Hi. My son works for a gardener on a self employed basis,

Hi.

Given that your son is self-employed, anybody who takes him on can dictate how many hours they need his services for.

Based on what you have told me, if you son has only worked for the one gardener for six years, then strictly the gardener should have had him on the books as an employee. The reasons he hasn't done that are that he would be entitled to paid holidays, sick pay and the employer would have had to operate PAYE and pay employer's national insurance contributions, the so called "tax on jobs".

There is no set number of hours above which a sub-contractor has to be treated as an employee. What I suspect has happened is that the gardener has heard something from another business person that has spooked him into thinking that if the tax office held an enquiry into his business and tax affairs which they have a right to do, they may say that your son should have been an "employee" for the previous six years and charge the gardener backdated national insurance contributions which would be very expensive.

Your son should ask for a more detailed explanation than he has been given so far but as I said, when you are self-employed, you really have few rights.

Let me know if you have any further queries.