In an interesting turn of events, Professional Passport has submitted a response to the Loan Charge & Taxpayer Fairness APPG answering the questions that they put to FCSA last month. The influential group of MPs has raised concerns due to umbrellas potentially withholding holiday pay from their contractors, particularly in the light of the recent Pimlico Plumbers holiday pay case in which Gary Smith won the right to have his holiday pay backdated.
Professional Passport is an independent assessor of payment intermediary compliance, which includes umbrella firms, so they took the initiative to submit responses to the APPG. You can read the full correspondence via the Loan Charge & Taxpayer Fairness APPG tweet on the subject.
Key points from Professional Passport’s letter to the APPG are:
- No Professional Passport members have withheld holiday pay from contractors.
- The Smith vs Pimlico Plumbers holiday pay ruling does not affect Professional Passport members as they have been consistently paying holiday to contractors in line with requirements.
- Professional Passport has the power to go directly to software companies used by their members to request reports to confirm holiday (amongst other things) is being dealt with appropriately.
- Professional Passport members are required to automatically pay any outstanding holiday pay to contractors when they leave.
- Professional Passport also confirmed measures they have taken in relation to cyber attacks and cyber security issues within the umbrella sector.
Circulating the letter via twitter, the Loan Charge & Taxpayer Fairness APPG said:
“In response to our important questions regarding holiday pay and cyber attacks on #umbrellacompanies, we’ve had a very helpful letter from @ppassport. We thank them for engaging openly and candidly.”
At the time of writing we are not aware of a response from FCSA to the APPG’s questions sent on 08/03/22.
