We employ educational tutors on short 15 week contracts, which at times get renewed for a further 15 week term.

Is there any risk of us running in to problems should we continue to continuously employ the same person on short term contracts?

Is there a risk of them expecting the same benefits as are available to full time members of staff?

Many thanks in advance for your advice.

We are considering offering an intership to carry out a short-term (6-8 weeks) piece of research. We'd like to give the intern a daily payment for each day that they're with us.

Could you please advise on whether:

- we need to provide a written contract
- the payment would be subject to income tax and NI deductions
- whether the intern would be eligible for statutory sick pay if unable to attend through illness
- whether the intern would be eligible for paid holiday.

Thanks

We employed a member of staff on a fixed term contract this was extended in 2005. My questions is: The manager who extended the contract didnt bother to after this? Where do we stand, as funding for the post is coming to an end and we are unsure on how we can terminate the post legally.

A second question to David, if I may, in response to his answer to my first question about two employees on fixed term contracts.

I can confirm that neither employee will have been employed for more than 2 years (I should have explained that earlier, sorry!).

Your answer suggested that we talk to them in relation to any payments due. They will have taken all holiday due to them by the contract expiry date and been paid for their last month of employment so my assumption is that no other payment is due and that your original answer was based on the premise that they may have been employed between 2 and 4 years - is that correct?

Caron

We have two employees both on fixed term contracts until 31 March 2008. Both posts are linked to specific funding programmes that both come to an end at 31 March, 2008.

The fixed term contract states that we will give a month's notice to terminate employment. However, we would like to inform them asap so that they can start to look for other jobs as the funding will not be continued and we have no approved funding for 08/09 that would mean we could offer them alternative roles.

One of the employees is pregnant, due early Jan but she only wants to take the minimum 2 weeks' maternity leave and then come back to finish her contract to end March.

My questions are:

(a) are we effectively making them redundant and, if so, do I have to follow any kind of redundancy process?

(b) do I have to follow the statutory dismissal process (which I believe is 3 stage) in order to terminate their employment, even though it is a fixed term contract?

(c) or do I just inform them in writing that their contract will not be renewed because the funding has ceased and we're not able to offer alternative employment?

We are currently business planning and making funding applications but it is doubtful that we would have confirmed funding before end March 08 in order to allow us to even assess whether our business case can support offering them a job.

Many thanks