Rupe

New addition to the fleet. Another bargain LDV that I couldnt say no to! I'd been after another for while but not sure what to get, toyed with tailifts etc but then this turned up, Extra long crew cab 2005 with 58K miles for £2400. bargain! The back of the cab is already boxed out but I had to change the shelves a bit, and it has a fuel storage box under the bed that takes two 20L jerry cans. We will use as a back up, and to carry logs and stuff. I might make some chip sides that can clip on if need be, but nothing fancy. The old truck is still going well, still only 60 something K miles. New steering box and new tipper pump but the tipper part is 20years old as it came of my old '95 reg LDV.

In my case, I currently have two workers. Both self employed. One is a climber, a very good climber. He's a freelance climber, like Rich Rule or Adam Bourne. He works for about five other companies and is always booked up. I have to book him up weeks in advance and if he's already booked up then its my tough luck. He mostly does groundwork for me or climbs as a second climber if we have another groundie in. He does not have any insurance and I would not let him waste money on insurance as he doesnt need it because he doesnt do his own jobs. I trust him with my life, and with all my kit, and I trust him to not damage or kill anyone. I trust him so much that he does not need insurance, my insurance covers my trust in him. If he drops a clanger then it will go on my insurance. Of course I have EL. If he got seriously injured while working for me I'll help him fill in the claim forms. I also hire a groundie on self employed basis. Now this groundie actually has his own tree business. Sign written vans, website the lot. And of course his own insurance. He's trying to get his own business off the ground but has very little experience. Hes got climbing tickets etc but he doesnt climb for me. I've seen him up a tree once and it was painful to watch! So when he has his own jobs he gets by or hires a climber, thats his business, nothing to do with me. I get him in now and then, but only when hes free, so I know hes definatly self employed, they both are. Even though the groundie has his own business, has his own insurance and to be fair he could send his grandmother as a substitute and there'd be little drop in performance, none of that makes him a bona fide subcontractor. If he drops a clanger or lets go of a lowering rope (he has rigging tickets too) then thats my fault. I trust him to do his best but most of all I trust my self to not give him anything beyond his cababilities, and therefore MY insurance back this up. Not his, and never will. And if he seriously injured himself on my job I'd help him fill in the claim forms. Oh, neither of them would accept a full time or part time (paye) job if I offered it to them, this also helps re enforce their self employment. They have their own PPE, but as an employer I understand that its my responsibility to ensure they are using it. For the climber, its my responsibility to check his loler stuff etc. Am I doing anything wrong? I dont think so. I am using genuinely self employed people but they work WITH me. Occasionally I send them both out to work together without me but that is still my responsibility. At no time are either of them BFSC. I am quite sure that any of the genuine freelance climbers or groundies that frequent this forum would be happy to work with me under the conditions described above.

So wrong I dont know where to start! You cannot sub contract part of a team! What if the climber drops a clanger because the groundie let go of the rope? If the groundie is self employed then is it his insurance? The person doing the job, i.e. the company "aardvark" is responsible for whatever happens on that job. If the self employed climber is rubbish then Aardvark is responsible for choosing a rubbish climber, if the climber ignored instruction then Aardvark is responsible for using a climber that ignores instruction. If the climber is under the influence then Aardvark is responsible, etc etc. You can wrongly hire a self employed person and in fact he is employed and the HMRC will take dim view of it. In that instance you need PL to cover his action. And this goes on all the time, the OP is talking about full time as subcontractor which is clearly wrong in the eyes of HMRC. You can also legitimately hire a self employed person and he becomes an employee for the day. He does not become a sub contractor and still does not need insurance. If you hire someone, legitimatly self employed but working with you, then you need insurance. What else is your insurance for? You dont need it for yourself? If they drop a clanger than its your fault for hiring them and your insurance. You cant pass the buck. Unless you use BFSC, i.e. another company. Dont get too hung up on the fixed price bit, thats not a definition, you could use BFSC on a day rate if you wanted but that would be bad business, the whole point of sub contracting work would be to make a profit, and as you wont have anything to do with how the work is done then its better business sense to have it on fixed price, but I didn't mean that as a definition as its not. I agree with you that jobs can be fixed price or reimbursable and that on its own doesn't effect/define employment status. I don't actually quite know what you mean by reimbursable but I think I get your drift. Only when Using BFSC and having no control of when the job is done or how its done can you then use the BFSC insurance. (only if your insurance includes the use of BFSC) And its in this instance that the BFSC could use a substition as its none of your business who does the work. Instead of reading leaflets try and look at how this industry actually works. No self employed person sends a substitute, how could they? They would have to employ that substitute. Only a BFSC can choose who does the work and how. And self employed person is not a BFSC, but can still be genuinly self employed, and still doesnt need insurance. If you use self employed people to work with you then your are responsible for their actions.

