Sub contracting for company owners.

[adbat234]

I have just started up this year in the tree work business (But done it for 5 years as an employee of various companies) and was wondering what rules i am bound to if i sub contract work out to people. For example insurance, taxes NI contributions. Im not naive enough to think i can just pass work on and take a slice of the profits but i may also have a great oppurtunity coming my way so dont want to miss out. Your wealth of experince is appreciated guys and gals. Ta.

[Dean O]

do you have a selection criteria for chosing subcontractors: making sure you can trust the subbies standard of work and standard of safety is important as it rests on your head. but is a good way way of getting through a large volume of work when you cant be in two places at once.

 

you all need your usual insurances and compliances.

[adbat234]

Thats the bit i dont know about , insurances and compliances. Explanations and answers in this area are needed. <<<Confused. Ta

[Mesterh]

A lot depends on if you tell them what to do. ie turn up at such a site at x oclock til x oclock and I will pay you £XXX if you do this treat them as employees and cover them accordingly.

[Rupe]

If you have your own insurance then you should check what it says about cubcontracting work out. It might say you can't do it at all on your policy?

[Rupe]

Are you subcontracting work to tree companies?? Or getting guys in to do work for you?

 

If the former then why would you bother worrying about NI and tax? The employer/boss of the subcontracted in company would be paying his employees.

[Kev Stephenson]

Speak to your insurance co, I had a long discussion with my insurance company after contracting someone in who had a different idea to me.

 

They said as I had quoted the job and I was invoicing the client the work was entirely on my insurance even if i wasn't on site. I was saying that as I had handed the entire job to person x (who quoted me for doing it and were invoicing me for money) and I wasn't going to be onsite then the work was being carried out by person x and any cockups made were entirely the responsibility of person x. My insurance company agreed with me. If you are not on the site then you cannot be held responsible for mistakes/accidents.

 

However if you get a subbie climber in and you are stating which branches are to come off or are working on the same tree/job (i.e you are in control of the work site as principle contractor) then any cockups will need to be handled by your insurance company.

 

It is a very grey area and my insurance co recommended carrying employers insurance that covered the use of bona-fide subcontractors, at least then the damage will be paid for and the insurance companies will then argue between themselves to recover monies if necessary.

[ukminch]

I'm sure part of my policy is contractors liability or something like that, basically covers me if a contractor stuffs up or is negligent in anyway shape or form.

 

It's actually more of a mine field than you realise, as you are actually responsible for them, and accordingly should audit them to check that they are fully compliant and record the findings. If you don't you can still be liable even if you don't know anything about the job whatsoever.

 

In practice, price the job, sub it out, pay the subby, get paid eventually everyones a winner!!

 

R

[Rupe]

That all sounds right, confusion again with the use of terms, bona fide subcontractors and subbie climbers being such totally different things.

 

We should all stop refering to self employed climbers as subbies when they are not.

 

As long as the bona fide subcontractors have proper insurance then original contractor shoudl be ok, but if not then the responsibilty would fall back on you.

[adbat234]

To be honest it will be a couple of guys who are out of work at the mo and i am giving them some work to do. Its basically a tidy up job with chipping and tidying up a site behind someone who has felled the trees allready. Not a lot could go wrong(jinx). The lads are cs30-31 Qualified which is all that would be needed for this work. I dont have PL insurance as i only do a minimal amount of tree work and would pay more in insurance than i earn for part time tree work. <<Want the work but not if it could go horribly wrong.