Freelancer Application Form

Uniform / Clothing
- Visions will provide engineer’s with branded clothing where required, for either the rig or show. Once clothing has been provided please keep it for future projects
- Where required, suits or dinner jackets will be specified when the call sheet / purchase order is produced.
- We expect either black shorts or black trousers / combats to be worn with polo shirts. Shorts should not be worn except while rigging or on some outdoor events.
- Some shows / projects just require plain blacks, this will be specified on the call sheet / purchase order.
- We do not provide wet weather gear for events.
- We do not provide PPE equipment for sub-contractors.

Food & Drink
- On some occasions we will offer a PD buy out for an event, which will cover all food & drink.
- Liquid refreshments will be provided on site where available or in cases where you have been away overnight or do not have time to leave
-Where onsite at 7am or prior; or where overnight accommodation has been provided we will provide lunch, we will also provide lunch if engineers are unable to leave the event.
- Dinner is provided on events where you will not be home in reasonable time for dinner
- If you have overnight accommodation an evening meal will be provided
- Breakfast is provided where overnight accommodation is required

Dear Colleague,

Thank-you for your interest in working for Visions Event Solutions as a freelancer. As a supplier to Visions Event Solutions of subcontracted technical services I am writing to advise you of some relevant information and set out the terms under which we contract such suppliers.

Visions Event Solutions, in common with other companies in the industry needs to be able to sub-contract technical labour and services from specialist suppliers or freelancers. This is necessary to cope with peaks in demand and is a situation we wish to see continue.

In the past HMRC have succeeded in claiming that some of these suppliers are in fact part me employees and should have Income Tax & National Insurance deducted at source as well as an additional employers NI contribution. We do not wish to have to treat all suppliers of such services as employees and we are also aware that most of the suppliers do not wish to become employees.

We have always treated the freelancers that we have subcontracted to be businesses in their own right. Unfortunately, how we regard them does not matter and the criteria for defining self-employed status is laid down in law. It is worth noting that these regulations have not changed recently, rather that HMRC have focused themselves towards ensuring that they are enforced more aggressively.

As a result of the Revenue’s stance and their success in this area, it is now vital for Visions Event Solutions and the freelancers that are contract to take the necessary steps to ensure that we are able to continue our working relationship in a manner that suits us both; while ensuring we apply the correct tax treatment to our transactions.

In order to achieve this we have to be able to demonstrate that we are genuinely subcontracting services to a separate business in its own right and that it cannot be claimed that the relationship is, or should be, one of employer / employee. This requires you, as a supplier of such services to be prepared to undertake your dealings with us in a way which demonstrates and will be classified as a business to business relationship.

In order to make sure that the above conditions prevail Visions Event Solutions have a contract that we require you to sign and abide by the terms of when sub-contracting service to us.

This agreement sets out clearly the terms on which Visions Event Solutions purchases technical services from subcontractors and sets out a procedure to be followed for the briefing, quo ng & invoicing process. Some notes on the agreement appear below: 

This agreement is drawn up to clearly establish your status as a self-employed individual providing subcontracted technical services to it does not add any new obligations on yourself. Please read these notes in conjunction on with the Agreement.

OBLIGATION

• An important part of establishing your status as self-employed is your right to accept or refuse any work offered to you.

FINANCIAL CONTROL

• Three of the Inland Revenue tests for self-employment are financially related:

“Do you have the ability to maximise your profit from a contract by sound management or efficient working?” ; “Are you responsible for meeting the losses as well as taking the profits?”; “Do you risk your own money in the business?”

By way of example:

1) To reduce your costs, you might choose to share a hotel room on a contract where you were providing accommodation.

2) If you are performing contracted services on behalf of your business and you are taken ill, it is your responsibility to provide a

replacement organise their travel and arrange for your own travel away from site. In this instance your business might make a loss on a particular contract but you are accepting this as a normal and true business risk.

• As a self-employed individual you are responsible for your own tax affairs and do not receive any benefits associated with employment.

SUBSTITUTION

• As a self-employed person you have always had the right to provide substitute personnel at your cost.

QUOTATION AND CONTRACT PROCESS

• In order to satisfy the requirement of self-employment we must not be seen to be paying you on a me-related basis. We also cannot directly reimburse the actual travel / petrol / excess baggage expenses; at this point we would have to treat you as an employee.

• What it actually costs your business to complete the services is up to you to estimate before you quote your price and accept a contract; Per diem expenses and travel allowances that form part of a particular contract must be included within the price agreed for the job. The point here is that although we may both use a daily rate for labour / food / transport to calculate and establish a contract value it is up to you to quote a single figure to us to complete the services that we have detailed. Contracts will be awarded on a project specific basis and will not take the form of a “Daily rate x number of days” basis.

PURCHASE ORDERS AND INVOICING

• We will issue you with a purchase order which will detail the works you have been contracted for, it is essential that you quote this purchase order number clearly on your invoice. It is recommended that you use the wording that appears on the Purchase Order for your invoice. Whilst we currently accept invoices without purchase orders the processing time increases significantly if a purchase order number is not quoted.

• Another indicator of self-employed status is that you act like a business and therefore have a letterhead and provide printed invoices; we will be unable to accept hand written or incorrectly submitted invoices.

• To improve our invoice processing we would strongly encourage you to email your invoices to us using the following email address: freelancer@visionsgroup.co.uk

INSURANCE

• We require you to hold a minimum of £1,000,000 of Public Liability cover.

