Modern Work

modern work

Freelancers / Contractors / Independent Professionals / Self-Employed

ISSUE 6 £3.95

LIVING THE DREAM

Fields of gold as Charlotte Beevor explains her countrylife

TAKING A STAND

Why contractors are fighting against the new IR35 reforms

ALL WRAPPED UP

Don’t get Scrooged this Christmas, your guide to stress-free festivities November /December 2018

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EDITOR

Jyoti Rambhai

jyoti.rambhai@ipse.co.uk MEDIA CONSULTANT Jim Cassidy

DESIGN

Martin Harling-Coward

REPORTERS

Tristan Grove Tom Hayward Chris Piggott-McKellar Michael Bryce Christina McLean Andrew Chamberlain

Front cover

Charlotte Beevor, freelance surface pattern designer based in Devon.

See page 5 for full story

CONTRIBUTORS Alex Massie Gemma Church Iona Bain Katy Carlisle

PHOTOGRAPHY

Nisha Haq Photography Holly Cant Photography

ADVERTISING

marketing@ipse.co.uk

More Modern Work PRINT Pick up your copy of Modern Work from coworking spaces including WeWork London and Ziferblat.

ONLINE Read a copy of this magazine online at issuu.com/modernwork and see much more at modernworkmag.co.uk.

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SOCIAL Look for us on Facebook and Twitter (@ modernworkmag) and stay up to date with all the latest stories, news and events .

EVENTS Get insights from industry leaders and meet like-minded business individuals at networking events. See page 38 for more info.

Newsflash “If people knew that the great majority of BBC people affected by IR35 are not ‘stars’ but hard-working people serving their local communities, often behind the scenes, they would better understand why there is so much anger.”

Rev. Richard Coles Full story p.11

modern work

Contents INTERVIEW Charlotte Beevor on rural freelancing

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RESEARCH New study shows freelancers are not prepared for the future

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NEWS Presenters warn it’s not just them HMRC are going after

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NEWS Susan Winchester’s landmark victory highlights flaws in IR35 reforms

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NEWS Universal Credit causing chaos

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BUSINESS AND FINANCE Self-employment: UK vs US

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INTERVIEW Clare Davies on why she went from schoolteacher to businesswoman

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FROM THE LOBBY Analysis of the Autumn Budget

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LIFESTYLE The co-working space with a nursery

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LIFESTYLE Festive guide to health and happiness

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LIFESTYLE Tech review: Logitech MX Vertical mouse

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BUSINESS AND FINANCE Money saving tips to grow the piggy bank

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LIFESTYLE What do you do when computer says no?

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EVENTS The events that could benefit you

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Third Door, the co-working space with a nursery

‘Tis the season for political highs and lows

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A word from the editor ur latest edition of Modern Work covers all the political drama over the last couple of months - and there’s been a lot. From the off-payroll tax reforms in the Budget to the Brexit debacle taking over Downing Street, Modern Work has it covered. Alex Massie analyses what the Budget means for the self-employed, while Andrew Chamberlain discusses how Susan Winchester’s victory over HMRC highlights the flaws of the off-payroll rules.

November /December 2018

It’s not all doom and gloom, however. In our cover feature, Charlotte Beevor, talks to us about the perks and challenges of being a freelancer based in rural Totnes, Devon. Because, despite what you may think, the UK actually has twice as many self-employed people working in rural towns and villages as in cities.

This is our last edition of 2018. It has been a great first year for the magazine and we have come a long way since we launched in January.

To finish off the year, we have a couple of festive

features including a guide to health and happiness.

Enjoy the read and from everyone here, we wish you a merry Christmas and happy New Year!

Jyoti Rambhai EDITOR

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modern work

Freelancing alive and kicking in the sticks

By Tom Hayward

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or many people, when they consider the archetypal freelancer’s natural habitat, they would probably conjure up images of the coffee shops and co-working spaces of bustling east London or Manchester’s trendy Northern Quarter. A day beginning with a yoga class, the tube to a client meeting, a spot of lunch, a few hours in a co-working space before an evening networking event with business cards flowing freely.

But in fact, twice as many of the 4.8 million self-employed people in the UK are operating rurally in towns, villages and hamlets compared with cities. Whether it’s virtual assistants in north-west Wales, farmhands in the Scottish Highlands or a recently relocated surface pattern designer in Devon, the freelance scene is alive and kicking in the sticks. Charlotte Beevor can attest to that.

At 26, and fast establishing a reputation within her industry way beyond her home city of Norwich, all roads led to London. Or so it appeared.

A twist of fate saw her partner relocated to an NHS hospital in Plymouth and with that disappeared the promise of the opportunities and bright lights of a freelance community nearing 800,000.

Instead, the award-winning designer faced the prospect of a relocation to Totnes in deepest rural Devon, where unreliable broadband and roaming wild horses are the very real barriers to productivity.

“I felt like I’d built all this momentum towards London and had all these potential projects building and brewing because I thought that’s where we were going,” she tells Modern Work in a stylish yet quaint cottage in Totnes – a town of 8,000 people a world away from the hustle and bustle of London.

“But after I found out we were being reloNovember /December 2018

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cated to Peninsula Hospital, I cried. Fate made the decision for us, and all I kept saying was: ‘What are we going to do? What are we going to do?’ Moving away from Norwich felt like a risk and there was a real fear of the unknown.”

She may not have known it then, but away from Norwich and away from London there is a vibrant and substantial community of freelancers not only making a living but thriving in the remotest corners of the UK. In St Ives in Cornwall and north-west Wales’ Dwyfor Meirionnydd, for example, the percentage of the workforce who are self-employed is 35 and 31 per cent respectively – both over double the national average.

Indeed, many of the constituencies where self-employment is the most prevalent are in fact rural.

So, three months after making the move, have the fears turned out to be justified? Has networking been challenging? Is finding work still a concern? And what about the wi-fi?

“My wi-fi isn’t too bad, but it can be quite slow,” she laughs. “Ironically, where my desk is in the corner of my office is actually the worst spot for wi-fi in the house! If I need to send or post anything I have to move further into the house. It’s quite annoying, but in the grand scheme of things it’s not that bad.

“When you’re in a city, the practical parts of running a business are arguably a little easier. But three months in, it has been really good. Everything I wanted to happen is happening. There are so many connections to be made and so much is going on here.

“I pitched an idea to a gallery, and now various other local artists are getting involved.

I have another exhibition with an upholsterer next year. I lecture at Plymouth University two days a week too.

“Recently, I met a freelance florist and she’s put me in touch with various people –

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stuff like this has been happening loads. I don’t feel like making connections has been a problem at all. If anything, I’ve been able to spread myself out even more.

“I’ve managed to access facilities through the university and I found out about a place called Makers HQ in Plymouth, which is full of talented creatives, small businesses and freelancers. It’s been great for me to be able to create closer bonds with my manufacturers and connections at Makers HQ on a more personal level than I would have if I’d moved to London and used a manufacturer in Scotland, for example.

“There are obviously little challenges, but you just figure everything out – it’s problem solving. If you live somewhere rural and you sit at home and don’t speak to anyone, it’s going to be difficult. But if you are willing to do it, you just figure out ways to make it work.”

Of course, there are certain industries and certain areas where freelancers can thrive in a rural setting more easily than others. Alongside her recent and upcoming local projects, Charlotte needs only an internet connection to sell prints online to anyone, anywhere in the world.

But there are industries, and indeed locations, where a rural setting presents a number of challenges. For every St Ives and Dwyfor Meirionnydd there are areas elsewhere in the country where the opportunities are less prevalent, and the challenges more problematic.

Rural broadband remains slow and unreliable, clients can be a long way away and face-to-face networking is difficult at the best of times.

For Miranda Asher, working from her home in rural Lincolnshire just would not be feasible.

“I’m a freelance project manager and a freelance prosthetic physiotherapist and needless to say, there are limited opportunities for both of those where I live in Lincolnshire,” she says.

modern work

second most creative place in the UK after London.

Wherever you go in Devon and Cornwall, you find self-employed people running their own businesses. Even my partner has commented on how many self-employed people are down here.

“If we’ve had a bad day, we cook some dinner, drive to Dartmoor, and just sit out with our food looking out over the National Park. Who in London can say that?”

“I wouldn’t even know where to start looking locally for work in my field of expertise, and if I worked from home every day I would go insane. There are so many obstacles that make it very difficult to run my businesses if I stayed locally. And because of that, to get consistent work I have to travel.

“I do clinic work in Leicester as part of a research project and I do project management work in London. Leicester is one-and-a-half hours away and London is a two-hour commute. My brother lives in London, so I stay with him a few days a week but there is still a lot of travelling to find work. On any given week, I spend more time away from home than I do at home.”

But it seems the government is slowly committing to creating a landscape more conducive to success and productivity. At the Budget last month, the chancellor committed to investing hundreds of millions of pounds into installing superfast broadband in some of the most remote areas of the country.

And similarly, earlier this year the government announced church spires across the UK will be used to boost digital connectivity in rural areas following an agreement between the government and the Church of England.

In recent years, the government has also invested around £15 million in a pilot scheme to address the lack of suitable premises for small businesses. It will create numerous rural enterprise hubs in areas such as underused business parks or brownfield sites. These schemes – designed and implemented in partnership with local councils and Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) – are November /December 2018

in Devon, Somerset, Durham, Northumberland, Cumbria, Wiltshire and Warwickshire.

