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Employment law status

Employees enjoy many rights under employment legislation that the
self-employed do not, e.g. being given protection against unfair dismissal and
receiving maternity, adoption and paternity leave, the right to request flexible
working and statutory redundancy pay.
However, in recent years, job situations have become more
complicated so that people don’t always fit neatly into either
employment or self-employment status for employment law.

As a result, a third status of a ‘worker’ was developed.
The ‘worker’ status is only for employment law and is not
relevant for tax law status. A ‘worker’ is someone who
basically undertakes to do or perform personally any work or
services for another person as part of someone else’s
business. Increasingly legislation gives rights and obligations
to ‘workers’ as well as ‘employees’ for example the National
Minimum Wage Act and the Working Time Regulations.

We give an example of a ‘worker’ in the ‘Employment law’
section of our website:
www.disabilitytaxguide.org.uk

You can also find out more information about ‘workers’ here:

www.gov.uk/employment-status/worker

‘Workers’ have fewer rights than employees, but more than the self-employed
(who have very few legal protections such as not to be discriminated against and
to be provided with a safe and healthy working environment.) There is no single
test to determine whether a person is an employee, ‘worker’ or self-employed.
All the relevant factors need to be considered.

The point here is that whilst a personal assistant may be self-employed for tax
purposes, they may be a ‘worker’ for employment law purposes. If they are a
‘worker’, then this means that they would have additional rights and protections
under employment law that they would not have if they had been self-employed
for both.

page 12 Taking on a personal assistant – a basic guide • Status of your personal assistant