On Friday last week the Association of Recruitment Consultancies (ARC) was told that its critique of the proposed new IR35 rules was to be published by the Treasury Select Committee.
“The critique was based upon advice we provided to ARC” says Ravi Murphy, client services director of Lawspeed, the specialist legal and compliance consultancy to the recruitment industry. “IR35 is an area upon which we have been advising since its inception 17 years ago. Back in year 2000, we applied our forensic approach to create not only the first IR35 friendly contracts, but also IR35 expenses insurance, and our contract terms went on to feature in the first reported contractor win against HMRC. These terms have been successfully used by literally thousands of contractors and agencies ever since.”
The critique was contained in a letter sent by ARC to MPs at the end of March in which ARC sought to persuade MPs that the proposed new IR35 measures, contained in the draft Finance Bill 2017, and the online tool that is linked to them, are not fit for purpose.
MPs have the opportunity to vote down that part of the Finance Bill on its consideration before Parliament. The purpose of the Treasury Select Committee, which is made up of Conservative, Labour and SNP backbenchers, is to examine expenditure, administration and policy of HM Treasury An enquiry into the IR35 rules had been planned to take place last week, with the ARC letter forming part of the evidence.
“We still apply the same ethos today as we did back in year 2000. We did our utmost to capture all relevant points for the letter, and await the decision of MPs following their review of the ARC evidence”, concluded Murphy.
Adrian, a highly experienced lawyer, founded Lawspeed in 1997. He is responsible for developing our extensive portfolio of products and services, including the widely used Lawspeed contract templates. Adrian is an expert on “recruitment law” and specialises in contracts, regulatory compliance, employment status and dispute handling. He is chair of the trade body the Association of Recruitment Consultancies, the only lawyer lead recruitment trade body in the UK. Adrian and his co-director Ravi devised Standards in Recruitment as a vehicle for helping drive up standards and compliance in the industry.
Adrian is our lead in discussions with the government over regulatory evolution. Apart from assisting with client support, Adrian’s primary role is research and development into methods of business delivery, our latest service Proterms being his most recent project. Adrian heads our IR35 lawyers team.