I think the problem here would be if they didn't make NMW. The issue with being self employed is that they would need to show they were really self employed and not just saying they were to avoid employment legislation.
- If you are taking on an unemployed person and paying them soley based on commission to get them back into work. However they do not have any other income therefore I guess they wouldn't be classified as self-employed
Also if they are self-employed then they would need their own insurance and MLR in place. Where as if they work 2 days a week for you and then they have no other work and are not actively advertising for work with the intentions of getting other work, then I would say they would be classed as employed by you.
Thats just my opinion and of course I could be wrong!
The HMRC web-site has a "questionaire" style thingy which you can use to decide if someone is self-employed or not. One of the features is if you determine what hours they do (i.e. if you say they must work 10am to 2pm 3 day a week then they'll almost certainly be an employee), but there are other factors.
