The Government have not made any changes to the rules on the distinctions for income tax purposes between employment and self-employment in the last five years.

However the Government has taken action to address false self-employment both through intermediaries and limited liability partnerships (LLP), making changes that mean that a salaried member of an LLP will be treated as an employee for income tax.

All five parties in the Northern Ireland Executive have long advocated the devolution of corporation tax rate-setting powers and the Executive was involved in the development of the legislation the Government has now introduced.

The available information collected centrally appears in the tables below.

Table 1: Number of voluntary resignations in the Police service¹, by officer rank and police worker type, England and Wales, 2011/12 to 2013/14²

1. Total police officer leavers by rank and gender are published in the Police Workforce, England and Wales, statistical publications.

Breakdown by leaving type (i.e voluntary resignations) are not regularly published, therefore these figures have not been verified by police forces and are provisional.

2. This table contains full-time equivalent figures that have been rounded to the nearest whole number, with the exception of special constables where they are provided on a headcount basis.

Source: Home Office

Table 2: Number of resignations in the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), National Probation Service (NPS) and Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) resignations, England and Wales, 2012 to 2014

All figures are rounded to the nearest 10, with numbers ending in 5 rounded to the nearest multiple of 20 to prevent systematic bias. As with all HR databases, extracts are taken at a fixed point in time, to ensure consistency of reporting. However the database itself is dynamic, and where updates to the database are made late, subsequent to the taking of the extract, these updates will not be reflected in figures produced by the extract. For this reason, HR data are unlikely to be precisely accurate, and to present unrounded figures would be to overstate the accuracy of the figures. Rounding to 10 accurately depicts the level of certainty that is held with these figures.

Totals are formed from unrounded parts prior to rounding. For this reason, rounded totals may not equal the sum of their rounded parts.

1. The National Probation Service (NPS) was formed on 1 June 2014 and its staff became civil servants on that date. The NPS is part of NOMS, however figures have been presented separately for NPS

2. Prior to 1 June 2014, Probation Services were provided by probation trusts that managed staffing locally, and no data on resignations from probation trusts are held centrally.

3. Figures are only available up to 30 September 2014, the date of the latest publication.

4. Information provided by CRCs are only available as FTE; otherwise, figures are provided as head count.

5. The number of CRC resignations provided is complete for all CRCs with the exception of Bristol, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire CRC. They were only able to provide leaver data for the Gloucestershire and Wiltshire elements of their CRC in certain months (September 2014 for Gloucestershire and August and September 2014 for Wiltshire).

Source: NOMS

The Leader of the House of Commons will publish an analysis of legislation relating to England in due course.

The Government takes the enforcement of National Minimum Wage very seriously and has increased the financial penalty percentage from 50% to 100% of the unpaid wages owed to workers, and the maximum penalty from £5,000 to £20,000. These new limits are now in force where arrears are identified in pay reference periods on or after 7 March 2014. The Government will also bring in primary legislation as soon as possible so that the maximum £20,000 penalty can apply to each underpaid worker.

HMRC reviews every complaint that is referred to it, investigating the complaint and, in addition, carrying out targeted enforcement where we identify a high risk of non-payment of NMW.

HMRC record completed investigations but these do not include details of the numbers of visits. Some investigations may require several visits and others may be completed without any. HMRC completed 1455 investigations last year identifying record arrears of over £4.6 million. Full details for 2010 to 2014 are contained in the table below. We do not typically disclose results mid-way through a year; this is because the results have not been internally verified.

At Autumn Statement, the Government set out that it recognises the strongly held arguments for devolving corporation tax rate-setting powers to Northern Ireland, including its land border with the very low corporation tax environment in the Republic of Ireland, and the shared goal of the UK Government and the Northern Ireland Executive of rebalancing the Northern Ireland economy and securing the peaceful economic progress made since the Good Friday Agreement. Work by HMRC and HM Treasury has concluded that this proposal could be implemented provided that the Northern Ireland Executive is able to manage the financial implications. If this legislation is introduced, a Tax Information and Impact Note will be published alongside the Bill as part of the usual legislative process.

The reform to Stamp Duty Land Tax on residential properties will have a limited impact on house prices overall and this effect will be small compared to overall fluctuations in house prices.

Increases to the amount of income tax personal allowance do not affect the amount of income data available to HM Revenue and Customs.

The Government has committed to producing draft clauses by Burns’ Night, 25 January 2015. Individual parties have made commitments to introduce legislation to Parliament following the General Election in May 2015. It is expected that formal introduction of legislation will be accompanied by supporting documents in the usual way, including Impact Assessments.

The number of individuals filing a self-employment schedule in their Self Assessment tax returns for the year 2011-12 is estimated at 5.49 million.

The annual turnover of these individuals in 2011-12 is estimated at £296 billion.

These estimates are based on the Survey of Personal Incomes (SPI) for the year 2011-12.

Further information about the self-employed is available in HMRC’s National Statistics Publications^[1].

^[1] Available at the following internet address: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/personal-income-by-tax-year

The table below shows total NICs receipts and NHS allocation to 2012-13.

Total National Insurance contributions receipts for the years up to 2013-14 can be found in the statistical publication HMRC tax and NICs receipts for the UK available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ hmrc-tax-and-nics-receipts-for-the-uk.

