The Tory way of governance

There may be other ways of paying, but the one I outlined above is common for teacher supply agencies.

They're really a con, but it's the payroll companies and agencies who are raking it in, not the teachers.

Very occasionally, I earned over the tax threshold for a particular month, which was then rebated next month. I wasn't left to pay my own tax like the genuinely self-employed.

I actually worked for a number of agencies and could only nominate one as my main employer, so didn't have any tax free threshold for the agencies for which I worked infrequently. I had to wait until the end of the tax year to claim back overpaid tax.

Two other disadvantages for teachers working this way are that there is no holiday pay, which there should be for all agency workers, and no Teacher Pension contribution.

PS. Schools pay more for agency workers too.

PPS. The Channels Islands payroll companies aren't liable for UK tax.

Ooops! Channel Islands (no 's')

Can anyone give an 'Idiot's Guide' to the tax changes suggested? I really don't understand it. Are the agency workers currently paying as self-employed? If not why is the agency they work for not calculating their tax?

Sorry, lots of questions but I am floundering.

Sorry dd - just seen your explanation. I am always several post behind sadly.

No problem! I don't know how the changes will be enforced.

It was never a problem in 'ye olde days' when local authorities kept a list of available supply teachers and paid them directly. Schools paid less, teachers were paid more and tax, NI and pension contributions were paid correctly.

I think one of the problems is that rather than using supply or PTVH teachers in schools and colleges when necessary it is now part of the business model. The same has happened with nursing and, presumably, in government offices. Government cannot expect to get the same for less money. If people are employed on occasional basis or for short periods with no pension, etc., they will charge more.

But teachers don't receive more! The agencies do.

Many schools get round hiring agency supply teachers by employing cover supervisors. They don't have to be qualified, are paid about half a qualified teacher's salary and don't have to meet professional standards. They're not supposed to cover lessons for more than a few sessions, but they do. They're also not supposed to have to plan and mark, but many do.

At one stage, part of my responsibility was to organise cover. I calculated that over 10% of lessons were being taught by unqualified staff.

It's hard not to feel angry and frustrated by the employment of teachers in the way daphnedill describes. Social work, nursing etc all operate in the same kind of way. The agencies are raking in loadsamoney. It also means that agency staff don't have the same commitment to the school/social work team etc, than permanent staff do. I don't say all permanent staff are superdooper of course but loyalty and longer term commitment to the service/education being delivered isn't always a negative!

When I was a school governor we resorted to employing permanent cover supervisors as it was much, much cheaper than supply teachers, and most supply teachers did not attempt to teach. If a teacher is ill for 3 weeks you have to pay their full salary AND effectively close to double their salary to the supply agencies. Because agencies add a huge margin to what the teacher pays.
Unfortunately the teaching profession does tend to have more sick days than office staff. This may be because you do need to feel on top of things to cope with a 1:30 ratio!
The new IR35 rules are designed to tighten up on "consultants" aren't they. It should not affect agency workers though should it? Because they are "employed" by the agency and are not invoicing. ??

The Capita scam sounds like a way of avoiding the EU rules that protect agency workers.

I don't really understand from what's been written in the media how it will work. I'm no longer involved, so don't take much notice.

As an agency worker, I use to invoice some of my agencies and submit pay claims directly to the payroll companies. I was never employed by any of the agencies.

I soon realised what was going on and only worked then for the agencies which paid me directly. My take home pay was generally higher and they added on a bit for holiday pay.

PS. I managed a team of six cover supervisors. There was constant tension between SLT and me, because SLT wanted them to 'teach', sometimes for weeks on end. Two of them were good (both graduates) but the other were...err...not so good. As a supply teacher, I most certainly did attempt to teach !

The supply teachers are actually supposed to deliver the work left by the actual teacher JessM and cover supervisors are not supposed to teach. I am aware of one who have 'covered' for terms for a head teacher (who didn't have much teaching on her timetable in the first place).

dd what matters is that the schools, colleges or hospitals do not end up paying less they just annoy the staff. Nurses know that more money per hour is going out for the agency staff but the agency staff do not get paid more (and do not get the in-work advantages) so some will do no more than they are contracted to do.

have

It's not just Capita; most of the big teaching agencies operated in that way. It used to be common (I don't know if it still is) and apparently legal.

PS. Their latest scam is to employ supply cover supervisors . I'm occasionally emailed by one of the agencies about supply cover supervisors and I think you can probably imagine where I tell them to stick their job offers.

Exactly, GracesGran. I was working as a non-teaching admin member of staff, including being the Cover Manager. I also monitored progress data, pupil absences and a few other duties. If necessary, I did covers myself, so I was a bit of a 'Jill of all Trades'. Most of my work was previously done by senior management, so the schools were already getting me on the cheap. I really objected (and eventually left the school) because I had to cover a Year 8 maths class for nearly a term. I am not a maths specialist and was only a few pages ahead of the pupils. It was a top set and my own DD was one of the pupils. At the end of the school year, I transferred my DD to another school and I found a new job.

typo: 'school' not 'schools'. I only worked for one school as Cover Manager.

Mazie I wasn't assuming they didn't pay their tax

Really, Fitzy?

In which case why in this sentence do you sound as though you do assume it?

Mazie - I think it's the deliberate targeting of the public sector to make those who work for them pay their taxes.

Mazie - Deliberate targeting,[ by a government that believed that their agency staff are not paying their full tax liability] of the public sector.etc.
I have no idea whether they are paying their tax. But I assumed that the govt. proposal was as a result of their (the govt) belief that the tax take was less than it should have been.

