Genuine self-employment 



Someone who is genuinely free to decide when, whether, with whom and on what terms to enter into each new contract or assignment is likely to be genuinely self-employed. 


The genuinely self-employed are not workers or employees. Instead they are businesses operating on their own account, selling goods and services at arms-length to other businesses and to their own customers. They take the business risk of failure and the financial rewards of success. They can employ their own staff and sub-contract work to others. 





The genuinely self-employed do not qualify for statutory employment rights such as 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).
They are also left out of pension auto-enrolment (see Chapter 4). The genuinely self-employed must make their own retirement provision except for the state pension, which they receive if they have paid enough years of NICs (see Chapter 4).




Since 1 October 2015, their health and safety protection has also been weakened, in a change to the law described by the TUC as one of the most dangerous pieces of health and safety deregulation ever enacted (Section 1, Deregulation Act 2015). Self-employed individuals whose activities pose no risk to the health and safety of others are no longer covered by health and safety law unless their activities are specifically listed in a schedule to the new regulations, the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 (General Duties of Self-Employed Persons) (Prescribed Undertakings) Regulations 2015. The listed activities are agriculture, asbestos, construction, gas, genetically modified organisms and railways. In February 2018, the European Committee of Social Rights declared these changes to be a breach of international law.