

Thanks. So the payment process isn’t particularly clear by either the agency or department, both have kind of glossed over it. I have tried to stick to a 9-5. But I don’t know how they may react if I do eg 37.5 hours instead of 37 hours and whether they would want anything over the contracted hours authorised in advance even though that time has been worked. That’s why I’m not sure whether to record after 5pm…

My work laptop wasn’t available until Thursday and had to travel to different offices to collect tech, and then complete their endless mandatory learning within my first week (so by today). So yeah, unfortunately this week I did have to work a bit longer than contracted to meet their ask and also to account for travel. In the CS it wouldn’t be a problem but I’m not sure if they’ll be annoyed about paying a contractor more.

My timesheets only allow for full or half days on my current job.
Previous contracts I’ve put the contracted hours so 7.5 or 8.
I’ve never had to put a start and end time.

Id also not do the away day as I’m contracted to work on projects not teams.

Sorry replied before seeing your update, are you on a day rate? Or hourly?

I’m on an hourly rate.

I think you need to clarify this with them. I’ve always contracted on a day rate. And always treated extra hours etc as “it’ll come out in the wash”. I’ve never billed for working an extra half hour or hour. Even when working long hours during COVID if I worked Mon-Fri I billed for 5 days.

Personally I would expect a contractor to take responsibility for their hours and for getting their work done in the time they have been contracted/assigned for. At this level it’s very unusual for it to be like temping where you are working hour to hour and getting paid like that. I would expect they have a budget for your role, and you billing more than that, esp unexpectedly, could cause issues. So if your contract says 37 hours then no you shouldn’t bill for 37.5 unless you’ve cleared it. And frankly it looks a bit petty and clock watchy. If it’s a big issue for you just take that time back on another day!

What does your contract or any paperwork from when you were hired actually say? If you are timesheeting and billing anything different you need to clear that with them.

@Daffidale I haven’t given exact time figures, however I want to be clear that’s it’s the long distance travel that’s the issue ie having to travel to sites I am not based at to sort the IT. They didn’t have the tech ready on my first day. Usually CS can get travel time back or have it paid out, but are contractors just supposed to take the hit? I could attempt to claw the time back covertly but I feel that’s dishonest no?

Beyond that, the mandatory work they wanted could only be completed on their systems so only after the IT was collected. I queried the deadline but was still told it needs to be done in first week.

@Daffidale also I haven’t actually received any proper paperwork. I have the agency forms but that is generic ie confirms hourly rate. But doesn’t reference CS dept name, amount of working hours, timesheet process etc. It just basically says it’s paid a week in hand and to use their website to submit timesheets (of which I don’t have access to).

Urgh that does sound very awkward. If the travel will be a regular thing as part of your duties I would try to clear that up ie clarify that travel to other sites takes places during working hours.

If it’s a one off to pick up a dept laptop you may have to just absorb it, or ask if you can “take the time back” in a later week (ie claw it back overtly). I’d normally expect some out of hours travel within a contract - for example I imagine there will be some travel hours for this away day. And I might then start a bit later the next day or something. But again tricky as I’ve always worked off days not hours.

tbh as a contractor this is partly what you get paid the premium for. But also I think tracking OT like this isn’t usual at this level in CS. I know people do it in more junior roles or where there is proper flexi working in place. But at a certain point unfortunately being a bit flexible and absorbing some extra work kind of becomes part of the job.

HOWEVER it may be that your role is a bit different and there is an expectation they are paying by the hour not on a day rate. Are there other contractors doing a similar role you can ask?

otherwise perhaps send an email setting out simply the hours you’ve worked this week and asking how they’d like you to timesheet that. OR you could submit an accurate timesheet for this week - for which i would round to nearest half hour or hour - and then check on Monday that they are happy with how you’ve done that.

@Daffidale thanks, I’ll consider a day rate in future contracting roles if I don’t switch back to PAYE. I’m in a senior enough role where long distance travel is common and working longer to meet deadlines is standard. Doubt pushing back on deadlines would be valid, I’d probably risk not getting the contract extended! It’s definitely an hourly rate & a weekly amount of hours though.

My team has a dozen contractors. I think they are all being paid hourly based on the agency being used. There wasn’t a day rate in the listings but rather a range of hourly rates.

It’s definitely an hourly rate & a weekly amount of hours though.

Is that a specified weekly total hours? If so timesheet for that amount.