The UK still has some way to go before every rural area can be as creatively nurturing and catalytic as Devon or Cornwall. But slowly, geography is becoming less of a deterrent to aspiring business owners.

And for Charlotte, with both her business and her horizons expanding as a result, she knows that now.

“So far I have no regrets,” she continues.

“For me it worked out, because Devon is the

“The perks of freelancing are the same whether you’re in a city or somewhere like this.

But I think my work-life balance is better here than it was in Norwich. If we’ve had a bad day, we can cook some dinner, drive 20 minutes to Dartmoor, and just sit out there with our food looking out over the National Park. Who in London can say that? You don’t get experiences like that at Pizza Express in Norwich, do you?

“My work-life balance is so unique now.

And as an artist, so much of my inspiration now comes from my surroundings here.

“When you’re in Dartmoor on a beautiful day, and there’s wild horses everywhere, it’s so good for the soul! These unique experiences don’t compare to anything else, and they are the things I’ll always remember.”

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Bright intervals today but blustery outlook ahead New research forecast the future of freelancers’ finance

By Inna Yordanova

I

t is the type of forecast you would expect in the morning weather report. But this latest outlook in a report by IPSE and Sherpa, is about freelancers’ finance.

The sunshine? An encouraging 72 per cent of the self-employed are currently financially secure and happy. The cloudy? Over half were anxious or stressed. And the stormy? More than three quarters (77%) are worried that the money they have – or will save – won’t last.

And this uncertainty could affect more than just people’s wallets too. Recent research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) found a strong link between financial circumstances and overall wellbeing among employees. It found money worries caused lack of sleep, difficulty concentrating and making decisions, and even health problems.

IPSE and Sherpa launched their report, The Path to Prosperity, to both understand and find new ways to improve financial wellbeing – and by extension other kinds of wellbeing – among the UK’s 4.8 million self-employed.

WHAT DOES FINANCIAL WELLBEING MEAN FOR THE SELF-EMPLOYED? What exactly made for financial wellbeing among the self-employed varied a lot. Forty-six per cent said that for them it was having the financial freedom to make choices and enjoy life.

Another 40 per cent said it was about having enough to provide for their family and loved ones, while a third (37%) also said being able to put money away for retirement was an important factor.

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modern work

72% of self-employed are financially secure and happy in their everyday life

There were some quite significant age divides. According to the report, millennials saw their financial wellbeing on a more short-term basis. For them, the most important thing was having enough money to set aside for more immediate financial goals like buying a first home.

Generation X and baby boomers, on the other hand, were more likely to prioritise longer-term goals, like putting money away for retirement or avoiding debt.

GETTING IT WRONG: WHAT’S THE IMPACT OF POOR FINANCIAL WELLBEING? So, what happens when freelancers can’t meet their criteria for good financial wellbeing?

Well, to begin with, it looks like many freelancers often don’t. Nine out of 10 said they had been concerned – at least occasionally – about their financial situation. And 51 per cent said they felt anxious or stressed as a result.

It’s not just mental wellbeing that’s affected either – poor financial wellbeing hits freelancers’ business potential too. Of those who had worried about their financial situation, almost half had considered giving up self-employment (45%), or accepted work that they wouldn’t typically take on just to make ends meet (44%).

While many freelancers seem to have had November /December 2018

financial worries at some point in the past, however, the majority (72%) said they were happy and financially secure at the moment.

The report also explored some useful ways to stop these concerns recurring: recommendations not just for industry bodies and government, but also for the self-employed themselves.

‘Half of freelancers said fluctuating income was the main barrier to healthy finances.’

GETTING IT RIGHT: HOW TO IMPROVE THE FINANCIAL WELLBEING OF THE SELF-EMPLOYED One of the report’s major recommendations for improving the financial wellbeing of the self-employed is that the government and financial services should coordinate their efforts.

It suggests they could, for example, work together to tackle late payment culture and provide more self-employed-specific advice. Another extremely useful step would be designing financial products that offer flexibility and account for freelancers’ fluctuating incomes.

Being self-employed, however, also means being master of your own destiny. And there are a number of things self-employed people can do themselves to develop their careers and earning potential to ensure their future is just as rewarding as their present – or even more so.

The report recommends not only building a strong business network, but also investing in training and developing skills. These are good ways to build up client lists, which, 39 per cent of freelancers said, is important for improving financial wellbeing.

Another essential way to improve financial wellbeing is tackling volatile income. Half of the self-employed (51%) said their fluctuating income was the main barrier to healthy finances.

Some possible ways of counteracting this problem are putting a sound financial plan together, setting up insurance for times without work and saving for emergencies.

Suneeta Johal, head of research, education and training at IPSE, said: “Because of irregular work patterns, late payments and a lack of tailored products, self-employment can pose financial challenges and leave people concerned for the future.

“The crucial recommendations in this report can alleviate that and help the self-employed take control of their financial wellbeing.”

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modern work

Tax-troubled presenters warn it’s not just them HMRC are after

By Tristan Grove

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iz Kershaw, the Reverend Richard Coles and other leading broadcast presenters have come out warning that after them, HMRC will be squeezing the rest of the self-employed for tax.

The BBC has recently been embroiled in a tax row with numerous high-profile presenters including Front Row presenter Kirsty Lang, DJ Liz Kershaw and former BBC Look North presenter Christa Ackroyd.

The issue? The public broadcaster had been paying them as contractors, through personal services companies, rather than as employees.

HMRC claims this is “disguised employment” which results in it getting less tax. But many presenters claim that the BBC had told them to set up personal service companies for their fees.

HMRC, however, still called for hundreds of thousands of pounds in back-dated tax from them, the bulk of which is tax the BBC avoided paying by engaging the presenters as freelancers. Christa Ackroyd, for example, lost her appeal against a backdated income tax and national insurance charge of £419,000.

The presenters were at pains to stress, however, that it is not just presenters HMRC is coming after. Designers, producers and many other hard-working behind-the-scenes contractors are also targets.

As the Reverend Richard Coles told Modern Work: “I think if people knew that the great majority of BBC people affected by IR35 are not ‘stars’ but hard-working people serving their local communities, often behind the scenes, they would better understand why there is so much anger at the hardship and distress it is causing.”

He said: “No one I have spoken to objects to paying tax, but it must be fair, and these changes threaten to ruin honest individuals who find themselves on the wrong side of a poorly thought through and clumsily executed government tax policy.”

Nor is it just the BBC. In October, it was revealed that HMRC was also targeting Eamonn November /December 2018

Liz Kershaw (third from left) with Kirsty Lang (to her right), Joanna Gosling, Paul Lewis, Samira Ahmed and other BBC colleagues at the DCMS commons select committee Holmes for tax in what he described as a “test case” for other ITV presenters and contractors working through limited companies.

He said: “I am the test case. If they win against me, they will go after everyone else, everyone. Ant and Dec will be next.”

The presenters warn, however, that the squeeze will not just be limited to the media.

In an article in the Daily Express recently, Liz Kershaw warned the rest of the self-employed: “Next time you open a brown envelope on your front door, ‘it could be you’.”

She said: “In his recent Budget the chancellor triumphantly announced to the ‘ordinary hard-working families’ of Britain - who have had a bellyful of belt-tightening, stagnant wages and falling living standards – that austerity is ending.

“But how has he managed it? THE DETAIL is buried in the Budget’s small print. The Treasury, with HMRC as its henchmen, is aiming to rake in £3.1billion from the UK’s sole traders.

The self-employed.

“The entrepreneurs. The risk-takers. The small businesses. Or, as HMRC now calls them, the disguised employee.

“The chaos at the BBC is a taste of what’s to come for private businesses. It is the start of a slippery slope towards disaster.”

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Are employers having it both ways?

Andrew Chamberlain outlines Susan Winchester’s landmark victory against HMRC and analyses how it highlights the flaws and unfairness of the off-payoll reforms.

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n 2017, Susan Winchester was working on a contract at HMRC. When the IR35 changes came into the public sector, she was informed that the legislation applied to her engagement and that, under the new off-payroll working rules, tax would be deducted at source from her payments.

Susan strongly disagreed with the decision and wanted to shine a spotlight on what she thought was clearly unfair practice. She had no route to challenge the determination itself, so following advice from legal professionals, she attacked the employment rights angle, and ultimately submitted a claim for unpaid holiday pay.

Susan’s claim was paid out in full by HMRC, the agency and two umbrella companies, all of whom were keen to avoid the employment tribunal. So what does this settlement mean for other contractors that may find themselves in the same position as Susan? And are there any lessons for policy makers now tasked with extending the IR35 changes to the private sector?

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At the heart of Susan’s case was the question of whether it can be right for an individual to be deemed ‘employed for tax purposes’, but not employed for any other purpose, e.g. employment rights. It may be helpful to consider here how the new IR35 rules work in practice.

IR35 requires public sector clients to consider the nature of each of its ‘off-payroll’ engagements. If the client decides that the engagement exhibits characteristics that are consistent with employment, it will have to declare that IR35 should apply.

Applying IR35 will mean the individual (the contractor) will have to go onto a payroll, (not necessarily the client’s payroll) and PAYE and NI will be deducted at source, as it is for employees.

