Self-employment

The genuinely self-employed are not workers or employees. They have very few employment rights. In particular, they are not entitled to the National Minimum Wage, sick pay or holiday pay, they must supply their own tools and equipment and are responsible for their own tax and national insurance contributions (NICs).

Self-employed workers are entitled only to the basic state pension, currently £115.95 per week (2015-16), which they receive as long as they have paid 30 years of NICs. The self-employed are also left out of the new pension auto-enrolment legislation, which UCATT says has created yet another spur for false self-employment.

Some self-employed workers will be protected under the employment provisions of the Equality Act 2010, where they are integrated into the organisation receiving their services and work under its control (Windle v Secretary of State for Justice [2014] UKEAT/0339/113/RN). The genuinely self-employed — those who operate an arms-length business on their own account — are not covered. Neither are those who opt to supply their services through an intermediary (Halawi v WDFG UK Limited trading as World Duty Free UK [2013] UKEAT 0166/13/0410) (see page 40).

The health and safety of self-employed workers will no longer be adequately protected following changes to the law by the last government, described by the TUC as one of the most dangerous pieces of health and safety deregulation ever enacted. Section 1 of the Deregulation Act 2015, if enacted, will remove health and safety protection from 4.2 million self-employed workers. Detailed regulations will be needed to flesh out this change, which is not currently in force.

To be genuinely self-employed, you should genuinely be doing business on your own account and providing services to your own clients and customers. HMRC has advice on its website as to what amounts to genuine self-employment.