Citizens Advice recommendations. Work and a regular income are vital to our sense of security. Yet we have seen rapid change in these areas. The workforce is increasingly diverse and mobile – many more people now work for themselves, via agencies and with hours that vary. At Citizens Advice we see workers and employers struggling to balance the […]
Government to review participation gap. The Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) is planning to look at how government pensions policy affects self-employed people. In an upbeat press release – Review of automatic enrolment to build on success (12/12/16) – they say they will “consider how the growing numbers of self-employed people can be helped to save for their retirement”. […]
Minister floats self-employed auto-enrolment. The government is planning a review of pensions in 2017. The minister responsible, Richard Harrington, reported in the Financial Times, says bringing self-employed people into the auto-enrolment system should be on the agenda. Self-employed workers would pay extra national insurance contributions and the money used to buy private ‘auto-enrolment’ pensions. Mr Harrington said: “The self-employed aren’t all people […]
Government help. But is it working? This government scheme is a bridge into self-employment for people on Job Seekers Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance or Income Support. Here’s the deal. The Scheme gives you a weekly allowance for the first 6 months of self-employment IF your business plan has been approved and you work on your business for 16 or more hours a week from the […]
Fighting exploitation. The Uber court judgement (enthusiasts only) challenges the freedoms many gig economy workers love. Some of them use the Uber model to top-up their income from another job. Others, including students, use it to earn extra cash. But the focus on tech business and digital communication risks moving attention away from the continuing […]
Delay requested. The government wants to bring in Making Tax Digital reforms in 2017. It means the end of annual returns in favour of filing online each quarter. This is too soon for many self-employed and small business people. Now a committee of MPs has written to the Treasury showing why a delay is necessary. […]
Surge continues. The rise in self-employment goes on. Latest official figures (March-May 2016) showed 176,000 more people in work than the previous 3 months. 119,000 (67%) were self-employed. There are now nearly 4.8 million self-employed people in a working population of 31.7 million. The number of self-employed has risen by 800,000 since 2008. This would be good news […]