However, the business will not be obliged to employ the individual or provide them with employee rights such as holiday or sick pay.

According to the trade body IPSE, these rules provide clients with a simple route to absolve themselves of their responsibilities as employers. If the client analyses the relationship and decides that it is really one of employ-

ment, why aren’t they then compelled to employ them, and provide them with the benefits they would be entitled to as employees, like holiday pay?

That’s what Susan’s claim was all about.

And, inasmuch as she was awarded the full amount of holiday pay she was claiming, it was successful. But this doesn’t necessarily mean all contractors caught by IR35 are automatically entitled to the same. The law, as it stands at the moment (and it is currently under review), is that tax and employment status are separate.

It is quite possible for an individual – or more accurately, an engagement – to have one status for tax and one for employment rights.

But the tests for determining status are essentially the same. Determinations are made after consideration of the same factors, such as personal service, control and mutuality of obligation. There is confusion over what some of the factors really mean (particularly mutuality of obligation, over which there are stark divergences of opinion) – but the important thing to note here is that both tax and employment status are modern work

Chris Bryce

Chief executive at IPSE

The Budget news isn’t good, but that’s not the whole story

judged against the same criteria.

When considered like that, it becomes difficult to justify why an engagement, such as Susan’s, can be deemed employed for tax and not for employment rights. And it’s extremely hard to explain clearly to someone in Susan’s situation why it is a legitimate and logical position.

It’s interesting that the much-maligned tool which HMRC has developed to help clients make IR35 determinations is called Check Employment Status for Tax (CEST). It’s clearly intended to make it clear that this tool is all about tax and nothing else, otherwise why not just call it Check Employment Status?

So the legislation itself, and the tool which is supposed to enable clients to navigate the legislation, reinforces the view that even where individuals are to be taxed like employees, that doesn’t mean they are employed.

Yet, when Susan sought to challenge that paradox at the employment tribunal, November /December 2018

the other side settled the claim, before it went to trial. If they were certain of their position, why didn’t they argue their case?

We will never know the answer to that, but one potential reason must be that they felt it was a difficult position to defend.

Now the government is looking to roll out these disastrous rules to the private sector, which means private companies are likely to find themselves on the wrong side of similar claims from contractors to whom they have applied IR35. Do we really want UK businesses to be bogged down in employment status disputes? I don’t think we do, and I don’t think the government wants it either, which is why it must clarify the rules around tax and employment status.

Susan’s case shines a spotlight on the new IR35 regime, and it reveals that there are fundamental problems which must be resolved in order to avoid a rash of costly court battles which disrupt businesses and weaken our economy as a result.

WELL, it’s happened. Last month, chancellor Philip Hammond stood up to deliver the Budget we all feared. He announced from April 2020 the government will be extending the disastrous changes to IR35 tax rules to the private sector – and to the rest of the self-employed.

At IPSE, we fought long and hard against these changes, and you can be sure it’s our struggle that delayed them until April 2020. There’s no avoiding the disappointment here. This is a catastrophically short-sighted move from the government, and it will harm not only the self-employed but also the wider economy.

With Brexit approaching, the government should be working to make sure the economy is firing on all cylinders. Instead, it has ham-strung it for a myopic tax-grab. But it’s not over. There is almost a year and a half before the changes, and IPSE will be working hard to limit the damage and even reverse the decision. After all, we did it with the National Insurance Contributions hike for the self-employed, and we can do it again.

The Budget announcements aren’t the whole story though. We have news that the government will soon announce what it’s proposing in response to the Taylor Review. High on the agenda: changing employment status rules in the UK – something that would affect everyone from freelance designers and IT contractors to gig economy workers.

And IPSE will be working closely with the government to get the best outcome for all. We also had a great win in September when we supported contractor Susan Winchester in her legal battle against HMRC. And you know what? She won, and was awarded holiday pay by the tax authority.

IPSE exists to represent and promote the interests both of members like Susan and all self-employed people, not just in government, but by bringing people from across the country together.

And that’s my next bit of good news: we’re already selling advance tickets for an even bigger and better National Freelancers Day. Because that’s how the self-employed will stay strong, now and in the future: by coming together.

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Universal Credit causing chaos for the self-employed

By Tristan Grove

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evastating impact”, “degrading”, “fundamentally wrong”, “causing hardship and stress”. Just some of the public criticisms of Universal Credit. So, what is happening with Universal Credit – and perhaps most relevant for this magazine – why is it harming the self-employed so much?

Best to start with the basics: Universal Credit is essentially the amalgamtion of almost all the means-tested benefits into one payment.

That includes Employment and Support Allowance, Income Support, Jobseeker’s Allowance, Housing Benefit, Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit. It was originally announced in 2010 by former work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith, who claimed it would bring “fairness and simplicity” to the social security system.

The government began gradually rolling out the new system in 2013, starting with the least

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complex cases: single adults without any housing costs. The system quickly ran into difficulties, however – especially as they tried to extend it to more complex cases. There have been many complaints about the basic structure of the system, but the most pressing have been about its implementation.

Official figures show 24 per cent of new claimants having to wait more than six weeks for their first full payment – time, which cashstrapped claimants simply don’t have. It led to widespread reports of people falling behind with their rent, struggling with day-to-day expenses and even being driven to foodbanks.

It wasn’t just the implementation, though: campaigners have also claimed that in practice, merging the different benefits leads to significant cuts. In fact, it is argued that even after the implementation problems are smoothed out, the new structure could leave some families up to £200 worse off a month.

Then, of course, there are the self-employed. As IPSE (the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed) has said, Universal Credit “simply does not work for them”.

“It penalises the self-employed for their way of working.”

This is essentially because at the moment, Universal Credit is calculated based on monthly income recording, and this completely fails to account for self-employed people’s fluctuating incomes. As a result, freelancers, it has been calculated, can lose out on up to £3,000 a year. Many simply cannot afford to miss out on sums like that.

For self-employed and employees alike, the ‘teeth-

ing problems’ continued after 2013. And in 2015, instead of allocating more funds to smooth out the problems, the then chancellor George Osborne announced £5 billion of cuts in the coming years.

The implementation problems got worse, with more and more horror stories emerging – particularly through media campaigns like the Daily Mirror’s ‘Stop Universal Credit’. Widely published reports emerged of people being forced to eat from bins, scavenge old hospital food and even shoplift.

Only recently, there was a front-page story in the Daily Mirror about a nine-year-old begging for work after her parents died – because she had fallen through the cracks in this creaking system.

Gordon Brown publicly commented in October: “Surely the greatest burning injustice of all is children having to go to school ill-clad and hungry. It is the poverty of the innocent – of children too young to know they are not to blame. But the Conservative government lit the torch of this burning injustice and they continue to fan the flames.”

The furore escalated this year, not only because of criticism from public figures like Brown, but also because of remarkable gaffes from the government itself. Last month, Esther McVey, the then secretary of state for work and pensions and the minister in charge of Universal Credit, infamously admitted that “some people will be worse off” because of the new system.

In response to the barrage of criticism, in the Autumn 2018 Budget, chancellor Philip Hammond allocated £3.1 billion to help people affected by the Universal Credit delay. Nothing, however, was said about rectifying the system’s fundamental bias against the self-employed.

That’s why a number of organisations, including IPSE, are urgently calling for a halt to the roll-out of Universal Credit while this and the enormous bureaucratic problems with the system are resolved. Will the government listen?

That remains to be seen... modern work

November /December 2018

15

Bridging the pond: Freelancing in the UK and the US

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By Tristan Grove Chief Correspondent

h, the ‘special relationship’. From Ronald Reagan calling Margaret Thatcher “the best man in England”, to Tony Blair’s “with you, whatever” to George Bush, it seems like the US and the UK have always been holding hands. Recently, of course, some would say we have been holding hands while jumping off a cliff – into our two… unusual… political futures: Brexit in the UK, and the Trump presidency in the US. (Trump is even supposed to have based large parts of his campaign on Vote Leave.)

But it’s not just our politics that have run down parallel lines: our economies, too, have much in common. Self-employment is one area where there are major similarities.

In the last 20 years, both countries have seen explosions in the number of self-employed people in their workforce. In the UK, official Office for National Statistics (ONS) data shows that the number of self-employed people rose from 3.3 in 2001 to 4.8 million in 2017 – approximately 15 per cent of the workforce.

In the US, the numbers are also impressive: today, there are approximately 15.8 million full-time freelancers – 10 per cent of the workforce. What’s more, when you factor 16

in people who are in part-time self-employment or ‘moonlighting’, the number rises to an astonishing 56.7 million – 36 per cent of all people working in the US today. In both the US and the UK, then, there has been an enormous boom in the self-employed workforce.

LAST OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY OPTIMISTS Back to the politics, interestingly today’s unusual political situations seem to be having very different effects on freelancers either side of the pond. In the UK, the Confidence Index by IPSE showed an enormous dip in confidence after the Brexit vote – both in terms of freelancers’ own businesses and the wider economy. Their confidence still hasn’t recovered, and since the vote they have consistently said Brexit and government policy are the two factors doing most damage to their business performance.

In the US, on the other hand, there seems to be nowhere near the same pessimism about the economy under President Trump. A 2018 study by the Freelancers Union found that nine out of 10 freelancers in the US think the industry’s best days still lie ahead. Meanwhile, research by PayPal found that 65 per cent of freelancers expected to do modern work

more business next year, while another 33 per cent expected roughly the same amount.

