Issue 3; 31 March 1999

Many thanks for all your comments, I apologise to those I have not replied to, I can assure you they have all been read.

1.0) FURTHER ANALYSIS
Many of you have written in with regard to the proposed changes and the apparent iniquity between the one man company and the larger Company. I have written an article for the Computer Contractor on this and posted to the site; see this article

2.0 THE WAY AHEAD
I had meetings in London on 30/3/99 with Mike Cullen of the Independent Computer Contractors (ICC) which is part of the British Computer Society in turn part of the Engineering Council. He was involved in previous discussions with the Inland Revenue and had been phoned up by Mark Nellthorpe who was starting to get lots of individual Contractors phoning up!. I also had discussions with JSA and Giant, two of the larger accountants specialising in this market. My recommendations as a result of this would be:-
A)JSA and Giant get their heads together and combine their individual campaigns.
B)They come alongside the ICC who are willing to represent all contractors in the knowledge based sector (IT and engineering)
C)The Agencies need to be brought onboard, but you should recognise that with the Government review of Agencies expected shortly, their negotiating position may be compromised
D)A negotiating team formed to support Mike Cullen, including a Tax QC
F)A Lobbying team to put the points across at Westminster
G)A PR team to get the message across to a focused wider public ( i.e not the man in the street, but the client base that makes full use of this cost effective service)
H)This all needs to happen sooner rather than later!

3.0 ENGINEERJOB.COM
When I started this two weeks ago it was simply a gut reaction to what I perceived as the attack on the enterprise culture that had allowed me to build my business coupled with the total lack of comment elsewhere. The question is where to go from now? Many of you are asking questions and suggesting topics for inclusion. I would like to commission independent articles from Tax specialists and other experts to look at this from the Contractors point of view. I also see a need to provide informed analysis on the proposals to help you plan your own individual response. Some of you are asking for information on the overseas market. At the same time this will support the campaign by demonstrating the "can do, stuff you" attitude of the Contracting Community. To continue however I need to move this onto a commercial footing (as well as get some of my life back!). I have been offered money to put up banner adverts from job sites, but that puts me in their pocket, not yours and any way banner ads are the spawn of Satan. My proposition is simple: you pay what you think this information is worth, call it "shareinfo" If you think this information is not worth anything then do not pay (and stop using up my bandwidth allocation!). If you pay more than £50 and include a Company order for "provision of information critical to my business" I will return a tax invoice for you to claim against your business (while you can!).
Send your cheques; made payable to engineerjob.com Ltd to:-
Abacus House
1, Spring Crescent
Portswood
Southampton
SO17 2FZ

Have a happy Easter

Cheers
Andy White | [email protected]
P.S Keep copying these emails to your clients, contacts, agents and spread the word