Terminating a Contract Lytham St Annes

Status of Employment: There are a number of issues raised by your question. The first is whether the cleaner is actually self-employed (working under a ‘contract for services’) or in fact your employee (working under an ‘employment contract’). There is no detailed defintion of who is an employee incorporated into the legislation and even if the employer pays the PAYE and NI they may still be able to establish that there was no employment relationship but this is more common in the construction industry. Some guidelines for the purpose of determining employment status have now been laid down in various cases over the years. The factors which have emerged from those cases are summarised below and are very much based on ‘control’ and ‘mutuality of obligation’. A brief summary of how employee status is worked out is based on the following questions: who controls the work done particularly with respect to the right to delegate, send a replacement, or hire staff to help; whether the work has to be done within strict times set by the principal; who provides the tools for the job; and what control is exercised over how the work is done. The higher the degree of control then the more likely it is that an employment relationship exists. This question is of crucial importance and yet is very difficult to answer. A good tip is that a person who provides cleaning services on commercial premises under a contract for services would usually be expected to have a Health and Safety policy and insurances to cover accidents, etc. If they haven’t then are more likely to be an employee. Terminating the contract: If the cleaner is truly self employed then it will be a matter of terminating the contract for services and selecting another supplier. It will depend on the nature of the agreement as to whether there is a contractual obligation to compensate the cleaner. However, note that if the current cleaner is provided to you by a third party cleaning services company then TUPE legislation will come into play and you should take advice because your cleaner may be entitled to transfer to the new contractor. You could start by reading up on previous TUPE answers here at www.smallbusiness.co.uk . On the other hand, if the cleaner is in fact your employee and you wish to terminate the contract you will need to look at the five fair reasons for dismissal. You didn’t say what your reason for terminating the contract is, so I thought I would cover the headlines on the five fair reasons for dismissal. They are Conduct, Capablilty, Legality, Redundancy, or the so called ‘catch all, Some Other Substantial Reason and it looks as though a sixth reason is coming in by the back door since the anticipated introduction of the Age Discrimination legislation ‘Retirement’ is likely to be treated more formally than handing over a gold watch and a final pay slip! If it is the case that you are simply outsourcing your cleaning for the first time then you are effectively making an employee ...

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