Without exactly wanting to endorse Trump’s tweets that the US economy is the “greatest ever” now, or that it is “setting records on virtually every front”, it does seem like there is widespread optimism about it – especially among freelancers.

TRANSATLANTIC TROUBLES It’s true there have always been strong ties between the UK and the US – right back to the days when American patriots decided to turn Boston Harbor into that most British of drinks: a massive cup of tea. But that’s not to say that the two countries are structurally that similar.

In fact, the stark contrasts between their legal, health and welfare systems mean that British and American freelancers often face very different challenges.

For most people in the US, for example, both healthcare and dental insurance are provided by their employers. But obviously this option isn’t available to freelancers, so most pay for it themselves – often at huge expense.

In fact, the Freelancers Union report found that access to affordable healthcare is the top concern for US freelancers. It is clearly a pressing matter for the self-employed and policymakers, because Virginia Senator Mark Warner recently introduced a congressional amendment on the subject.

The idea is basically to establish a system that would allow the self-employed to take worker-style employment benefits like healthcare and pensions from one contract to the next.

In the UK, on the other hand, it’s almost the opposite problem: freelancers’ biggest concern is the tax system they have to navigate. For many UK freelancers, just the mention of ‘IR35’ sends a shiver down the spine. The main reason is that the off-payroll tax rules – designed for clamping down on false self-employment – are so complex they often catch out legitimately self-employed people too.

IT’S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL Beneath major structural challenges like healthcare and tax, however, freelancing doesn’t seem to be that different either side of the pond. British and American freelancers have the same difficulties chasing payments.

In the UK, IPSE research has found that freelancers spend an average of 20 days November /December 2018

a year chasing invoices, while 43 per cent say they have done work they have never been paid for.

Meanwhile, in the US the figures are slightly worse: 50 per cent say they have done work they were never paid for. Shockingly, of these, 44 per cent believe it was because they were not taken seriously. Bad clients, it seems, are hard to avoid wherever you go.

Another very familiar stumbling block on the other side of the pond is pensions.

Saving for later life is a major problem among the UK’s self-employed, but it seems to be even more extreme in the US. In the UK, 16 per cent of self-employed people say they are not saving for later life at all (31% are paying into pensions, while the other 53% are saving through other means).

In the US, however, a Freshbooks report found that almost half (42%) of freelancers are not saving for later life.

It’s not just the challenges though: in both the UK and the US, the overwhelming majority of freelancers choose to work for themselves – most often because they enjoy the freedom and flexibility of freelancing. And on both sides of the Atlantic, very few would consider giving up the freedom of freelancing to go back to traditional employment.

A TRUMPTASTIC FUTURE Like the oh-so special relationship between UK and US leaders over the years then, British and American freelancers share many positives and negatives – both challenges and rewards. And as for the future, well, Trump has told the UK it is “so smart” for voting for Brexit and that we are “doing great” now. So, perhaps we can hope for a deal – and an even more special relationship between the freelancers in our two countries…

We shall see.

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Flower power and the way to a blooming business Nisha Haq talks marketing and making it on your own with paper flower entrepreneur Clare Davies

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lare Davies has always been an arts and crafts guru. After an Art foundation course, a degree in Textiles Design and 11 years of passing on her passion as a teacher, there’s not much this modern-day William Morris doesn’t know about her craft. But it wasn’t until her wedding day that her passion turned into a truly remarkable and unique business idea…

In the run-up to her big day back in 2016, Clare was browsing flowers. She said: “I love flowers and I had lots of ideas how I wanted to incorporate them into our special day.”

But as the big day approached and Clare found more and more beautiful posies, a problem arose in her mind: she couldn’t stand the thought of seeing them wither after the wedding.

“I really wanted to hold on to as many memories as I could from the day, so I decided I wanted my flowers to last too. I started researching and discovered paper flowers. I fell in love with the process and did all the flowers for my wedding including buttonholes, table decorations and chair ends.”

Two years later, Clare hasn’t stopped. She now runs the hugely successful – and hugely unique – paper flower business Petal and Bird.

Based in Chichester, it offers “unique handcrafted bespoke paper flowers for lasting memories for special occasions”.

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Schoolteacher to businesswoman: Clare Davies

It’s an offering that was hugely popular right from the start. Even before she took the plunge and started her business, her colleagues were making orders. “Before I left my teaching job, I had a few colleagues actually ask for flowers for birthdays and anniversaries so as soon as I advertised my business, people were interested. I began Petal and Bird through word-ofmouth and I’m developing contacts that way.”

Now, not long after Bird and Petal’s oneyear anniversary, Clare says personal contacts and word-of-mouth are still very important for promoting her business: “I try and make sure that if I’m exhibiting at a wedding fair, I always make good use of the marketing opportunity there. I try and acquire lots of contacts and – and hopefully orders – to cover the cost of exhibiting at the fair.”

Clare also says the wider self-employed community has been very important for building and developing her business: “There are so many people who are willing to help make connections and share advice, which I think is amazing.”

It’s not just personal connections, though.

Like any businessperson, Clare has other ways of making Petal and Bird bloom. She thinks deeply about her marketing and how she wants her business to appear. She believes the key is: “Being genuine and honest about who you are.”

She combines her honest, down-to-earth modern work

‘I love what I do and the fact that I’m making money out of it is fantastic.’ marketing with an astute assessment of her customers and what exactly they are looking for: “My clients are often looking for something unique for their wedding day and want something that’s going to last.

“They tend to be interested in handmade items, and have an appreciation for craft. The alternative bride and groom – that’s my ideal client.”

Even paper flowers, though, have to move with the times, so as well as more traditional marketing, Clare also has a strong social media presence: “Instagram is very visual and that works really well for my flowers. At first, I

first thing I do is share photographs of pieces that might be similar to what they’re after. And then I invite them over to my studio so they can actually see the product.

“I think it’s really important they get to see the quality and how good paper flowers can look.

I feel that what I’m doing is producing a beautiful piece of artwork for someone, so educating them about it and its lasting quality compared to real flowers – that’s important for me.”

Just from hearing her speak, no-one can doubt that Clare Davies loves her craft. But what about freelancing in general – what about

the lifestyle? “I think I’ve adapted to being a freelancer quite well. Teaching was very paperwork-heavy, with lots of protocols to follow. So now that side of freelancing isn’t a shock to me. I even quite like the nitty-gritty.”

Ultimately, though, the most important thing for Clare is her craft and helping other people preserve their special moments – just like her own wedding: “I love what I do, and the fact that I am making money out of it is fantastic.

“Seeing the bride’s face when she receives her flowers – that’s just awesome. It’s an amazing feeling.”

‘The alternative bride and groom – that’s my ideal client.’ thought showing actual final pieces – like my bouquets – would be best for it. But actually, people really like seeing what’s going on behind the scenes: the work in progress. I take pictures throughout the production process, and it’s often actually things like pictures of my messy desk set-up that get the most engagement.”

Authenticity and close customer involvement, then, are key parts of Clare’s business – from social media and marketing right down to the actual customer journey, when someone has engaged her for their wedding.

“When a client’s interested in my work, the November /December 2018

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modern work

Your monthly briefing PERSONAL ALLOWANCE AND VAT IN OCTOBER’S Budget the chancellor Philip Hammond made a number of positive announcements for the self-employed; chief among them, decisions to maintain the current VAT threshold and bringing forward an increase to the Personal Allowance.

On VAT, the chancellor confirmed that the threshold will be frozen at £85,000 until 2022.

Following a consultation process in which the government had hinted at an intention to slash the threshold, the freeze will be a relief for many businesses who will remain exempt from the financial cost and administrative burden.

Taxpayers will benefit as Hammond also announced the Income Tax personal allowance will rise from £11,850, to £12,500, in April 2019.

Earnings below this level will not be subject to Income Tax.

AUTUMN BUDGET HITS FREELANCERS’ CONFIDENCE FREELANCERS’ confidence both in their businesses and the wider economy dipped in the third quarter of 2018 – seemingly because of speculation about harmful measures in the Autumn 2018 Budget.

Freelancers also saw both their average quarterly earnings and their day rates decline.

It was not all negative, however. Among professional and technical freelancers, there was actually an increase in day rates, while the majority of all freelancers also expect their day rates to increase over the coming year.

FINANCE BOSSES FINED OVER IR35 BREACHES MORE than 100 finance directors were fined £5,000 last year for not taxing self-employed people as workers, The Times reported.

According to the article, this is part of HMRC’s clampdown on so-called disguised self-employment. The fines can be issued when HMRC believes finance directors fail to “account properly for their businesses’ income and expenditure for tax purposes”.

Tax experts, however, questioned HMRC’s understanding of ‘disguised self-employment’, which has been overturned in 75 per cent of tax tribunal cases in the last decade.

Latest twist in the Brexit saga IN dramatic scenes outside Downing Street on 14 November, Theresa May unveiled a draft withdrawal agreement between the UK and the EU, which she said was backed by her cabinet.

