Rupe

Yes, I'm not suggesting he should get EL as well. Just trying to explain that groundies brought in by him would be considered as employees regardless of there tax status.

Yes that's kind of what I was getting at. Decide what you actually need cover for. PL is for liability not for accidental damage although most policies do include that to some degree but would be unlikely to pay out for small damages and most have high excesses to prevent any minor claims.

Maybe, if he signed a legally drawn up contract and not just a bit of paper that you wrote up yourself. Same with banks, the small print is all there. If they walk I think you would struggle to get anything back.

Your right, many small scale ops dont have ariel rescue cover and even the ones that do often only have a junior with CS38 (and maybe 39) with so little experience that the chance of rescuing a decent climber from some of the positions they could get into is pretty small. But as Treequip says that would depend on the insurance underwriters to decide, the fact that is best practice does not necessarily matter. So, just to clarify, what is it you want your clients to be covered for? And what do you mean by bona fide and non bona fide groundies? Are you in a muddle as well? see my post above. Groundies working with you are employed by you(as far as insurance goes, regardless of self employed or not) and this inlcudes any damage/injury they cause to a third party, that would all be your repsonsiblity and covered by your public liablity if you chose to have any. So dont worry about if they are sub contractors or not, you cant sub contract out the grounding aspect of tree surgery (the person with you) although you could technically sub out the subsequent clear up of debris but I would guess thats very rare.

What I am getting at is that being self employed does not make you a sub contractor, and the definitions of either wont make you not an employee when working for someone on thier job.

Sorry, but your in a right muddle there. Any groundsman working with you on a job would be deemed your employee for that day, they can still be self employed but you have got them in to work with you so the employers liability is for your liability to them, i.e if they get injured while onh your job. The definaition of self employed is to do with where they choose to work i.e they call the shots with regards to who they work for and when, there are other factors, to determine self employment, described by HMRC such as taking "risk" on the job but this is very often misunderstood to mean "risk" as in danger or risk of damge to persons/property (and therefore needing insurance) when in fact this is not what is meant by "risk" in this instance. It means risk financially so its the same as fixed price for a job. So you cant really have a sub contractor groundsman, unless you do the climbing and they come along another time and clear up the rubbish for afixed price, that woul dbe sub contracting. The groundsman working with you is employed by you (or the firm you are both working for) regardless of self employed, this is why they dont need seperate PL cover.

You'll like it, honestly, its very good, easy going and will get you up and going on a saturday although I'm sure you dont need that. We have 250-280 people turn up to the cheltenham one now, its going to get out of hand and the council will possibly either ban it or at least ask it go somewhere else. Each week some park users complain that their enjoyment was ruined by so many runners.

Is that the bike that you did 47miles in 3h20 on??

Flippin ek! Well done!

Oh, if its a mile away then run or cycle to it!

Yeah, just go for it and let that be your benchmark. Its designed to get people fit (or fitter) not to test their fitness as such. Doing park run is training for park run. I started running again last year after a good 20yr gap of booze and fags and so I was a bit fitter before I did parkrun but it only started in cheltenham this year anyway. Definately dont waste time training for it while you could be doing it, run in the week if you want to improve faster but my advice is to use parkrun as its intended which is a FREE weekly motivator.

With a turnover that low what will your insurance actually be for? Remember that public liabilty insurance is (as the name suggests) to cover your liability to the public or a third party, it effectivley stops your client getting sued by someone (the third party) if they should suffer loss or injury. If working on your own then any claim against you by a third party won't hold up as you need to be working with someone else, i.e an employee, so...... You will then need employers liability aswell to cover your groundsman, (your liability to him, not the damage he might cause to a third party)

I got 22.31 this week. So a few seconds better than last week, but reasonably consistent which is good.

Good on you, sounds like a good way to get a new worker and someone off the dole. Remember though that them signing something to say they will pay back any training is not legally binding. They will always be free to walk away from your employment if they choose.

I usually drop mine on to my access line and then pull that out thus lowering the cambium saver to the ground.

Yes that can happen but unless the name is suggested to someone who lives in that cul de sac then it really doesn't matter. Also that kind of advertising only really works on a much larger scale, so that's where logo and image association comes in, and the returns are still minimal but a.5% increase in a massive turnover is worth the effort. So, local one off tree surgeons don't need to worry about it too much. Your name still has to be mentioned before that association is made, therefore the thing that is working (in the example above) is word of mouth.

Just doing another ticket IS update training, and if you have done all of them then you can hire an assessor for the day to watch you (and your whole team, plus any arb mates etc.) and they can call that update training. It depends on exactly what the FC want of course, they should tell you, but remember you dont HAVE to do wha they say, its a choice if you want to continue working for them or not, it has to be worth it financially.

I wouldnt worry about it. How much work would you actually get from you van parked at the front of a house, exspecially in a cul de sac. I know its good practice to be sign written but the amout of work coming from it, and from it alone, is minimal.

Even with a new contract its impossible to stop a person leaving your employment if they choose to, its it would be near impossible to get any money out them for the courses once they have left, BUT, if they continue in ARB they obviously wouldnt get a reference from you so they have to weigh that up really. But you can still put it in there contract that they pay you back for the training if they leave within a certain time. Another way of doing it is to say that there pay does not go up after they have tickets until a certain amount of time expires. So, for example if you pay £50 a day with no tickets, and £60 a day for CS30/31. then if you pay for them to do CS30/31 they dont actually get the pay rise until, lets say 50 working days later. Then that 50 days can be called experience/under supervision, after that you would pay them the extra but expect them to now be reasonably competant in chainsaw use. With regard to paying them for the days training, in almost every other industry a person would get paid for the days training. But again you could factor this in to their wages, like you do with holiday time, i.e holiday time is not pay for doing nothing its just your pay spread out over days when your on holiday. You could do the same with training.

Well done. That's a huge improvement!! not had my time yet but think it was good. Just done an hour in the pool as well.

Its more of a mess than a pile of shoes! and probably takes up more space.

Good luck with your search of course, but, are you a sub contractor or do you work with a team i.e. go and work with a tree company?? What I am getting at, of course, is that you dont need PL insurance to go and work with a tree company doing groundwork with/for them. Save your money and cancel it, unless you are taking on your own jobs aswell in which case you might need it but definatly dont mention it to any tree companies as it will just complicate things.

Yes, my point was that it doesnt matter to the industry if the shows die or not, and Arbtalkers have no duty to support the shows just to keep them going. If they are good and people want to go and have money to spend then they will go, if not they wont. The industry does not need the shows, the suppliers needs customers of course but they dont have to go to the shows. In fact, arbtalk provides a huge resource of pictures and of course opinions about all types of kit so it might be that the huge number of arbtalk members is the reason for less attendance at shows? We can see it all here for free! See you all on the Friday!

Put it on the fire where it belongs.......

I dont think there should be any obligation to attend shows, or to feel pressured into supporting them. They are trade shows after all, they need our money to exist and if we aint got any through the actual work which we do then the turnouts are going to be poor. And if the shows are poor then no one will go. We can mail order (most) of want we want and veiw it all on the tinternet, so there are plenty of choices. We the tree surgeons make this industry not the sellers of kit or training providers, they work for us not the other way round. That sounds harsher than its meant but what I mean is that the workers ARE the industry, the suppliers are secondary to that yet most make a lot more money, we should not feel any pressure to attend any shows. See you all on the Friday!!