|
Professional Passport claims that they have opened up their organisations to a full and complete compliance check against Professional Passport's stringent audit standards.
Professional Passport said that size is not a measure for compliance, the only real measure of compliance is compliance. With the implementation of the MSC legislation, and resulting nervousness in the market, providers have recognised the importance of achieving an independent validation of their offerings.
Crawford Temple, Professional Passport COO said:"Every provider makes claims of compliance, what we now know is that some of these claims are unfounded. The issue for contractors is how to make that assessment themselves."
JSA
Barry Roback, CEO of JSA a specialist provider of both accountancy services and an umbrella solution for contractors, said: "We are fully supportive of Professional Passport and applaud what it is attempting to achieve. A recognised standard of compliance has become essential in this market. Professional Passport seems to be well placed to achieve this. We were delighted to be the first audited and approved company and see this as an independent confirmation of what we have always known."
Professional Passport has developed an 'Audit Standard' that not only assesses providers against compliance with the appropriate legislation, but also assesses their customer service standards and procedures.
Providers have to pay for the audit and, if successful, will be listed within Professional Passport's approved provider listings.
SJD Accountancy
Simon Dolan, MD of SJD Accountancy, specialist provider of fixed fee, limited company accountancy services to contractors, with over 8,500 clients said:"We were the first to achieve a successful MSC compliancy audit carried out by KPMG, so we fully support any attempt to bring recognised compliance standards to this market.
"As the HMRC audit standards have still not been agreed we feel Professional Passport provides a suitable platform for this standard to be achieved. Standards such as these are vitally important as more and more contractors are choosing to operate through their own limited companies with recruiters at the hub of most referrals and recommendations for accountancy firms."
Insurance
Professional Passport's Audit Standards have also received independent validation as they are now able to cover agency members with a £5,000,000 insurance against debt transfer liabilities.
Julia Delany, MD, said "We have worked closely with our insurers to the point that they are so confident in our processes and procedures they are able to offer this insurance to our agencies. It is unfortunate that we cannot extend this same offer to our contractor members but the MSC Legislation specifically prohibits us from doing this."
Professional Passport said that HMRC have also confirmed that the insurance offered to agencies does not fall foul of the MSC rules. As well as auditing accountancy service providers, Professional Passport has also designed an audit to assess the compliance of umbrella providers.
Crawford Temple said:"There has been confusion as to whether umbrella providers could be caught by the legislation, even though HMRC gave clear guidance that they are not. This has come about as a number of organisations describe themselves as umbrellas where, on close examination, they clearly do not measure up to the common definition of an umbrella provider.
"HMRC have also commented that care needs to be taken in assessing a provider who is using the generic term of umbrella, as it may not meet the commonly understood definition."
ContractorUmbrella
Lisa Keeble, MD of ContractorUmbrella, sister company to SJD Accountancy, and also confirmed as compliant by a KPMG audit, said: "With the huge number of umbrella companies 'claiming' to be fully compliant we welcome the launch of Professional Passport and are sure it will help recruiters and contractors make informed and safe decisions."
Professional Passport is currently carrying out audits on a number of other providers, assessing their compliance against the relevant legislation. Crawford Temple said:"Non compliance of providers is now a real issue for the market; it is our intention to become the recognised standard for compliance across the market. Only those providers who operate to the highest levels will be approved and feature in our listings.
"We have a further three umbrella and three accountancy service audits booked and these should be completed by the end of March."
Members of Professional Passport have complete access to the approved provider listings. Members also have access to a wide range of support tools designed to assist them in ensuring they remain compliant.
--
If you wish to comment on this article, please log in and use the Reply button below. Registering is simple and easy to do online - see 'Join Shout99'.
--
The Editor
|