The next day, the Prime Minister survived the resignation of the Brexit Minister Dominic Raab, the Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey, the Northern Ireland Minister Shailesh Vara, as well as four other senior MPs. In the following week, Mrs May also fought off a sustained coup attempt led by Jacob ReNovember /December 2018

es-Mogg and other members of the Conservative Brexiteer faction the ‘European Research Group’.

The Prime Minister’s draft withdrawal agreement, which has received vocal support from the Confederation of British Industry, includes a transition period of 21 months during which the UK will remain subject to the EU’s laws and regulations and part of the single market.

The UK and the EU will use the transition period – which can be extended if necessary – to negotiate their future relationship. If the period is

Adam Kay

ADAM KAY TO HEADLINE NATIONAL FREELANCERS DAY’ AWARD-WINNING comedian and Sunday Times best-selling author of ‘This is Going to Hurt’, Adam Kay, will be the headline speaker at National Freelancers Day (NFD) 2019.

Mr Kay, who entered the world of freelancing as a writer and comedian after leaving the NHS, will close NFD at Kings Place on 20 June with what promises to be a hilarious and eye-opening account of his journey from medicine into the world of freelancing.

Tickets for NFD, which is hosted by IPSE (the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed), are available on nationalfreelancersday.com.

extended, the document commits to introducing a “backstop” solution that would create a “single customs territory between the (European) Union and the United Kingdom.” The document also contains protections for more than three million EU citizens in the UK, as well as over one million UK nationals living in the EU. In the coming weeks, Mrs May will be working to agree a final draft of the deal with EU leaders. The next battle for her will be attempting to get the deal accepted by the House of Commons.

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Budget 2018: new swings and broken roundabouts

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By Alex Massie Freelance columnist for The Times and Spectator

he first thing that can be said about the recent Budget is that it was better than some of its predecessors. That is, it didn’t unravel immediately. You might think this a low bar to clear but, frankly, we live in an era of reduced expectations. At least Philip Hammond’s Budget was not immediately dubbed an “omnishambles” presentation. In the circumstances, that almost seems like a victory.

The chancellor downgraded the Prime Minister’s promise that austerity was at an end by noting that its end was only within sight. And with good reason. Once extra money for the NHS has been found, most departments will receive no additional funding. They will continue to be asked to do more with less.

Still, the chancellor accepts that economic growth, not Budget surpluses, are key to restoring the public finances and even, wonder of wonders, trimming the size of a national debt that has rocketed since 2008. If this amounts to, rhetorically at least, burying George Osborne’s legacy then so be it. Then again, the editor of the Evening Standard is not an especially popular figure in Downing Street these days.

Here, though, is the disagreeable reality:

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vigorous economic growth is not on the agenda.

The government’s own forecasts, like those compiled by the Institute of Fiscal Studies, suggest growth will barely exceed 1.5 per cent in any of the next five years.

Now these estimates may, of course, prove mistaken – and it would be good if they were – but they are based on the best information we currently have. Meagre growth is better than no growth but it’s still not very good. Not least be-

‘By 2023/24 healthcare spending is expected to account for 38%.’ cause no one expects the extra money announced for the NHS to be anything more than a stopgap, a means of purchasing time to prepare for the next, still more onerous, challenges ahead. (Something similar might be said of the ‘new’ money found for the Ministry of Defence; at best, this helps offset the impact of previous cuts.)

Indeed, if current trends continue, the government will soon better be understood as

a healthcare conglomerate that happens to do some other things. In 2000, healthcare spending amounted to 23 per cent of government spending; by 2023/24 it is expected to account for 38 per cent of the money the government spends.

That has significant implications for healthcare, obviously, but also for every other government department. As a share of national income, government spending is back at the same level it was when Labour were last in government; scope for reducing that level of spending seems sharply limited, to say the least.

Still, some other trends are also apparent.

Income tax has become all but untouchable. Indeed, the basic rate of income tax has not been raised since the 1970s. That’s what happens modern work

Budget 2018 offered lean pickings for freelancers

when everyone actually understands a tax.

(This is grist to my contention that if PAYE were abolished and everyone had to write a cheque to HMRC the movement for lower taxes would be immeasurably strengthened.)

But if income tax recedes in importance, the slack must be taken up elsewhere.

What the chancellor gives on the swings he removes on the roundabouts. Increases in the personal allowance – and in the threshold above which tax is levied at 40 per cent – must be paid for elsewhere. As so often, the self-employed – upon whom the economy depends in ever greater part – are an obvious and easy target.

November /December 2018

The government enjoys boasting about the enviable flexibility of the British labour market (one reason why unemployment is low; though that is also a feature of low productivity), yet its changes to IR35 seem guaranteed to reduce the very flexibility the government considers so important.

Calculations by IPSE suggest that half of hiring managers in the public sector have lost vital and highly-skilled workers as a result of the changes to IR35, which are now being rolled out into the private sector.

The government believes in incentives except, it seems, when those incentives act in a negative fashion. The Budget estimated that as much as £3 billion could be raised by switching the burden of IR35 declarations from employees to employers. That seems heroically optimistic, not least because complicating the system will drive many players out of it.

The self-employed, however, are an easy target. We doubtless all have a shivering recollection of the chancellor’s past attempts to increase National Insurance Contributions for the self-employed and although that battle, thanks in no small part to a robust rearguard action by IPSE, was won last time such a measure was proposed we should expect it to have to be refought all over again at some point in the future. The Treasury neither accepts nor forgets its defeats; it just considers them victories postponed.

Brexit, of course, may yet change everything. The odds must remain against a calamitous no-deal Brexit but that possibility remains alive to concentrate minds.

Brexit consumes so much of the government’s bandwidth, however, that it is unable to make progress elsewhere.

In that respect, the chancellor’s Budget was a holding affair, not the beginnings of a new course, strategy or era. The problem remains that real and sustained growth seems as far away as ever. The economy may do better; it’s not going to do well enough.

By Iona Bain Founder of The Young Money blog

JUST before Halloween, I and other young freelancers were watching the 2018 Budget with interest, hoping for more treats than tricks from a party that claims to be pro-enterprise and against punitive taxation.

But afterwards, millennial entrepreneurs like me were left wondering… what is the government’s attitude to the self-employed? Sure, it’s great to see the New Enterprise Allowance being extended, which will give many more unemployed young people the chance to run their own business, as well as the unexpected gift of an early rise in the personal allowance.

When I started my freelance career and had to contend with low earnings, I was glad of the extra breathing space in my tax affairs, helping me to get established sooner.

But there was little else to gladden the heart.

Currently employers can claim very generous tax relief for training, but the self-employed have to pay for any retraining entirely from their post-tax income.

The Budget small print revealed that proposed reforms in this area have been shelved – disappointing for young freelancers like me trying to upskill.

And there are not one but two swords of Damocles hanging over freelancers’ heads. Like many sole traders, I’ve been appalled by the chancellor’s determination to hike taxes for the self-employed in recent times, showing a complete lack of recognition for our self-sufficiency and professional risk-taking.

He has been forced into two embarrassing climbdowns over NI, but the Budget said reforms would only be off the table “during this parliament”.

Meanwhile, plans to extend IR35 reforms to the private sector may have been postponed but if they are still enacted in 2020, this would see thousands of freelance contractors taxed wrongfully as employees.

This deters me from setting up a limited company – something I would have otherwise done at such a promising stage in my career.

Managing your freelance finances well isn’t about avoiding tax – it’s about keeping your life’s work sustainable and hopefully growing so you can contribute more to the economy and society. Only when the Treasury understands this will we get a Budget that treats us with respect, rather than suspicion.

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Bottles to boardrooms

Nursery facility as London co-working space gives working parents ultimate flexibility

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By Christina McLean side from the locked doors and low murmur of tiny voices, on first impressions, Third Door could be your average co-working space nestled in a quiet spot in Wandsworth, right by the river’s edge. The locked doors, however, are merely in place due to the Ofsted-registered nursery being run on the main floor, with its sister co-working hub up a flight of stairs.

Third Door Co-working and Nursery has taken on the impressive task of combining work and family life, while also providing a clear boundary between the two, all within one building. The entrance is inviting to both children and adults, complete with a warm re24

ception, faux grass rug and, of course, a place to park the buggies.

With self-employment and remote working on the rise and no shortage of new parents, it’s surprising to consider that there aren’t more flexible options when it comes to balancing kids and careers.

For any parent who has adjusted their hours to meet the nursery drop-off times, and then to complete their commute to work in the opposite direction, the idea of having this all under one roof seems like the ultimate no-brainer.

However, when Third Door first opened eight-and-a-half years ago, “no one knew what co-working was,” says Shazia Mustafa, managing

director of the space.

“For the first couple of years, we were trying to educate people on what co-working is and why it’s good to work near your child.”

As a mother of three, Shazia is no stranger to juggling work and small children. Previously, as a brand research manager at Nokia, she faced the same difficulties many parents do when returning to work after their first child.

Faced with inflexible childcare solutions and a drive to start her own business, Shazia and her husband Yusuf opened Third Door in May 2010, with a two-year-old daughter and sixmonth-old son in tow. Together, they created a community for their members to focus on their modern work

work upstairs while their little ones (aged 0–5) are being cared for in the nursery below.

Third Door is not trying to be one of the trendy office spaces that have been popping up around the country. The co-working space is small, simple and bright, helping to foster Shazia’s emphasis on community. You can really see the space’s character in the member-made artwork hanging from the walls, as well as two bright blue and green telephone boxes, soundproofed for private phone calls — or just a quiet place to sit.

