Umbrella Company UK Avis 104

Onboarding was just as onerous as everywhere else, but well handled and good comms. 3 months in 2 pay days both been paid on time and both accurate with email and text confirmation. Their offering does what I need it to do and the service meets my needs.

It was a mess from the outset.
Month 1, I had student loan deduction when there wasn't one. And also salary was calculated weekly rather than monthly (so instead of £1000 a month, I was earning £4000) due to which HMRC came back with a higher tax band for me. It took over 2 months to sort this out and all the time they kept insisting they were doing everything right and I had provided the wrong instructions which clearly wasn't the case.
Although I was referred, I didn't get the margin free weeks.
Then it took 2 months to refund the pension as I opted out.
I thought this is the end, but then in the last couple of weeks I was being chased for invoices but it was from a different client so there goes privacy and confidentiality!

You decide if you want to work with them...

This company also trades under the name Churchill Knight out of the same offices in Potters Bar

BEWARE: This company offers the most outrageous contract terms to contractors using it as an umbrella company.

THE WAY IT IS SUPPOSED TO WORK

A contractor agrees a fixed day rate with the business using that contractor. The umbrella company invoices the business according to a time sheet submitted. The business pays a gross sum of money to the Umbrella company which makes statutory deductions (PAYE tax, National Insurance, etc) and also deducts an administration fee that is often referred to as a "margin". The balance is then paid out to the contractor as net income. The umbrella company will provide an illustration of the deductions for anyone enquiring so that you can see what your net pay ought to be. So far so good!

THE WAY UMBRELLA COMPANY / CHURCHILL KNIGHT DO IT

This company will provide you with an illustration to convince you to sign up. They will then send a contract for you to sign (which they hope that you don't read). However, if you do read the pay structure in their contract you will see that they are only obliged to pay you the National Minimum Wage (about £8.90 per hour). They then construct a "discretionary bonus" whereby they have absolute discretion in relation to whether they pay you anything else. That discretionary bonus is stated to depend upon whether you have, in their opinion, "generated sufficient profits"!!! Most contractors are in non-revenue generating roles and their day rate is fixed. So what is this nonsense all about. More particularly, neither the contractor nor the company deploying them intended for Churchill Knight to have any discretion over the contractors pay. This is nothing short of a scam.

WHY SHOULD YOU CARE?

If you sign this agreement and Umbrella Company / Churchill Knight choose to exercise their discretion not to pay you more than the minimum wage then it doesn't matter that you are entitled to £500 per day, £700 per day or £1,000 per day because you will only receive £72 per day. You won't be able to complain or take them to Court because you had agreed to those terms in the contract that you signed with Churchill Knight.

To make matters worse, if you look at the financial reports of Churchill Knight at Companies House you will see that they have a very bad balance sheet with negative equity and that in the last financial year they made a trading loss. If they were declared insolvent then an administrator would wind the company up. In such circumstances you would rank alongside all other creditors in trying to recover any money owed to you. The administrator would only pay you what you were contractually entitled to - in this case the minimum wage. So you may think that you are entitled to tens of thousands of pounds in pay, but you would be lucky if you get a few hundred pounds back!

This is why you should care.

Churchill Knight are not the only cowboys in the Umbrella Company space so be sure to ask to see contracts before signing up and if the payment terms speak of paying you the national minimum wage and discretionary bonuses do not sign under any circumstances.

Don't take my word for it, ask an employment lawyer for advice and show them the contract before signing. They will tell you the same thing.