Clearview National January 2015 - Issue 158 | Page 16

INDUSTRYNEWS

Addressing new
‘Self-Employed’
Legislations
Ionic Recruitment specialises
in staffing solutions within the
Construction, Maintenance and Facilities
Management market sectors.
»»Martyn Makinson, Managing
Director, talks to Clearview about the skills
shortage within the construction and building
industry and offers inside knowledge on the
importance of a new legislation coming in to
affect early next year that makes it compulsory
for employment agencies to report individuals
that are not taxed as employees to HMRC,
a legislation which has put the entire
recruitment industry on caution.
Martyn explains: “The building and
construction industry has recently experienced
a surge on employment, and the number
of skilled workers needed to fill this gap in
employment is, at the moment, lacking.
“During the recession, where confidence
in the building sector was at an all-time low,
building professionals were wary of changing
employers. As market conditions have
improved people have become more confident
about changing jobs and companies need to
act fast to implement retention strategies or
lose their ‘top talent’.
The government introduced a new
legislation in April 2014, clamping down on
false self-employment. Recruitment agencies
are therefore now required to ensure all
workers supplied to a business, and who no
longer pass HMRC’s test for being selfemployed, are treated as full employees, and
added to payroll appropriately. By April 2015,

it will also become
compulsory for
employment agencies
to report individuals
that are not taxed
as employees to
HMRC.
Commenting on a recent article in The
Guardian, Martyn says: “Britain has been
dubbed the self-employment capital of
western Europe with 4.5 million classed as
self-employed, accounting for more than
15% of the labour force. Many people
working in building are genuinely selfemployed, howev \