Another way of looking at it.......... If a self employed person has his/her own PL insurance then that insurance is for working as a sub contractor. (insurance companies call it Bona Fide Sub Contracting (BFSC)) That is the only type of insurance there is. There is no insurance for self employed people to work with other companies as part of that companies team, it doesnt exist. Now, we all know what a BFSC is. Its another tree company given a job for a fixed price which they then get on with on their own with their own vehicles/kit groundsman etc. So, when something goes wrong in the scenarios given above where a climber is working with a tree company, the climber is not working as a BFSC so his insurance is not valid. A climber on their own cannot be a BFSC, therefore their insurance, which they shouldnt have, is not valid.

In the other examples given above, the company carrying out the work is responsible, not the climber. If the climber decides to bosh out the top without rigging it as instructed, then the company doing the work is responsible. Should have hired in a more reliable climber but the choice to use one climber over another is effectively the chosen method for that job, so if its high a high risk job and you choose to hire in someone that might not listen to instruction and doesnt have the skills to know what risk is acceptable then thats a business decison that went wrong and precisely what PL is for.

No, sorry, it doesnt work like that. Drop the word subby, it means nothing at best and at worst its misleading. Youve employed a self employed person, they are working for you. Its your choice to hire them and your insurance must cover that. Your self employed person does not need to have insurance, so there is no "should" have it. Any damage caused while on YOUR job is your responsiblity, if the climber is negligent then you are responsible for hiring a negligent person.

So that means your on their insurance and yours is not required (and in fact not valid). That was the point I was getting at there. The other point I was making was just that EL does not replace PL but I think that was just a mis understanding, hodge does it have it right.

Yes, thats correct. But when we talk about subbies/self employed having their own insurance we mean their own PL. They dont need it because the person they work for has PL that covers the work the subbie does. So, where you said the subbie doesnt need insurance as the company should have EL this is incorrect. The companies EL does not replace the indivuals PL, its a totally seperate issue.

Of course you make your own assessments as you go along, we all do. But ultimatly the company you are working for does the risk assessment for the job, and that means their insurance covers your actions. And if they dont then if anything goes wrong they need to quickly fill one in! As I understand it though, if the boss man is onsite then a verbal assessment is fine, so we all discuss who the jobs going to go, where the signs go, who does what etc. and that discussion goes on all day, thats a risk assessment. Not always is it necessary to actually write anything down.

And do you sign into that risk assessment?

When you go subbie climbing, do the companies you work for do an onsite written risk assessment? I'm not saying they should, thats upto them, just asking thats all.

