Division: Digital
Blanket ban. Assessments not provided to many (I had to chase mine down). Even though the government have deferred implementation - Nationwide are enforcing IR35 compliance based on principle. Note: NBS have been aware of this same principle (IR35 law) since 2000, yet up until now - have been quite comfortable insisting contractors engage with them via Limited Liability Companies ONLY (when they could have chosen FTCs). So the on-principle argument is totally moot.
At the moment, word is that over 1/2 of all contractors in the organisation are due to walk out next week. Not only because of lower pay (the result of being forced to use an umbrella company, and NBS refusing to budge on rates to cover losses), but because most of us are sick of being treated like second class citizens.
Even though IR35 may deem many contractors as employees, we are not treated as employees: we get no support from the government as part of any COVID-19 package, and no support whatsoever from Management. Many of us are constantly under immense pressure to deliver, we are stressed and now feel utterly worthless, when more often than not - we are the ones doing the heavy lifting here. I genuinely wouldn’t be surprised if there are suicides as a result of all of this.
As many other financial and support services have done, NBS could bottom-drawer/overturn their ban on PSCs until the law is implemented in 2021: after all (and yet again) it's not them wearing the risk if a contractor is audited and penalised for being inside: it's the contractor. So, they really have nothing to lose (except the cost of the 5 minutes Alexander Mann put into giving them the shoddy advice they did (that a blanket ban was ok: when many of us down here are most definitely outside)).
Next week, Nationwide are also set to announce that no existing contract will be extended, and impose a ban on hiring any new contingent workers.
With no change of heart or mind in sight, my colleagues and I would rather be broke for a month or two than work with a gun held to our head..