Legal Recruitment Specialists, Legal Jobs in the UK

A guide to retaining legal locums in the public sector

Do you struggle to retain legal locums in your business? Are you worried that some of your legal locums might not stay long enough to complete key projects? You are not alone, many of our clients feel the same. In this blog, Manager Chelsey Newsom gives her advice on how you can retain legal locums to ensure productivity is not lost and key projects are completed on time. Following on from my colleague Laura Hayward’s blog on securing a legal locum at interview, I wanted to follow it up with a blog that explains how you can retain your legal locum. The legal locum jobs market is more buoyant than ever and with the public sector locum market becoming increasingly competitive it is more important than ever to consider how you can retain your legal locums. If companies do not consider this, they are at risk of losing out, and legal locums may decide to leave before an assignment is complete if they receive a better offer elsewhere. Generally, legal locums are registered with more than one recruitment agency and even though they have secured a role, they can often receive calls from various agencies with available roles. Your legal locum may not be actively seeking a new position but an opportunity may arise that pays more money, be closer to home or offer more flexibility, that could tempt them away from your organisation. Here are my top tips that may help you retain your legal locums; Asking for feedback and providing feedback to your legal locums is essential Legal locums are expected to come in and hit the ground running, however, like all new starters in an organisation they like to know if they are performing well. It is therefore important to give praise where praise is due. I therefore feel it is important to schedule in a one-to-one with your legal locums after the first couple of weeks to let them know how they are doing. This may sound simple but in some organisations legal locums rarely receive feedback from their line managers, and from speaking with my candidates many of them want to receive it. Legal locums should be treated as new members of staff, and as with any new staff member they may feel a little overwhelmed by the work or their responsibilities. Employers should be proactive and ask legal locums how they are finding the role, and find out if there is anything else they can be doing to support them. Putting some time in the diary, and speaking to your legal locums regularly also gives you a chance to review what they are doing and enables you to rectify any concerns they may be having, whilst ensuring the work they are doing is correct. Be honest and up front about your flexibility and opportunities to work from home Everybody needs a settling in period before they are able to work from home and there is an element of trust which needs to be built up before this can happen. It is therefore important to be clear with your legal locums and the agency on how flexible you can be, and what opportunities there may be to work from home after an initial induction period. As more-and-more local authorities are set up for remote working, they are becoming more flexible with their working arrangements. Make sure that you are being competitive in the market by being as flexible as you can be, especially for those authorities that are situated in more remote areas. Make sure that you are being fair with your legal locums and offer similar flexibility that you offer to your permanent members of staff. Be sure to review flexible working with candidates as situations can change. Get timesheets for your legal locums signed off and completed on time If you want to retain your legal locum it is important to be aware of their timesheet authorisation deadline to ensure they are paid on time. This can vary depending on how the candidate gets paid and also can vary agency to agency. Candidates get paid on a weekly basis so they rely on their payments coming through each week. This is an issue we regularly face with our candidates, and not being paid can be very frustrating when they are relying on a weekly salary. I appreciate that sometimes employers have meetings or need to be out of the office, so it may be worth setting up multiple authorisers to ensure that timesheets are authorised within the deadline. If you are unable to do this, please make sure to let your legal locum know in enough time ahead of the deadline so that they can inform their agency. Be as up-front as possible with your legal locum about rates and any possible extensions We have legal locums working in the public sector for a significant amount of time in one organisation and we always want to ensure that we can keep the continuity of assignments for as long as possible for both the candidates and the clients. It is therefore important to be transparent with the legal locums in your organisation about rates and the length of the assignment they are working on. Generally, public sector locum assignments tend to run for 3 months at a time due to budgets, but some do get extended for much longer. Legal locums want to know their assignments are likely to be extended as early as possible. You may run the risk of losing a locum if you do not communicate what is happening with their assignment as early as possible. Remember to keep your legal locum as much in the loop as you can! Hourly rates are constantly being pushed, especially since the IR35 changes that were introduced in 2017. Locum rates can also increase significantly depending on the area of law and the demand within the market. It is therefore important to continually review the rates you are offering to ensure you are paying enough. For example, if a locum has been working in an assignment for more than 12 months, they may need a rate review. Their role could have changed significantly or the cost of living may have increased in line with inflation, so make sure that you consider this throughout an assignment. Finally, if your candidate gets offered another role elsewhere, do not be afraid to sit down and discuss with them and see if you can counter offer them. It may save you a significant amount of time to outline the benefits of staying with your organisation, rather than looking for a new locum to fill their place. We have over 15 years’ worth of experience placing legal locum candidates into public sector organisations, so if you are struggling to fill gaps in your team, we could help. If you want to discuss your requirements, please feel free to get in touch with me directly, or a member of the legal recruitment team in your area. Alternatively, you can find more useful tips on securing your legal locum on the insights section of our website.