Your in a bit of a muddle here, a confusion that comes up often. You say the contract climbers insurance means nothing, and you are quite correct, this is where I rant on that its pointless a hired in climber having his own insurance (of course he can have it for his own jobs if needs be) because hes part of the tree companies insurance for that job. So you are correct at that point. But please dont say that the company hes climbing for should have employees liability to cover him as that is a different insurance. The work that he does is covered by the companies public liability insurance, that is why he doesnt need his own. so your right in that part. Employees liability insurance does not cover the liability that the employee/employer has to the public. Do you see what I mean? Your right that the employer should have the EL (and in fact that is the only "legal" requirement) but that covers the employers liability to that employee, and it does not replace or make up for the employees actions to a third party i.e the public. So in short EL does not cover the lack (or non requirement of) PL. It is a completely different thing. So, your right, but very wrong at the same time. EL is a totally different thing, employers have it to protect their liabilities to/from their workers.. Public liability protects your liability to a third party (client or public) and the work that anyone does for you, self employed or not, is covered by that, so the EL does not cover what the self employed person does, thats covered already. Of course its all different is a company uses proper sub contractors but of course that is not what we are talking about here, no self employed worker is actually a subbie, contracts or not, they are hired in workers. Its all fine, as long as the worker defines his availability and works for others. the case of three crews working full time but being self employed is wrong and that company deserved to pay all the back tax. And as for zero hours contracts, that's only acceptable, (in any trade) where the worker is totally happy with it. There have been cases on here where workers cant make their rent because they dint get any hours for a week or so and yet aren't able to work for anyone else, that is criminal in my humble opinion and as a community we should actively discourage it. Side note: Years ago you couldnt get PL without EL because insurance companies said you cant work on your own so you need a groundie so you must have EL, and they were right in this. The only reason they now sell PL on its own is because of the number of idiots that call themselves sub contractors when they are not and ask for PL as a subbie to cover what they do when working for another company. The insurance companies know that this is worthless and has no validity but of the person taking the policy says "subbie" they sell them sub contractors PL insurance. If anyone has any examples of a hired in climber making a mistake and an insurance claim being made, and paid, through his insurance company WITHOUT going through the insurance of the company actually doing the job then I would really love to be proved wrong. Remember subbie climbers, you are not the ones doing the job, even if you are up the tree doing the cutting, its still the company you are working for that is doing the job, even if the boss isnt there. He chose you to do the work and he has (or should have) insurance (PL) to cover his decision to hire you. You do not need your own PL!!!!!! Even if your **** at your job and you kill a bus full of handicapped children, its your employers fault. If you injure yourself because of your employers negligence (he sent you out with a faulty chainbrake on a saw for example and you cut yourself) then you sue him and then he needs his EL. Got it??

One day a week is part time employment, as they are then not free to choose what work they do on that day. Not saying don't do it, but I don't think that's self employment. If you have employees already then it should be easy to employ these other guys as part time?

Not sure how I'll use it. It's actually a bit wobbly. It would be better bolted directly onto a helmet, maybe I'll adapt an old helmet for it.

I'm all for self employed groundies and climbers, but I doubt there are any out there that have relationship with with the main contractor ( I dont like to use the word boss, as that implies employment) that would allow them to send a substitute! I have self employed groundies and climbers, I use then because I know of their skillset. If I book them for a day and someone else turns up I would not be impressed! Of course, if the replacement did the work to the same standard or efficiency then thats fine, but then I might as well hire the replacement next time, as I am sure he would be a self employed worker for my self employed worker so therefore able to take on his own clients.

I dont have a mac, only a slightly old desktop. Not ancient, 4 years old. Last time I tried to edti HD it had a fit! Hoping new software might help. Will get a new PC this year though. Anyway. Basic selfie stick, my little drift camera mounts straight onto the end. Then I mounted a helmet mount on the fat end of the selfie stick, using an ice axe mount that i had lying around which has a 1/4 thread and then a bike light mount which bolts on and wraps the selfie stick in place! I like the spike cam idea! I have adhesive pad mounts for my camera so it will go straight on. Also they will stick to a rigging plate quite well!! Oh, I dont have any climbing kit at home so have used my skiing helmet in the photos!

Point 2 from above: You should have other clients.... Well the guy has been offered full time work "for a while" so he's not going to have other clients "for a while" I think it depends on how long "a while" is? If its a year then you wont have 25% of invoices from "other clients". But if you pay your tax you might be ok. Its the employer thats in the wrong. If they want you for a while, then employ you for a while, then stop employing you. Having your own kit doesnt help much, many workers have their own kit. In the building trade all workers have their own kit, but then they are paid under CIS so tax is deducted at source. In some ways it would be better for arbs to be employed under CIS but we dont have to. For now its just a matter of fudging the books and its all ok. If you want to fudge it then dont issue weekly invoices!! Or daily ones, never mention any day rate on your invoices. SO if you get £600 a week, invoice £235, then £485, then etc etc. dont put days worked, just jobs done. Oh, as for insurance! Well, yes, you can have your own insurance if you want, and it might help to show you are self employed, but you dont need it if working with another company. Your not sub contracting as a seperate entity so you dont need insurance. As said before its the company employing you that is dodging the system, they are taking you as self employed so no holiday pay, probably no pay for cancelled wet days, and no gaurantee of 5 days a week. So why on earth anybody would pay for insurance (that wont be valid) to show self employment in order for another company to **** them up the **** is quite beyond me! I may have mentioned this before!