This is from the NUT website:

How does an umbrella company arrangement work?

An umbrella company is a company that acts as an employer to workers such as supply teachers who obtain work via employment agencies.

Umbrella arrangements usually involve four parties – the teacher, the school, the agency and the umbrella company. The teacher’s employment contract is with the umbrella company, not the agency.

Typically, the agency will agree an assignment and pay rate with a school and then look for a supply teacher to undertake the assignment. The umbrella company receives the payment from the school for the work undertaken by the teacher (with the agency also receiving its commission). The umbrella company processes the payment, deducting PAYE income tax, employee’s and employer’s National Insurance contributions and the umbrella company’s fee. The residual sum is then paid to the supply teacher as net pay. Many umbrella companies also withhold an amount of money to be passed back to the supply teacher at a later date in the form of holiday pay. Some also make deductions in respect of other benefits such as pension, sick pay and child care vouchers.

Why do supply agencies use umbrella companies?

The key benefit to supply agencies is that they can reduce their own costs by avoiding the cost of being the legal employer of supply teachers (including employers’ NI contributions and payroll administration costs) themselves. Instead the umbrella company will be the employer - but it will generally pass these costs on to the supply teacher.

Why would supply teachers agree to work for an umbrella company?

Teachers are frequently persuaded to agree to an umbrella company arrangement because they are attracted by potential tax relief on expenses and allowances. The legal position on tax relief (explained in more detail below) is far from clear, so the likelihood of benefiting in this way has always been far from certain. The Government intends that from April 2016 the ability to claim tax relief on travel costs and some other expenses will end.

Agency workers should be provided with written documentation detailing the rate of pay or the minimum rate of pay the business expects for them, before any work-finding services are provided. This written information is however often contradicted by oral assurances that the teacher will be paid at a higher rate, leading many teachers to believe that the daily rate paid by schools is what they will receive as their daily gross rate of pay. However, it is the lower rate that is often paid, leaving teachers with less take home pay than they expected.

Finally, some supply teachers are increasingly finding that supply agencies will only offer work to them if they are employed by umbrella companies. The NUT strongly disapproves of this practice but regrettably it is not unlawful.

Fitzy Please be absolutely clear that teachers (and others) do pay their full tax liability and the government doesn't think that they aren't. It knows that the (mainly offshore) umbrella companies are the ones who are profiting, so please forget the idea that supply teachers benefit or avoid tax - or even implying it.

That's one benefit of the doubt I wouldn't give them Fitzy.

"But I assumed that the govt. proposal was as a result of their (the govt) belief that the tax take was less than it should have been."

So far every cut has been aimed at (dreadful expression I know) the 'low hanging fruit'. If it's easy to go there and the tranche of people they are either getting more money from or giving less to will not get popular backing and cannot expect or afford legal and PR help then there go the Tory government - that is how they govern. Their politics are the politics of those for whom they system has always worked and for capital.

What a brilliant time to cut the inheritance tax take.

www.theguardian.com/money/2017/feb/28/tory-1bn-inheritance-tax-cut-will-worsen-north-south-divide

I know this thread has gone on for ages and ages, but I cannot be the only one who in the 60+ years I've been alive has see virtually EVERYTHING decline except my standard of living. Hospitals were better with matrons and fewer administrators, schools were happy places not hot houses for testing children, teachers were happy, policemen were older, etc, etc, etc.

In my lifetime every single government has meddled and tampered and budgeted, because that's what they do. Always have, always will.

So that's a simplification, times change, society changes, expectations and aspirations change, and as for austerity and banging on about hard times, there can be very few families today who were poorer and more deprived than the working class/poor of the 1950s and 60s. There has always been a poorer strata of society. There always will be, for a myriad of reasons, but no government has been able to change that. Not in my 60 years on this planet anyway. Yes, we should be concerned about what's happening to others, but those who bash the present government always seem to me to imagine there is a Utopia out there for everyone if only Socialists ruled the world.

There isn't. If anyone can name a party or politician who'd make a better fist of running the country in these turbulent times (globally) than Theresa May, then name them, because I don't see another party I'd trust at the helm. Whether we
like it or not, the Conservative party is now more likely to represent ordinary mortals..those who want a better future, than any other.

I dread to think of the mayhem that Labour, in its present state would inflict on the UK.

We'll never, ever have a government to please everyone, or a government that doesn't have to budget and make unpopular decisions, but we also have to be aware that there is no decent opposition to the present government. Labour is unfit to govern and the thought of the rabid left wing of today having power is a terrifying notion. The party does not inspire confidence, with or without Corbyn.

The rabid right wing of today is every bit as terrifying, Day6. Indeed perhaps even more so as it appears to be getting a firm grasp on power through Theresa May.

I can never understand the mentality of those who are indifferent to poverty and struggle on the grounds that 'It's always been like that' and who positively scorn and fear people who think that fairness and humanity should be part of society's values and a driver of public policy.

Gosh I have been totally amazed about these revelations on supply teaching agencies etc. A couple of years after I took early retirement I decided to do supply work and Agencies were in the early days - I signed in to one but found that my pay was half that I should have earned - the agency charged the school a set fee no matter the experience of the teacher. I then discovered the local authority still operated a supply pool so I applied and went into that.
I did supply work for about 6 years and by the time I was finishing not many schools were using teachers directly from the local authority but taking them from the agencies as it was far cheaper - saved about £50 a day at the time. In one school I was the only teacher they had from the LA pool due to the cost but I had been there for some time and would do any class at short notice and mark all the books before I went home!!