Our new IR35 Health Check MOT service supports businesses that are currently unsure of whether their assessments are valid to avoid the financial and reputational risks associated with not meeting IR35 regulations.

The pandemic has created huge fluctuations in contingent labour requirements, with businesses turning to contractors to manage demand for their services and source niche or volume skillsets.

The 12-month delay to IR35 saw HR and talent teams granted more time than originally anticipated to determine whether their contractor workforce fell inside or outside of the legislation, while many contractors who previously job-hopped felt more inclined to remain with a trusted client as markets coped with some of the most turbulent social and economic conditions ever witnessed.

In the run-up to the delayed introduction of IR35 reform in the private sector – which eventually came into play in April 2021 – thousands of businesses used HMRC’s CEST tool to determine whether their contractors fell inside or outside of IR35. Despite HMRC saying the tool was fit for purpose, businesses have since discovered that may not have been the case. Several incorrect statuses assigned to contractors have been declared, with affected companies now at risk of being fined – despite taking HMRC’s own recommended steps to protect themselves.

While the IR35 reform is now enforced, HMRC has announced it will offer businesses a grace period to ensure their assessments are completed accurately. This is a crucial time to take a step back and ensure you’re entirely compliant, so to help clients achieve exactly that, we’ve launched a brand new IR35 Health Check MOT service.

The challenges of conducting an IR35 assessment in-house, without the support of a third-party advocate, are well documented and amongst other things, include:

• The need to allocate dedicated resources to assess each contractor individually
• The need to roll out new policies and procedures to manage the assessment process, in addition to hiring manager training
• Changing mindsets as to how contractors are treated in relation to employees. This covers the possible removal of benefits, such as staff parking and training, and issuing new hiring manager guidelines on how to engage with contractors in an evolving landscape
• The need to police your supply chain, as all suppliers have to carry out adequate assessments of their own
• The risk of significant financial penalties, as well as potential legal and reputational damage if assessments are found to have been completed inaccurately

Our new IR35 Health Check MOT service supports businesses with contingent workforces of all sizes to ensure their contractors have been assessed individually and is fully insured against the outcome as it’s backed by employment law experts, not just algorithms like alternative tools available today.

We aim to ensure that by using the service, businesses that are currently unsure of whether their assessments are valid can avoid the financial and reputational risks associated with not meeting IR35 regulations.

The service includes:

• A review of tools used during assessment of incumbent contractors leading up to April 6^th
• A review of all assessment outcomes
• A review of users’ ‘business as usual’ processes and procedures post-April 6^th
• Agency Worker Regulations (AWR) considerations
• Analysis of policies and procedures to identify any outstanding risks and potential for improvements to operations
• Use of Morson’s market intelligence tools and consultancy

Above all else, it provides users with the opportunity to review their IR35 position away from the pressures and time constraints that were present during the initial implementation phase, meaning they’re empowered to make more accurate and considered assessments, following our operational best practice and using our approved PSL of suppliers who are all FCSA regulated.

Our role as talent solutions specialists is to arm companies affected by IR35 with intimate knowledge of its regulations, and how they can thoroughly assess their workforce to remain compliant. Whether your contractor workforce is vast or tiny, we want to help you avoid the potential mistakes that might be incurred by your business’ individual practices, and offer you total confidence that despite IR35, there won’t be any hurdles in being able to access and utilise contingent labour.

Once you understand your responsibilities with IR35, you can better define your process for current and future contractors.

Let us conduct an IR35 Health Check MOT, and you’ll be armed with the clarity you need to move forward in line with the regulation rather than against it. To find out more get in touch at hello@morson.com or contact Morson compliance and assurance director, Phil Beardwood, directly at phil.beardwood@morson.com