01 November 2019 
Julia Ascott, Employment Taxes Specialist
We have recently launched our revised HE Common Roles document and the BUFDG Employment Status Tool.
The HE Common Roles document replaces our previous document which was withdrawn last year, and covers a number of roles which are commonly found in universities and provides guidance on whether these would normally be considered as employed or self-employed roles (although of course individual arrangements and circumstances may sometimes differ). This document was created by Caroline, and employment status specialist, Rebecca Seeley Harris of RE Legal Consulting, along with BUFDG members, to reflect how the roles are carried out in most universities.
The BUFDG Employment Status Tool is designed as a series of weighted questions to try to help determine employment status on individual engagements, with more of a focus on the kind of academic and professional services roles found in the HE sector than some other tools (for example, HMRC’s Check Employment Status for Tax tool is based more on manual trades and professions and so often results in ‘unable to determine’ responses). The tool has been designed with employment tax consultant, Julia Ascott of Ascott ETC Limited, with feedback from BUFDG members, and will hopefully help to provide more concrete responses. It has been designed so that those with little or no tax expertise or experience of employment status issues can use it. However, it is important to note that the BUFDG tool cannot be relied upon in the same way that the HMRC tool can.
Both BUFDG documents have been seen by HMRC’s Public Bodies Group (please see the caveats on each for details).
We hope that members will find these guidance tools useful when trying to determine if individuals are employed or self-employed or whether personal service companies should be treated as on or off payroll. The HE Common Roles document can be found here, and the BUFDG Employment Status Tool can be found here.
If you have any queries regarding either of these tools, please email Julia Ascott.