Cheers mate. Which video was that then? Are you sure it was mine? I'll try and make a few more, your going to love the helmet mounted selfie stick I've made!! Can you remind me what editing software you use? I still haven't actually edited any HD footage yet!

you can still climb on both ends of rope if you want. Zig zag (or any other mechanical ascnder) on one end, prussik on the other. Or two ropes with a zig zag (oaoma) on each rope. Most use a lanyard as second rope but do whatever your comfortable with.

Not had much spare time for any editing recently so this is just an uncut clip. Drifting limbs (and eventually the whole tree) from one garden, with no access, into next doors garden where we had already done a load of work and had our chipper in there. River underneath and tree right on the bank so hardly any standing space below the tree but we got it all over into next door ok and right into the chipper. Only two clips, new camera, hadnt quite got the hang of it yet! [ame] [/ame] [ame] [/ame]

Watched the rest of the video. I thought reg was about to fall asleep at one point, cool as ever! I can see that as a first piece of lowering kit they would be great, and as said already, cheaper,tougher, lighter and more compact is all good and reason enough to use them. We did some branch removal on a large cedar the other day, not a full removal, and some retrievable riging points would have been great and carrying less kit to the job would be great too, but we managed well with what we have. I guess I'm lucky in having the GRCS and the same groundie using it for many years, its his skill not mine that gets jobs done smoothly and he never messes up, so we have a good sytem that we trust and know very well. If I had these rings I would definitely use them.

Is that a new thing then? Mine has a fairlead on the opposite side but thats not quite as good as a pigtail.

Show the loler guy some good condition blocks and leave it at that!

Just had a look at the beggining of the video, will watch the rest later. First small point re spiderjack, has anyone tried one using a harken hexaratchet pulley as a friction saver? That might be the best of both worlds, friction on descent, no friction on ascent. Anyway, moving on to rings............ I like the simplicity of the rings, lightweight, smaller pack size and I'm guessing cheaper than a bag full of ISC/DMM blocks. I also like any innovation in the industry and will do my best to keep up, even though I have less and less time to spend on arbtalk these days, being an international pro triathlete is time consuming, I'm also fund raising to help save my local pub which appears to be going out of business!! I see where spreading some friction around is a good thing and can make less friction at the base which gives greater control to the ground crew, but Tim is right in that it puts more weight into a smaller section of the rope. My concern is why would you want less control at the base? With the right friction bollard and operator you should have complete control, and if friction is spread around the tree then the ground worker has some of the control taken away from him? One of the limitations of the GRCS is that the pigs tail is on oneside. (I would prefer both sides) meaning you only have 1,2 or 3 wraps rather than 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3 etc. which would give greater control. Not that you can mkae any adjustments when the load is on the move, but neither can you when using rings. So that adjustment of friction, from one turn or two, is done by the groundie with communication from the climber. It would be difficult for the climber to try and explain how much friction has been put into the sytem by the rings or an addition of an extra re direct, but with practice this shouldn't be a problem. But anyway, the difference in friction between 1,2 and 3 wraps on a GRCS is taken up with the groundie and a decent pair of gloves. We ensure gloves are part of the system, with them you have variable friction between 1 and 2 wraps and between 2 and 3 wraps, making a totally controllable friction system, with friction being added or removed (to a degree) while the load is in motion, something that will be a lot harder if soem friction is used up in the tree. So I even though this might be usefull occasionally, and useful if using a smaller diameter bollard or flying capstan, or with a less experienced operator, I dont see that this is an overall benefit of the rings. Also I like multi point rigging and the whole point of that is specifically to dissipate load throughout a much longer piece of rope. I'd better go and watch the rest of the vid..................

self employed Groundie chipper operator needed in cheltenham Pm me.