Hi Paul
You are right
We have in the past relied on agencies to provide their contract for each ltd company we set up. This has proved impossible as many agencies have the wrong contract or have important points missing leaving themselves and yourselves wide open to being challanged by the Inland Revenue.
Because of this we have always offered a Terms of Contract for Services (TCS) for these agencies to use.
We have taken it further this year.
We now have systems in place that automatically sends out a TCS for each contractor for each agency he joins. We are also dealing with all contractors who joined Nova prior to this system to cover every one with our contract.
Our TCS covers every aspect of the IR35. It has been put through many legal departments of many of our large clients who are happy to use it. It clearly states the company is entitled to substitute.
To reassure you a little further we are finalising a deal to insure all who have our contract in place against being challenged by the Inland Revenue to be deemed employed rather than self employed. If they are challenged, Nova are to appoint a legal team to fight their case and also a 10k pot put aside for any back taxes in case they lose although we are not expecting them to lose.
The contractor will not be charged a fee from their salary.
Hope this answers your question.
Regards
Alice
Can’t say fairer than that Alice 
Hi Rob K
The Inland Revenue have NOT challanged any of our drivers but thats not to say they wont.
At some point a driver may be challanged. It could be Nova it could be one of our competitors. For the sake of some of our competitors I hope its Nova.
Nova is happy for one of their contractors to be challenged.
This is why we are ensuring ALL at Nova have the right contract and I visit agencies to go through the IR35. We send a copy of the IR35 to all our contractors and to all our agencies.
The Inland Revenue have been through Nova with a fine tooth comb, the MD is very familiar with the senior man (he also calls and asks for advise from him). They dont seem to be interested in us as we are Single Member Companies (the contractors own ltd company) not composite (where 25 people or so share 1 ltd company) and we cross all our t’s and dot all our i’s.
I hope this reassures a little.
Regards
Alice
I think you’ve pretty much answered my concerns there Alice, thanks.
Quite why any agency would accept the contract with the substitution clause in it though is beyond me - perhaps they only do so as they know that in practice it’s unlikely to ever be used.
The insurance against IR35 idea is a good one too.
Paul