Gov may need to splash £245m per year on IT contractors – NAO

I think their concern is more around liability for making the wrong decision.

But you are entirely correct they just need to change contracts and working practices and stop treating us like temp employees.

Re: Outsource

You miss one thing.

All the crap code will be developed (sic) in India and fuck the cost saving being passed onto the Government Department.

Then they will use the T&M part of the contract to charge them twice, a third or even a fourth time to fix the shoddy stuff written in their Indian sweatshops.

Welcome to the world. I wanna get off.

Re: Outsource

i heard just yesterday of a public sector organisation that probably can't deliver a project without contractors: they had brought in an external "industry consultants" company, which then cherry-picked numbers to prove their own views, and said that 60-70% of original goal can be achieved if they are paid to help. The original team members are still confident 100% of original goal could still be achieved for same cost, if the budget had not been cut and the money spent on the external firm. However, given the appalling treatment of staff at an organisation running scared of IR35 changes, it's probably no longer possible - even if manglement change their minds, they've already spent too much money on the external supplier to be able to deliver the original plan.

Re: Why not put the NAO in charge of everything from the beginning?

Because it's easy to point out mistakes in retrospect; much harder to prevent them from being made in the first place.

Re: GDS Academy?

"GDS currently aims to train at least 3,000 people a year in digital skills in its academy."

Let me guess.

Rule 1. Ignore accessibility guidelines. Disabled or elderly folks can easily type in their telephone number without the aid of copy and paste. Paste not allowed, spaces not allowed, but don't tell the user that. Simply truncate the field if it's too large.

Rule 1a. Passwords. See Rule 1.

Rule 2. It is perfectly acceptable to force users to use a Beta version as long as you tell them it's Beta. Give no pointers whatsoever to a non-beta version.

Rule 3. Learn our Sign Language. (have a sick bag ready before clicking on that link).

Rule 4. Rewrite everything using Javasript and MongoDB.

Ooohh, would love to know more.

I'm starting a contract at a large central govt agency as well. They're actually sensible and know what they want (I know, I know), and how much they have to pay. Its quite well paid as I and they assumed IR35 would be in place when I started. Since neither of us knew, we did a deal on the daily rate which meant I took a bit of a chance and so did they.

Now if HMRC are doing a reverse ferret I will be a very, very happy man indeed. Can you provide any more information at all?

Thanks

Are you really self employed, or are you a salaried employee of your own limited company? If you're a salaried employee of your own limited company, then just pay yourself sick pay and holiday pay from the REVENUE you bill your customers. If you are truly "self employed" then get a decent accountant, or stop whinging. The problem with a lot of contractors is they see their daily rate as income to spend in one go, not REVENUE to run a business - even if it does only have one employee.

The 'Does not include Company Directors' clause

It used to be that you as the MD of a company could not claim ANY benefits if you made yourself redundant and closed your company down.

My local Jobcentre Nazis would gleefully tell me that when I tried to get JSA in the periods when there was no work at all on the horizon.

So you pay yourself above the minimum wage and hold the rest for the times when you are not on a contract. Good you think? Not a chance. You still get clobbered by the HMRC as being inside IR35. You just can't win. It is little wonder I threw in the towel and went permie.

HMRC only want to busineses to deal with the likes of Crapita, TCS and the rest. We are just a thorn in their side.