Just finished a short period of work for Meter-U, via BMSL agency in bristol.
Have to say, M-U seemed pretty legit - no hidden surprises from them, although the amount of work that came through in the the 3 weeks was around 2-300 meters a week, so no great money to be made there.
BMSL (Beaver Management Services) on the other hand... some sound advice, if you happen to get an interview with these guys, please ensure you get an honest and open answer as to realisitic take home pay, because you will be given a payment-per-metre figure for your area. BEWARE! This might seem attractive but it is a GROSS figure, before deductions:
even though you are technically self employed, they will force you to use an umbrella scheme for PAYE. (unless you have a limited company set up, in which case they will pay you the gross directly, leaving your accountant to do the rest) This will remove £10-20 in costs from your nett pay immediately.
Then your gross will have employees AND employers PAYE and NI conts removed.
You can file expenses of up to £117 per week - to clarify, these will not be reimbursed , but are tax deductable. In my first week, I read 227 metres at £1.32 = £299 gross. I filed £100 of fuel and meal expenses, so £100 of gross pay was tax free, then you have the personal allowance (according to your tax code). The umbrella company then deducted holiday pay 'layaway' of £30. After PAYE and NI, I then took home the grand sum of £180, for a 38 hour week, at roughly 78p per metre, having forked out 60 quid on diesel!
Added to all of this is the insult of spending 2 days classroom based training 60 miles from home, plus 2 days on the job training - with NO PAY for any of these days. Again, BMSL were less than forthcoming with this info, promising at the interview that these days would be paid at 'a training rate of £50 per day'. (To be fair to M-U,