Crawford Temple, CEO and founder of Professional Passport, the largest independent assessor of payment intermediary compliance, has welcomed HMRC’s alert to recruiters and hirers to be aware of the potential dangers posed by Mini Umbrella Company (MUC) fraud in their supply chain.
Commenting, Crawford Temple said: “We have been increasingly concerned about the rise in fraudulent models and the proliferation of such schemes that work to unfairly tarnish the many compliant businesses that work hard to ensure they operate to the highest possible standards.
“Mini Umbrella Companies are criminal schemes that work to dupe innocent parties, workers, agencies and hirers to join them by posing as ethical businesses, when they are clearly anything but ethical. We welcome HMRC’s warning on how to spot a MUC and delighted that the Government is working to stamp out criminal practice like this. Professional Passport takes a rigorous approach to ensuring that all our providers and partners meet the highest standards of compliance and we do not tolerate bad practice in any guise whatsoever.
“Good working practices are vital for the benefit of all so that we can face the future with confidence safe in the knowledge that we are doing everything compliantly. By taking control to be open and transparent and communicate clearly with all parties throughout the supply chain we will go a long way to getting it right. Ignorance is no defence.”