The large meeting room, available for hire by the hour or day, was buzzing with activity, which, surprisingly, was a stark contrast to the relatively quiet nursery; most of the children were out playing some tennis at Wandsworth Park just down the road. with one of the coaches.

The nursery itself is a charming and open space, yet it isn’t filled with the brightly coloured plastic toys one might expect. This is because Third Door wants to be a sustainable business with environmental policies.

“We’ve gotten rid of as much plastic as possible and gone with more natural resources now instead,” Shazia tells me. “I don’t know what we’re going to do about nappies, but that’s the next thing I’m looking at.”

Nappy complications aside, there is a clear drive from Shazia to uphold the core values of Third Door, which include respect, curiosity and confidence.

She says one of her biggest successes has been nurturing “a really lovely team who get what we’re trying to do”.

She adds: “Their development and the fact that they enjoy coming to work means that they’re happy, the children are happy and the parents are happy. That’s where it starts – with the people.”

Third Door has created an offering to give freelancers the flexibility they are looking for.

“We’ve created our own software to enable that flexibility,” Shazia explains. “The parents can book as little as two hours a day to full-time childcare.”

They have also adapted their invoicing to work best for the self-employed, by making it easy to offset the cost of the workhub as a busiNovember /December 2018

ness expense.

Third Door offers both flexible and fixed packages, which can be dialled up or down based on the member’s specific needs. The nursery and co-working packages include a desk space for use by either parent while their child is in the nursery (as well as when they aren’t), and start at £345 per month.

It is worth noting, however, that Third Door isn’t limited to parents. Their members consist of mums and dads, people with older children and some people with no children at all. They also come from a range of backgrounds, from nutritionists and actors to IT professionals and much more in between. For those looking to use the workhub only, the rate starts at £65 for 25 hours per month.

Shazia Mustafa

The next step for Third Door? Expansion.

“It’s all going to grow,” says Shazia. “The main thing for me is that it’s important that people question ‘Why is family separated from work?’”

Overall rating Price Location Facilities Wi-Fi Coffee

Co-working space celebrates landmark anniversary

WITH self-employment booming and more people shunning traditional forms of employment, ‘co-working space’ has become a buzzword in recent years. And in what is a relatively new field, few can claim to already celebrating their tenth birthday.

Spaces can though.

To celebrate its landmark anniversary in October, Spaces has recently opened venues in Manchester and Sheffield, but in the ultimate tribute to flexibility, membership allows global access to over 200 locations in 42 countries across the globe.

And now, after worldwide expansion from their flagship venue in Amsterdam, the people at paces have set their sights on becoming the “pioneers” of the co-working world.

“We have recently celebrated our 10year anniversary. The growth has a lot to do with the Dutch open-minded approach to life and work,” says Heidi Powell-Biney, community associate at Spaces Acero in Sheffield.

“Global membership offers you an easy ticket across the globe, with the comfort of knowing you’ve got a spot to work in nearly every major city. Spaces really is the pioneer in the new way of working.”

“The special thing is that every location is different. Sheffield offers unique and quality design from Sevil Peach and furniture by Vitra and Charles Eames. With an extensive range of events such as talks, brunches, coding workshops and a partnership with Sheffield Digital to help generate a go-to community stop for technological whizz kids of the north, it’s a really vibrant community to be part of.”

Details: spacesworks.com/sheffield/acero

25

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modern work

Review MX vertical mouse, by Logitech

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Meet mighty mouse

By Michael Bryce Tech Correspondent

he MX vertical was released from the globally renowned computer peripheral company Logitech, back in August. With a significant amount of research and product development poured into the realisation of this product, you’d expect to be able to notice the differences that set this apart from your everyday ergonomic mouse, and you can.

In the past, computing peripherals have been split into three main categories; premium and niche products, mass produced equipment for offices and school, and ergonomic. What Logitech has elegantly done with the MX vertical, is mix premium materials and parts with a van-load of research about how us mortals interact with technology, in this case via a mouse.

The MX vertical is largely accepted as the best vertical mouse on the market. That being said, its new approach angle of 57 degrees isn’t for everyone. Some of those who tested it here at Modern Work said that the 57 degree angle was putting an uncomfortable strain on their arms.

Weather this is down to just not being used to it or a disposition, we’ll never know. Personally, however, I can’t complain about the angle or ergonomics of the mouse. I would have liked to see a slightly softer rubberised texture on the contact points for my thumb and little finger as I wasn’t fully confident I wouldn’t drop it when picking it up to move my

November /December 2018

cursor over multiple screens.

I also found that with larger hands its typical for my pinkie finger to contact the desk, occasionally causing friction. This may all sound a bit nit-picky, but we’re talking about a computer mouse that costs two overpriced coffees shy of £100, which is quite the price tag for a mouse.

The mouse is wireless and can interact with the computer over bluetooth or over Logitech’s own unifying technology, which has proved to be vastly superior for this application. To charge, the MX vertical uses the new USB standard — the USB-C connector — which also converts it into a more traditional wired mouse while it charges, a common but useful feature.

The MX vertical boasts a 4,000 DPI high-precision sensor, something that people with a preference for ultra-high mouse sensitivity and accuracy will appreciate.

In summary, the MX vertical has proved it self to be a high quality, well researched ergonomic mouse. It may not be for everyone, so I’d recommend giving it a test before you buy, if you can. Would I get one myself? If I found myself interacting with my computer for longer periods of time, I’d definitely consider it as a top rank contender as a sleek ergonomic mouse.

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‘Computer says no’ Working alone? What can you do when your laptop crashes

By Gemma Church

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s a freelancer, what do you do when your computer crashes? Without the safety net of an IT support desk or a corporate network, you could spend hours trying to retrieve that all-important piece of work or hardware that’s just decided to give up the ghost.

There are a lot of ways that data can be lost. Computers get damaged, accidents happen, and increasingly prevalent and insidious cyber-attacks can leave freelancers vulnerable to data loss.

With the launch of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) earlier this year, freelancers also need to demonstrate accountability, transparency and integrity with their business data or face eye-wateringly hefty fines.

Luckily, we now live in a digital world where a range of proactive solutions are available to help you seamlessly build resilience into your technologies. You don’t have to be an IT expert. Nor should you have to fork out thousands when the worst happens.You may not even have to ‘turn it on, then turn it off again’.

Here’s how to make sure your work is safe and recoverable.

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BACKUP, BACKUP AND BACKUP AGAIN It’s a bit of a no-brainer, but if you want to make sure you can recover your important data you need to back it up.

You can choose from a range of different options, but the 3-2-1 backup method is simple to implement. The basic premise is that your company’s information is split into three parts: one is your live and local copy that you use on a daily basis, the second is a local and easily accessible backup system and the third is a backup system that’s stored off-site.

You should also store your data in at least two different formats and keep one off-site to protect against natural disasters such as a fire, flood or theft.

One of the easiest ways to create a local backup of your business data is to simply store copies of important files on an external hard drive, tape drive or another storage device on a regular basis.

You will need to decide what sort of media you will use for your on-site backups. For example, tape backups and portable hard drives are simple, reliable and relatively cost-effective options. However, these processes are not usually automated and can take time to run.

A Continuous Data Protection (CDP) system constantly backs up your data to a local backup server or appliance. However, they are more complex compared with tape and portable hard drive backups, are more expensive and lack portability.

INTO THE CLOUD A cloud backup creates a secure copy of your data on a remote server, which you can access via an internet connection. Cloud backups are highly secure, using encryption techniques to protect your information. They also give you an off-site option, providing additional contingency and security to ensure your vital work is modern work

available as and when you need it.

It’s important to note that we are not talking about syncing your data with services such as Dropbox, OneDrive or Google Drive here. Backing up your data is an entirely different premise. While these sync services do provide another layer of protection if your hardware goes pop, your work will still be lost across all of your devices if you accidentally delete a file or a data criminal gains access to these online services.

A true backup service enables you to create automated backups of your systems and information and store as many versions of it as you need.

November /December 2018

OUTSOURCE YOUR IT SUPPORT Computers can be intimidating, so outsourcing your IT support not only saves you the stress of dealing with a technical failure, but you’ll also save your precious time as well.

There are many different IT support businesses out there, and each one will offer a different level of service.

You may, for example, just want someone to help you back up and protect your PC. Alternatively, you may opt for a full IT maintenance contract with 24/7 network monitoring, security updates and management, as well as on-site and remote support.

If you do decide to work with a third-par-

ty IT support company, try to find one that works locally so you can drop in with your ailing tech and won’t be charged for their time if your data cannot be recovered.

Also look for those who can provide positive customer reviews and reassurances regarding your data privacy and offer a range of services beyond data recovery to give your business the support and know-how it needs.

In conclusion, freelancers must consider their own data protection needs and choose a strategy accordingly. It depends on the nature of your business, how frequently your data needs to be backed up, and how quickly you need it back if your computer suddenly says “no”.

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Finding the balance when you’re working and studying

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here’s something to be said for juggling work and study alongside the ‘life’ part of your work-life balance. Spending the day on your job, the evening on your studies and any hours in between grabbing life by the hands. It may sound intense but this is the reality for thousands of people who opt to study around their work.

