I require some clarification on what level of professional indemnity cover you would require if working on a self employed basis for public sector organisations such as health authority, local councils and community organisations. I have so far failed to find a suitable policy that covers me as a self employed consultant providing advice and managing some large scale projects.

A local authority [LA] is disbursing funds from central government - £400k approximately to childcare providers from the PVI sector. They have decided that the best way to do this is to pre select 4/5 suppliers and in a form of credits to the various childcare organisations allow the providers to purchase up to the pre set amounts [e.g. £2,500] from their chosen supplier the goods they require.

Thus the selected suppliers would need a contract for this arrangement. I realise that all template contracts would need adapting etc but would you have a template contract to cover supply of goods in this circumstance or indeed be able to point me in the right direction.

Also the issue of VAT - as this is in effect a grant form central government with no direct benefit for the LA would this be considered a business activity? How do we handle VAT in this case?

We are a charitable family centre based in Northern Ireland. As part of our services, we deliver nurturing programmes and domestic violence reduction courses.

Most of our referalls come through Social Services and our current funders (DSD for Nurturing and Big lottery for DV work) are encouraging us to seek Service Level Agreements with Social Services to fund future delivery.

Are there any examples available of other community-based groups who have undertaken similar SLA's or any advice/guidance on the process.

The charity I am working with have some European funding and some issues have been raised. The charity is 'contracted' by a university in Malta as one of a number of partners. The charity made the bid identifying that the work would be done by a consultant. The consultant, when they submitted their report to the commissioning partner, has been told that consultant's fees are not eligible but it would be alright if he was on payroll. Clearly we cannot back date payroll payments in lieu of consultants fees. If we put the consultant on the payroll what are the forward implications (or indeed retrospective). This individual is also contracted for other work by the charity as well.

Is there a contract of employment for a self employed person?