IR35 ‘off payroll’ working in the private sector: the implications for legal contractors and private practice firms

The IR35 ‘off payroll’ rules will be extended to the private sector from April 2020 onwards, directly impacting a large number of contractors, and organisations in the legal sector. A number of my colleagues have already encountered the challenges this creates when IR35 was first introduced into the public sector in April 2017. As a result of this experience, and our understanding of the new regulations we have been advising our clients and candidates on the challenges they could be facing. But what exactly does IR35 mean for the private sector, and what can contractors and clients do to prepare in advance? In this blog, Manager and legal recruitment specialist, Michael Bailey looks at what IR35 will mean for the legal private sector and what legal professionals need to know. What does IR35 and ‘off payroll’ working mean? The UK government describe IR35 as an “anti-tax-avoidance rule that impacts all contractors who do not meet HMRC’s definition of self-employment”. IR35 comes into play when a candidate provides services for an organisation, but rather than being employed and paid directly on a fixed term contract, the individual invoices the organisation through a limited company. In short, IR35 is designed to stop contractors from avoiding paying tax when they actually act as an employee. It now puts the onus on each employer to ensure their staff and contractors make tax contributions in-line with legislation at payment source. Where a contractor is deemed to be ‘inside’ IR35, the client must ensure the employees’ National Insurance and income tax are being paid. As it is the employer’s responsibility to do this, the onus is on them to get it right, and hefty fines are likely to be handed out to those that do not comply or get it wrong. Why is IR35 being introduced into the private sector? The treasury believes that rolling out IR35 could recoup more than £1.3 billion per year by 2023-24 in unpaid or underpaid taxes. It is worth pointing out, that businesses employing under 250 staff will not be impacted at this time, which could in turn cause discrepancies in the market and put a strain on the locum talent pool if not managed correctly. I believe that as the challenges of working for a larger legal firm inside IR35 become apparent, many legal locums will decide to work for smaller firms to avoid the costs or the costs for these locums will increase to cover the gap. What impact will this have for legal locums in the private sector? The biggest impact this will have on legal locums is the reduction of their take home pay. Legal locums working in businesses which employ over 250 members of staff will see a reduction in their take home pay as they will have to pay full tax and National Insurance or they will have to increase their hourly rate to counteract the increase in tax, which in turn will make candidates look less attractive. Julia Kermode, Chief Executive, Freelancer & Contractor Services Association is worried that this could become a very real problem, and urges contractors to think carefully when looking at alternative ways to pay tax. “We will undoubtedly see an exponential proliferation of tax avoidance schemes as an inevitable consequence, as we have seen in the public sector. With a reduction in income, large numbers of contractors working in the public sector have been enticed by non-compliant tax avoidance schemes that reduce their tax and NI contributions by disguising remuneration as ‘something else’ such as annuities, loans or even marketing vouchers. “However, the reality is that the tax and NICs will still be due and HMRC will pursue the individual for this, and with interest. However tempting, contractors must resist such schemes. We will continue lobbying for all such schemes to be stamped out before any IR35 reforms in the private sector.” We would advise all contractors to check their employment status for tax (CEST test) on the government website to determine if they will be inside out outside IR35. What impact will this have for legal firms in the private sector? Many large firms across the UK rely on short-term legal locums (or contractors) to fulfil key assignments in their teams. Legal firms will either have to change the way legal locums work or pay higher rates to secure the best talent. Legal locums working under supervision, direction and control (SDC) as decided by the CEST (Check employment status for tax) test will most likely be inside of IR35, if the client says when, how and what they work, it usually indicates more of an employee rather than a contractor. Some simple changes to how a contractor works might be all that is needed. Although April 2020 will come around very quickly, there is still time. There is still a chance with the current climate that the new rules will change or even be delayed. Samantha Hurley, Operations Director at the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo) said “there is no doubt that the timeframe is still tight, and we would have hoped to see draft legislation before next summer. However, organisations will at least have a clearer idea from the upcoming consultation on the detail of the changes to enable them to upskill their workforces to be able to make appropriate status determinations and to get their internal processes and IT systems in order, to cope with the new rules. “HMRC’s budget brief suggests the off-payroll rules will be extended in their current form into the private sector. APSCo has expressed real concern that the current public sector rules would not work properly in the private sector, particularly given fears over the accuracy of the CEST tool, and the lack of liability given to the end client” Unsurprisingly, with the responsibility of IR35 falling on the employer, IR35 could in turn create more work for private sector firms employing contractors that fall within the scope of IR35. It may also have an impact on the talent available to larger firms, with contractors choosing to apply for roles with smaller businesses to avoid IR35 altogether, something that businesses should be aware of now. The rules are likely to increase competition between larger and smaller firms that are both competing for the same talent, and I expect many contractors will choose to avoid dealing with IR35 legislation where they can unless larger firms can offset any reduction in take-home pay with higher initial rates of pay. How legal contractors and firms can prepare for the private sector IR35 reform Although the finer details have not yet been confirmed, and during consultation there may be changes or even delays I would advise legal locums to start thinking about how IR35 may impact them. There are a number of things that locums can do: Go online and take the HMRC test – to find out if you are ‘inside’ or ‘outside’ IR35 in your current role, or the types of roles you typically work in. You should first take the HMRC IR35 test, which will assess your current work practices. Think about the way you currently work – audit your current working practices based on the results of the HMRC test. Think about how IR35 changes could affect how you do business – and what you can do to help solve potential problems. Speak to an IR35 exert or your recruitment consultant – before making any changes to how you conduct business, get advice from IR35 and recruitment experts to make sure any changes you make are still compliant with IR35 and other laws and regulations. Are you likely to be ‘inside’ IR35 and worried about its implications? At Sellick Partnership we have a wealth of experience dealing with legal locums and have had a lot of experience dealing with IR35 within the public sector. Get in touch with myself, or a member of our legal recruitment team and we will be more than happy to help. Alternatively, you can check out this advice for legal contractors or view our latest legal jobs here.

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A guide to retaining legal locums in the public sector

IR35 ‘off payroll’ working in the private sector: the implications for legal contractors and private practice firms

Guide to interviewing a legal locum