UKTECH banned for helping contractors

The UKTECH team has been banned from the Professional Contractors Group for offering contractors help with the CFP/Dignatio collapse.

Last week, UKTECH arranged for those contractors who had been affected by the closure of umbrella company, Dignatio/CFP, to have access to the professional advice and representation of leading accountants BDO. Rival news site, Contractoruk, supported the initiative by publicising it to its readers on their discussion forum. Neither UKTECH nor Contractoruk stood to receive any financial rewards, but both organisations saw a need to offer some assistance to contractors who stood to lose thousands of pounds.

A few days after posting the CFP/Dignatio story and arranging access to a leading accountancy firm for contractors who wanted professional advice, the UKTECH team of Andy White, who founded the PCG; tax expert Kevin Miller and media consultant, Susie Hughes received emails from PCG's Chairman Jane Akshar.

Jane Akshar said: The Board of Directors of the PCG has today (November 9) resolved to terminate your membership of the PCG with immediate effect.

"The reason for this decision is your involvement with the business known as UKTECH which is a competitor to the PCG, and that a full membership is not in the interests of the PCG."

Andy White said: "To date we have not considered UKTECH a 'competitor' to PCG and are surprised that the Board of PCG does.

"To our knowledge, no-one else was offering any practical support for the contractors affected by the CFP/Dignatio collapse. We used our contacts to put together something which could be of help to those who wanted it.

"If PCG's Directors consider this is 'not in the interests' of contractors who they are meant to be serving, then this is not the same organisation I founded and is not one I would want to be associated with as a member.

"In the current climate of bureaucracy, regulation and Red Tape, small businesses need all the help they can get, they don't need a representative body which tries to limit where that help can come from."