PSC exodus to hit public projects, say nine in 10

More than nine out of 10 contractors say that the UK’s most major taxpayer-funded projects will be damaged if PSC workers walkout over the public sector’s April 6^th off-payroll rules.  

Central government will be the biggest casualty of such a walkout, warn almost half the contractors, followed by the NHS (26%), MoD (13%) and ‘other’ projects like HS2 (12%).

“It’s fair to say that every public sector body or project will be worse off should there be a walkout,” said Seb Maley of Qdos, which polled 2,000 contractors on the eve of the Budget.

In line with his assessment, 95% of the contractors said they believe that major public sector projects will suffer, should they and their PSC colleagues quit en-masse before April 6^th.

Two MoD bodies (UK HO and DE&S) have already lost PSC workers due to the rules, as has Transport for London, Guys & St Thomas’ and, most recently, a commercial defence firm.

Budget 2017 disproportionately attacking PSCs (the biggest revenue-raiser was the dividend allowance cut), won’t have pacified the 85% who have already vowed to leave the public sector before April 6th.

“Last week’s Budget did little to improve the already fractured relationship between contractors and the government,” said Mr Maley, Qdos’ chief executive.

“Changes are a matter of weeks away, and HMRC’s tool for determining IR35 status has only just been released. Questions remain over its effectiveness and accuracy, and put simply people are still wondering what to do.”