Contract templates: Consultancy Agreement (Individual) – Simons Muirhead Burton
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Please find the template and more details for a Consultancy Agreement (Individual) below.
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Consultancy Agreements
The purpose of consultancy agreements is to set out the terms and conditions of a company’s engagement of a self-employed contractor. They major difference between these types of agreement and employment contracts are to ensure that the agreements do not give the impression that a consultant is in anyway employed by the company they provide their services to and are, as a matter of fact, self-employed.
There are two ways that a company can engage a consultant, either directly or via a personal service company. Each method of engagement has with its own considerations that need to be taken into account, chief among them is the fact that the signatories of the contract are going to be different legal entities which, in turn, brings about an array of separate and unique issues that must be considered carefully.
Consultancy agreements for engaging individuals
This template particularises the terms and conditions that are appropriate when a company engages an individual to provide certain services for the company. The main feature of this template is that it, so far as possible, removes the hallmarks of an employment relationship. For instance, consultants should:
- Not be engaged by a company on an exclusive basis;
- Be able to appoint a substitute to carry out the services;
- Be paid once certain milestones have been achieved;
- Be responsible for their own tax liability; and
- Be able to carry out their work as they see fit,
in order to demonstrate, for employment law and tax purposes, that the individual contractors engaged are indeed self-employment.
