The Court of Appeal has removed any doubt about whether sub-contractors who carry out the work personally are entitled to holidays (or pay in lieu). They are.

Last month (April) the Court ruled that a subcontracted freelance bricklayer, a certain Mr Wright, was entitled to be paid holiday leave under the Working Time Regulations 1998, Regulation 14, because he was a \'worker\' within the meaning of the law.

The Appeal Court criticised both the Employment Tribunal and Employment Appeal Tribunal for reaching this, the correct conclusion, because they came to it for the wrong reasons.

The key issue in defining a \'worker\' under these regulations is not, apparently, the manner in which they have agreed to supply services and be paid but whether or not they undertake the work personally. The word \'worker\' has been used in key legislation over the past few years and has a much wider definition than \'employee\', the court decided.

The decision not only means that all subbies who provide the work personally are entitled to holiday pay in the future, it also means that everyone who has been contracted in this way since 1998 is entitled to back holiday pay for the past six years.

Employment law expert Nichola Upperton-Evans from law firm Rowe Cohen says: "The ramification of this decision will be enormously widespread."

She says jobbing subbies that have generally been regarded as self-employed entities responsible for their own tax, National Insurance, VAT, insurance, pensions and holidays are actually now - and have been since 1998 - workers with the same entitlements as permanent staff because they do the work personally.

She says: "Employers should look carefully at the contracts that they have entered into and consider taking legal advice on the issue."