The NHS allocation from 2009-10 to 2012-13 is set out in in the National Insurance Fund Accounts available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national -insurance-fund-accounts. Accounts for 2013-14 will be available in due course.

Total spending on the National Health Service in England (against the Department’s Departmental Expenditure Limit) was around £105.2 billion in 2012-13. 2013-14 accounts figures will be available later this year.

Through the Department, the NHS is funded predominantly through general taxation.

NHS providers of health care - NHS trusts and foundation trusts (FTs) - are semi-autonomous organisations whose income derives predominantly from the provision of healthcare services.

NHS trusts and FTs also receive smaller levels of income from other sources, such as local authorities, private and overseas patients, education and training and injury costs recovery.

To illustrate the levels of income received from varying sources, the following table summarises the final income received in NHS trusts and FTs in 2012-13.

Notes:

1. “Other” category includes income from subleasing property, bank interest and other small amounts from patients including transport services, parking income, etc.

2. Patient income from prescription, ophthalmic and dental charges are routed through primary care trusts (NHS England in 2013-14) and not included in the numbers reported in this table.

Total spending on the National Health Service in England (against the Department’s Departmental Expenditure Limit) was around £105.2 billion in 2012-13. 2013-14 accounts figures will be available later this year.

Through the Department, the NHS is funded predominantly through general taxation.

NHS providers of health care - NHS trusts and foundation trusts (FTs) - are semi-autonomous organisations whose income derives predominantly from the provision of healthcare services.

NHS trusts and FTs also receive smaller levels of income from other sources, such as local authorities, private and overseas patients, education and training and injury costs recovery.

To illustrate the levels of income received from varying sources, the following table summarises the final income received in NHS trusts and FTs in 2012-13.

Notes:

1. “Other” category includes income from subleasing property, bank interest and other small amounts from patients including transport services, parking income, etc.

2. Patient income from prescription, ophthalmic and dental charges are routed through primary care trusts (NHS England in 2013-14) and not included in the numbers reported in this table.

The Commission will produce its final report under Section 33 of the Audit Commission Act 1998 in October 2014: Protecting the Public Purse 2014. The Comptroller and Auditor General was given new powers on 9 April 2014 to carry out examinations into the economy, efficiency and effectiveness with which relevant local authorities have used their resources in discharging their functions, under section 35 of the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014.

Information on monthly and annual receipts of National Insurance contributions is published in table HM Revenue and Customs Receipts on the GOV.UK website.

A link to the most recent publication is given below.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/321069/20140610_Maymonthlyreceipts.pdf

The destination of National Insurance contributions (NICs) is set out in Section 162 of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 and Section 142 of the Social Security (Northern Ireland) Administration Act 1992. NICs are paid into the National Insurance Funds (NIF) after deducting the appropriate NHS allocation. Contributory benefits are paid out of the Funds and the amounts are published in the National Insurance Fund Accounts[1].

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-insurance-fund-accounts

Estimates for the number of individuals with self employment sources are published in HMRC’s National Statistics Table 3.10^[1]. These estimates are based on the Survey of Personal Incomes for which 2011-12 is the latest available year.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/income-of-individuals -with-self-employment-sources-2010-to-2011

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.

Letter from Glen Watson, Director General for Office for National Statistics, to Lord Christopher, dated June 2014

As Director General for the Office for National Statistics, I have been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Question asking Her Majesty’s Government how many self-employed workers the Office for National Statistics estimated there to be in each financial year since 2010–11. (HL489)

The table provides estimates from the Annual Population Survey (APS) for the number of people who reported to the survey that they were self-employed. Estimates are averages for the 12 month periods April 2010 to March 2011; April 2011 to March 2012 and April 2012 to March 2013. Estimates for the financial year 2013-14 will be available from the APS on 16th July 2014.

Source: Annual Population Survey (APS)

Guide to Quality:

The Coefficient of Variation (CV) indicates the quality of an estimate, the smaller the CV value the higher the quality. The true value is likely to lie within +/- twice the CV - for example, for an estimate of 200 with a CV of 5% we would expect the population total to be within the range 180-220.

More timely self-employment estimates from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) are published monthly in Table EMP01 as part of the Labour Market Statistics release, available here:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/re-reference-tables.html?edition=tcm%3A77-311468#tab-Employment-tables

As with any sample survey, estimates from the APS are subject to a margin of uncertainty. These are indicated by the guide to quality in the table.

The Audit Commission has incurred no significant expenditure specifically in preparation for its planned closure in March 2015. Staff resources have been directed to supporting the Department for Communities and Local Government and others in preparing the Bill and associated workstreams. These have largely been met through existing resources or via support contracts already in place.

In line with usual practice, officials at my Department have developed draft regulations for the Local Audit Accountability Bill, to enable

appropriate scrutiny during the Bill’s passage through Parliament. No direct expenditure is incurred and no formal record is kept of the indirect staff costs of carrying out this work.

My Department spent £59,033 on expert professional and actuarial advice on the guarantee that was outlined in the Written Statement of 25 April 2012, Official Report, Columns WS170-1; this guarantee protected taxpayers’ interests by avoiding an unnecessary early crystallisation of liabilities.

More broadly, the abolition of the Audit Commission regime will deliver a net £1.2 billion of savings for taxpayers over a ten year period.