The Professional Contractors Group (PCG) recently produced an excellent document which looked to dispel some of the myths surrounding professional contractors and AWR.

 Highlighted in the report were common misconceptions such as:

  • All Limited Company Contractors are in/out of scope
  • AWR will make contractors more expensive
  • All contractors must go through an umbrella

A lot of the ‘myths’ surrounding AWR are a result of the confusion and misinformation that floated around during the introduction of the regulations back in October 2011, and there is still work to be done to dispel them. Perhaps the biggest AWR myth of all is that there is one solution for all workers – however, we know one size definitely doesn’t fit all.

What we can say is that one solution, be it match permanent pay or a regulation 10 contract, that might be best suited for a particular population of a staffing business’ workers might not be best for a different set of workers even within the same agency.

There are even different variations of the same solution! For example, holiday pay can be managed in a number of different ways within a regulation 10 solution. And again, what works for one set of workers doesn’t necessarily work for another.

One mantra we’ve regularly been reminded of throughout the introduction of AWR is communication is key. This now needs to be taken a step further – collaboration is much more important.

Staffing businesses and service providers need to work closer together and apply the correct solution at the correct time. Service providers, such as the Parasol Group, have worked hard to create robust yet flexible AWR solutions that can be adapted and applied to correctly fit the situation.

You want your workers on a match perm pay model? No problem. You want to roll up holiday pay as part of your regulation 10 contract? We can do that. We can do that for you too. You want a group population of your workers to down the limited route? Parasol Group can look after that for you via ClearSky Accounting. We can do all of this and everything in between, including developing bespoke solutions for agencies and their clients.

The AWR learning curve has been a steep one, and we are all still on it to some extent, but from here on in communication isn’t enough. It’s collaboration that counts.

Share