Lifelong learning has inspired more people to get back into education at a later stage in their

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career, continuing to develop personally and professionally and investing in themselves in an increasingly competitive workplace. However, finding a good balance for two of these components can be a challenge, let alone three.

Freelancing could be considered the optimal option when studying for a degree, professional course or other qualification (PhD anyone?). But managing your time to maintain your workload effectively and your sanity is key.

The fundamental advantages of freelancing such as, not having to report to anyone, be sat somewhere for a certain amount of time, or stick to a rigid schedule, are suddenly turned around into things that could prevent us successfully balancing work, study and a personal life.

A rigid schedule, for example, might be something you tried to get away from when going freelance in the first place. But it’s a common theme when speaking to individuals who are atmodern work

tempting the juggling act. Depending on when you’re at your most productive, be it daytime or evening, having a strict schedule dividing your time between studies, clients and your friends and family is one of the best ways to maintain a balance in your life.

Think colour-coded annual wall calendars, weekly schedules from 5am to midnight, dedicated notebooks for daily to-do lists; a rigid schedule can work wonders. It can be the perfect way of achieving achieving a work-life balance when you’re working and studying.

Making use of the ‘spare’ time you have (time that you often don’t realise you had until you embark on a challenge like this), can maximise your days and help reduce the workload.

For example; you could take a coffee break and instead of the newspaper, read a study paper.

Or when you’re travelling to meet a client, why not take some study materials for the journey November /December 2018

(audio books or podcasts if you’re driving)? Or perhaps committ to spending ten minutes before bed every night making a dent in something on your to-do list.

Often the greatest challenge isn’t cmanaging your work and study commitments, but actually fitting in time to see friends and family — or even just getting some downtime to relax and refocus. No one will truly understand the commitment you take on when choosing to study alongside work and the experience is very different for everyone. Parking at least some hours in the week to catch up on life is just as important as completing that assignment.

Finally, the piece of the jigsaw often booted out first: exercise or a hobby. Regardless of how intense our daily routine is, it’s easy to let this slip to the bottom of your priority list. But the impact of even a weekly exercise session or another activity as such is underrated, and can often help

you de-stress. The time we don’t spend on work and studies is as valuable as the time we do.

So maintaining a balance while working and studying? While there is no one size fits all solution, these recommendations are a starting point: • Get an annual wall calendar and colour code your work, study and life commitments • Have a weekly schedule to break down your daily tasks • Use your ‘spare’ time effectively to dent your workload • Fit in a weekly exercise or activity – e.g. a run, cycle, yoga etc.

• Find some time to socialise every week Birkbeck, University of London is an evening university, with the vast majority of students working full-time or part-time alongside their studies, managing the juggling act in their undergrad and postgrad courses.

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FESTIVE

guide to health and happiness

By Chris Piggott-McKellar

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tores are lining their shelves with stocking stuffers while the sounds of sleigh bells ring through the air. Whether it’s come too soon for you – or hasn’t come quickly enough – it’s certainly beginning to look, and sound, a lot like Christmas.

For most self-employed people, there’s no better feeling than being your own boss.

You have the freedom and flexibility to pick and choose your own hours, which technically means you can set your own holidays.

However, nothing puts an end to the festive mood for a freelancer faster than a last-minute phone call from a client, or a poorly managed workload, just when you’re planning some quality downtime. Instead of picking presents for family, or planning to make Gran’s secret baked pudding, finding yourself rushing to meet a client deadline is as appealing as listening to a barely perceptible Christmas carol screech its way out of a child’s recorder.

Modern Work has compiled the following tips to ensure you get the most out of the festive season and are ready to hit the reset button come 2019.

TAKE A BREAK – AND PLAN FOR IT Being self-employed essentially means running your own small business, so for most freelancers, the line between work and family life is perennially blurred. Taking a break, and planning properly for it, can be a real circuit breaker from the hurly-burly of running your own business.

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“You wouldn’t run your car constantly without sending it in for a service, and your body is the same,” says experienced accountant to small businesses and start-ups, Bobby Lane.

“Take some time out from the business to enjoy with family.”

If you find that it’s impossible to switch off completely, or you have arranged with clients to be available over the festive season, there are still ways to use your time effectively to lower stress.

“Think about what you want to achieve in the coming year,” says Bobby, who is now a partner at accountancy firm, Blick Rothenberg.

“Start writing down objectives or preparing a business plan. Looking at the business from the outside with a fresh perspective rather than constantly running at 100 miles per hour can be incredibly valuable.”

NETWORK, NETWORK, NETWORK – BUT WHAT ABOUT CLIENTS’ CHRISTMAS PARTIES? There’s an assumption that if you’re a freelancer who operates through a limited company, you shouldn’t attend your clients’ staff Christmas parties as it may affect your IR35 status.

However, Andy Chamberlain, deputy director of policy at freelancer advocacy body IPSE, said it was unlikely that an IR35 decision would turn on whether someone attended a Christmas party. “As far as I am aware, it hasn’t been a material consideration in any of the cases which have gone before the tax tribunal. However, it may not be helpful when trying to demonmodern work

strate you are not part and parcel of the client organisation.”

Many businesses may also host clients’ drinks and festive networking events, which can be great opportunities to extend your contact base. And attending these won’t affect your IR35 status.

“In the early days, but also as your business grows, owners must continue to meet new people and identify new opportunities, both in the traditional sense and as social media networking becomes incredibly important,” Bobby continues.

A handwritten Christmas card to established clients can also be the perfect way to reinforce meaningful working relationships, and help you stand out from the crowd.

the owner. Managing the water in the tank is one of the most important areas to focus on.”

If you’re going to spend money on one thing for yourself this Christmas, it can be a good idea to invest in some quality financial and/or accountancy advice. This will give you more time to focus on what you do best, providing clients with your specialised skill.

PLAN TO UPSKILL With a new year comes new opportunities, and planning to upskill should be on every freelancer’s resolution list. Gaining new skills can help you be more efficient, enables you to expand the services you offer to your clients, and ultimately opens up new revenue streams.

KEEP YOUR FINANCES UNDER CONTROL Talking about finances ahead the festive season is the equivalent for most people of unwrapping a lump of coal, and that’s before the Christmas bills arrive. Getting small businesses – including the self-employed – to understand the importance of sound financial management is the key to improved health and happiness, adds Bobby. He uses the ‘water tank’ analogy with his clients.

“If you imagine the bank account of your business is the water tank. Money will come into the business as you sell your services, and water will flow into the tank. As you spend money on direct costs money flows out of the tank. As long as there is more water coming in than going out of a business, there is cash to pay expenses and

November /December 2018

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Festive finance: a freelancer’s guide to saving for Christmas

By Katy Carlisle

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hristmas time is barrelling towards us like an oversized snowball. And at this time of year, your goose may be getting fat but is your wallet looking a little on the lean side?

If that sounds familiar, here are some money saving tips to get you through your freelance Christmas.

Let’s start with the basics. This first tip isn’t that sexy, but it is important. Before you start saving money, it helps to know what you’re spending. Once you’ve got a better understanding of your outgoings you can start reducing them – trimming back the turkey fat. One of the best places to start is eliminating your ‘nice to have’ purchases – then you can set about cutting back other freelancing expenses too.

SEASON’S SAVINGS A great way to cut back on freelancing expenses is to look at organisations that work with freelancers and see if they have discounts or membership perks that could

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help you out. Like little early presents to help you pay for your own Christmas. Some companies offer a student rate – even if you aren’t in full-time education. So, for example, if you’re taking an evening class or part-time course, you can get a significant discount on Adobe’s Creative Cloud subscription (so long as you’re with an approved learning provider).

FROSTED, SNOW-TOPPED, DOUBLECHOCOLATE SKINNY OATMILK MOCHACCINO After you’ve audited where your hardearned income goes, you may be surprised by just how much you spend on coffee. Yep, those frosted, snow-topped, skinny (etc: see above) really do add up. But don’t worry: if you’re not ready to cut out the caffeine, there are still ways to curb your costs. Some coffee shops offer discounts if you bring a re-usable cup, and these little savings add up over time (what they call the ‘marginal gains’ approach). Take advantage of loyalty schemes too: some places are surprisingly generous and you can find yourself with a free drink quite quickly.

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CO-WORKING CHRISTMAS Coffee shops aren’t the only places that value loyalty. Are you based at a co-working space? Find out whether they offer incentives – like a free month – for introducing new members. And if you’re thinking about joining one, check to see if they have a free day pass or trial period. Not only can it save you money, you’ll also get a feel for the place in advance, before you commit.

If you can’t afford a co-working space, libraries generally let you work for free without you having to feel guilty about using the wi-fi. If you’ve got friends who also freelance, you could even set up your own little co-working circle and take turns to host. That way, you get the benefits of the company and change of scenery without the expense.

And if you fancy a cheap evening out, browse Eventbrite or Meetup for networking events. A lot of the sponsored ones have free beer and pizza, plus you might meet some cool people to co-work with. You could also leverage the talents of your freelance connections by doing a skills swap.

(LATE NIGHT) PLANES, (OFFPEAK) TRAINS AND (DISCOUNT) AUTOMOBILES Travel is another common expense, so take advantage of being freelance to travel off-peak. If you’ve been booking early-morning meetings out of habit, move them back an hour – or consider whether the meeting is even needed. Skype is free, or perhaps an email update would be enough?