• We are required to hold up to date insurance certificates for all our subcontractors. We will be unable to award contracts to businesses whose current insurance details we do not hold.

• You may also wish to hold travel, medical, loss of earnings or other forms of insurance to protect yourself against some of the risks involved in your business.

COMPANY VEHICLES

• In order for you to drive company vehicles we require to hold a photo copy of your driving licence (both parts where appropriate).

• You will need to read the Visions Event Solu ons Transport Policy

• You will be required to sign a declaration of the policies read.

In Summary:

We wish to avoid the additional administrative burden of having to treat subcontractors as employees, in the same way as I would imagine subcontractors wish to continue providing services without tax & NI being deducted at source.

I would be very happy to discuss the situation with you individually. Please feel free to call me on the number below if I can be of any further assistance.

Kind Regards,

Chris Norman

This agreement is for the provision of subcontracted technical services by self-employed individuals to Visions it aims to clearly lay out the quote, contract and payment process along with what we expect a subcontract business to supply and take responsibility for.
 
1. OBLIGATION
• This is not an offer of either temporary or permanent employment. There is no obligation on either party to either offer or accept individual contracts.
• We expect you to fulfil the service in a professional manner and to the best of your business’ abilities.
 
2. FINANCIAL CONTROL
• You will give us a fixed price for the contract (see Quotation and Contract Process in sec on 4).
• You can manage the provision of the services in any way you wish to maximise your profit from the contract providing
that the terms of the brief are met. It is possible that your business may make a loss on a particular contract.
• You agree to correct any unsatisfactory or defective work at your own cost and in your own time.
• You confirm that you are responsible for your tax affairs and payment of any Income Tax or National Insurance Contributions on earnings from Visions Event Solutions
 
3. SUBSTITUTION
• You do not necessarily have to perform the services personally. You are at liberty to provide whatever competent persons you wish to fulfil the contract we have awarded to your business. You must give us reasonable notice of personnel changes and we will want to satisfy ourselves that they are competent to adequately fulfil the contract. Any costs incurred (flight changes etc) as a result of this would need to be met by your business.
• When you provide substitute personnel we still expect an invoice from your business. You will need to arrange appropriate payments to be made to the third party.
 
4. QUOTATION AND CONTRACT PROCESS
• When initially discussing a project we will make clear what services are required together with any scheduling details and deadlines. We will also advise you if we or our client will be providing accommodation, travel and on-site catering. etc.
• You provide a fixed price quota on inclusive of all expenses, tools and other costs to your business of providing this service. This quota on would normally be verbal but we may ask for this to be confirmed in writing. We may or may not accept this quota on. If accepted, we will send you a purchase order (normally by e-mail).
• If at any point we extend or change the scope of the brief you may quote an amount for this variation. If we agree this you will be issued with a revised purchase order confirming the new value. In the interests of our on-going relationship we do not expect to receive variations for minor schedule changes etc.
• You complete the services.
• After completion you send a printed invoice quo ng our purchase order number, to our Accounts Department in Reading. (Not to the person you agreed the contract with)
Your printed invoices should include:
o Your business name and address.
o Your full name if you are a sole trader or registration number if you are a company.
o The tax date of the invoice (This is the date you complete the services)
o Your VAT number if you are VAT registered
o Your invoice number
o Our purchase order number
o The wording on the invoice should take the form of â€œTechnical Services on the ABC project at XYZ as per
(verbal) quota on and agreed contract amount”. Any invoices that showing a daily rate, travel or per diems separately will be returned.
 
5. TOOLS, HEALTH & SAFETY & INSURANCE
• You are responsible for your own Personal Protective Equipment, specialist tools, test equipment, harness / rope access equipment etc. to complete the contract. This also applies to training / licences etc.
• We may also ask you to provide us with your own risk assessments and method statements relating to the services that you have been contracted to supply.
• You must maintain a Public Liability Insurance Cover with a minimum value of Â£1,000,000. A copy of your certificate should be sent to us with this agreement and each me the policy is renewed.
• We both have a collective responsibility for the Health & Safety of the crew, performers and public on any project. You are expected to work within the site and event Health & Safety Policies and report any safety concerns to the Project Manager, client or another responsible person.
 
6. PAYMENT
• Our payment terms are that we process payment within 30 days of the date of the invoice. We expect this invoice date to be the date you complete the services, (ie. the last day on site)
• For contracts longer than 14 days we will make an agreement for part invoicing and payment of the contract value
• Payment will be made by automatic transfer into a UK bank account.
• Invoices should be sent promptly directly to our Accounts Department in Reading. Please do not send these elsewhere as this may delay the processing of your payment, please email to freelancer@visionsgroup.co.uk
• If your invoice does not match the purchase order value, payment may be delayed while variations are agreed.
 
7. GENERAL CONDUCT
• The consumption of alcohol or other intoxicants during working times is not permitted.
• Any person suspected to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs will be removed from site. Visions reserves the right to conduct random alcohol and drugs screening of anyone working with us on site including freelancers.
• Any damage to equipment should be notified as soon as practical, we expect our sub-contractors to take reasonable care of equipment and the site.
• We may vary this agreement or add specific additions for a particular contract (eg. security or confidentiality clauses) with prior notice.
• It is absolutely necessary that you maintain and protect Vision interests and the business affairs of any of its clients at all times whilst you are representing them
 
By accepting your application you agree to provide Visions Event Solutions with services in accordance with this agreement.