When you do have to travel, book your tickets in advance to get the best rates. It’s obvious, but easy to forget when you’re busy, so if the tickets haven’t been released yet, set a calendar alert to remind you to book once they’re on sale. And if you travel abroad regularly for work, check how much it costs to use your card and consider switching to a bank that offers a better rate.

November /December 2018

HARVEST TIME FOR THE MONEY LENDERS When you’ve reviewed your finances, you might find you’re paying for subscriptions you no longer use – or that you’re over-paying for others. So don’t let Scrooge squeeze your Christmas wallet: get cancelling and switching to cheaper options. There may be alternatives that meet your needs for a lower price: it’s certainly worth shopping around. For example, Wave provides free online accounting and invoicing software.

Using tools or services that are designed for the realities of self-employment can also save you money. Dinghy provides insurance for freelancers, and one feature is that you can pause your policy when you’re not working or are between gigs, so you don’t pay for more than you need. Meanwhile, freelance banking app Coconut lets you easily categorise your expenses, and gives you a running tax estimate (including tips on what you can and can’t claim for) so you always know where you’re up to with your finances. Knowledge, after all, is power.

MAKE YOUR SAVINGS JINGLE ALL THE WAY Ultimately, how you spend your money is about what matters to you. If going to your favourite coffee shop gives you the boost you need to get through the day, do it. Or if getting the latest technology will inspire you and genuinely help your business, do that too. But in the run-up to Christmas, when you’re trying to get your freelance finances together, it just helps to review what matters to you and trim the fat from your expenses. That should give you the extra financial boost to focus on something that matters to everyone: Christmas. So happy saving and have a very merry Christmas!

When freelancers get Scrooged “SCROOGE had a very small fire, but the clerk’s fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn’t replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room.”

We’ve all been there. Well… many freelancers have. Because penny-pinching bosses don’t just turn up in Dickensian Christmases: you find them in the twenty-first century too – all year round. And freelancers most of all because they work with so many different clients and bosses. So, to get us in the Christmas spirit – and remind us how not to do generosity this December – we asked three freelancers for their worst Scrooge stories.

Ronnie, banking sector I worked for a large international bank who didn’t provide any free drinks and made you actually pay for hot water. They also kept the stationery cupboards locked… even though they were always empty anyway! The desktop computers there were ancient too. One contractor I knew resorted to buying parts and fitting them himself, so he could run the large spreadsheets he needed to actually do his job.

Amanda, freelance accountant I was working for a haulage company and they had no sink in the office: the only one was in the kitchen on the other side of the warehouse.

But they were too cheap to pay the insurance to let a contractor like me in there.

I shared the office with two employees who could get to the sink but were too lazy to go. Instead, we used the water cooler to fill the kettle and a bucket to put old coffee dregs in. They sat there and let the bucket fester – just seeing how long they could push it before they had to empty it. I wasn’t overly sad when that particular contract ended!

Joanne, medical copywriter The other year my client was having a Christmas party: I wasn’t invited but I didn’t expect to be. The surprise was having to take two days unpaid because the office was closing and all the staff were being whisked off to a country house hotel! I offered to work from home; they told me to “enjoy the time off”. Not ideal in the run-up to the Christmas shut-down!

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Ask the expert How should you prepare for the festive period when there is less work? And if a client does approach you, can you raise your rates?

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Faye Dicker Freelance broadcaster and founder of Freelance Mum

n one hand you feel like attaching a tap to your bank account and watching the money pour out for Christmas. On the other, you watch the work dry up during the festive season. Combine the two and it can make for a challenging cash flow!

Like all things, there is no right or wrong answer, it’s more a case of finding the solution that works best for you. If you’re happy ‘shutting shop’ and taking the Christmas period off, then surely that’s the perk of being your own boss. But if some one approaches you to work during that time, should you increase your rates?

I recently pitched this question at Freelance Mum and the general vibe was no, people already felt their rates were fair. Interestingly, even those whose businesses are busy during the Christmas period (such as a business choir and gift-wrapping service) felt it would be immoral to charge more, just because of demand.

However, if a client requests work to be turned around in super quick time at short notice, I’d suggest adding 20 per cent on top of the usual rate – but only if you want to. After all, you can’t put a price on the time spent with loved ones.

I recently went to book tickets to take my girls to see Santa and was shocked to discover I had to pay more money, if they wanted to see him closer to Christmas. To me, that’s a bigger business, taking full advantage of children and surely the true spirit of Christmas?

And as a freelancer, part of the appeal for me is being able to slot work in and around family life and adjust things accordingly. Above everything, always be honorable in business.

Do you have a question for our experts?

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What tax allowances do the self-employed get around Christmas?

Paul Mason, National Account Manager at Abbey Tax

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es, it is party season and many employers will invite and pay for their staff to attend a function. And that is the key: the £150 limit per annum is an amount which employers can spend per person without a taxable benefit being suffered by the individual.

Unfortunately, it does not apply to sole traders or partnerships on the basis that the expenditure is not wholly and exclusively for the purposes of the trade.

However, if you trade through a limited company, then this perhead concession applies as long as all staff are invited to the function.

If the business has other staff, but the event is for directors only, then a benefit in kind would arise on the directors.

Where employees’ spouses/partners also attend you can budget up to £300; the concession is not limited to employees only. But, please note that if the amount for the event exceeds £150, then whole cost is taxable not just the excess.

Finally, the concession is an annual amount. If your business held another event costing £100 per head and the Christmas party was £80 per head, then the lower amount would need to be treated as a taxable benefit in kind because the annual £150 limit had been exceeded.

For more details, please see HMRC’s Employment Manual at EIM21690/1 which summarises the legislation found at s264 Income Tax (Earnings & Pensions) Act 2003. But most importantly, enjoy your Christmas party and don’t be tempted by the vintage wine and brandy as you could end up with another headache in the form of a tax bill

Email it to editor@modernworkmag.co.uk and get a one year’s subscription for the printed edition of Modern Work – and the financial magazine My Money FREE!

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Networking, seminars & events

SOCIAL MEDIA, A YEAR IN REVIEW WEBINAR

FREELANCING FOR STUDENTS This event is part of a series designed to give students across all disciplines top tips and advice on how to successfully launch a career as a freelancer.

Listen to our keynote speakers give valuable insights into how to win work and build your reputation and client list.

We end with a panel session with two successful freelancers who will share their journies, challenges and successes, and also give advice on how to market yourself and find work. Also on the panel will be two representatives from work platforms to give their perspectives.

Details: Tuesday 4 December, 16.00 – 19.00, Rise London, 41 Luke Street, London, EC2A 4DP, ipse.co.uk

In this session, chartered marketer and independent consultant Luan Wise will be reviewing the key changes in social media from 2018 and making some predictions for the year ahead.

Details: Monday 10 December, 12.30 – 13.30, ipse.co.uk GET STARTED, FREE WORKSHOP This full day workshop will cover the essentials of what you need to do to set up and launch a business. Topics include: learning if you are ready to launch a business, marketing, finance, key business terms and putting together a business plan.

Details: Wednesday 12 December, 10.00 – 17.00, Business & IP Centre, The British Library, 96 Euston Road, London, NW1 2DB HOW CAN I PROTECT A BUSINESS IDEA? FREE WORKSHOP

This workshop, run by British Library Business & IP Centre, packs a massive amount of content into just half a day to equip you with a simple step-by-step approach to securing investment.

This session will introduce the four areas of intellectual property and help you understand which ones may apply to you and your business.

The session provides a basic introduction to patents, trademarks, registered designs and copyright, and provides a foundation for the ‘Mini-Masterclass’ series.

Details: Thursday 6 December, 14.00 – 18.00, Business and IP Centre, The British Library, 96 Euston Road, London, NW1 2DB, ipse.co.uk

Details: Monday 17 December, 14.00 – 17.00, Business & IP Centre, The British Library, 96 Euston Road, London, NW1 2DB

HOW TO ATTRACT THE RIGHT INVESTORS

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FREELANCE MUM AT ST PAUL’S JANUARY NETWORKING EVENT Join IPSE Ambassador Freelance Mum for their monthly networking event. At Freelance Mum, not only will you be able to connect with likeminded freelance mums and dads; you’ll also be able to bring your kids along, go for walks, listen to guest speakers and speak to other freelancers on a one to one basis.

Details: Tuesday 8 January, 10.00 – 12.00, Saint Paul’s Church, Coronation Rd, Southville, Bristol, BS3 1DG, freelancemum.co.uk FREELANCING FOR STUDENTS In partnership with Bridge 2 Business, IPSE is hosting this event to connect students across Scotland and support them in their freelance career. The event will feature keynote speaker sessions, a panel discussion with successful freelancers and networking.

Details: Wednesday 23 January, 11.00 – 15.00, Ayrshire College, Kilmarnock Campus, Hill Street, Kilmarnock, KA1 3HY, ipse.co.uk

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That’s where Professional Indemnity insurance comes in - if you are alleged to have provided inadequate advice, services or designs to a client, this type of insurance provides cover for the legal costs and expenses in defending the claim, as well as compensation payable to your client to rectify the error.

PI insurance may not be mandatory but wouldn’t you like to have peace of mind knowing that you’re protected in case something goes wrong?

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