It comes down to whether the school wants to have employees in the legal sense.
Employees can be great or they can be dishonest, or all in between.
After 1 year you cannot just sack somebody. You can make them redundant but you have to abolish the position which means it cannot be filled for some (long) time. There are ways around it but they involve subterfuge like "reorganisation".
You can be sure the person is still in touch with friends in the company and if you make it possible to get sued the required information will find its way back to the ex employee and he will pop up at the Tribunal.
So there are excellent reasons for having SE people because they can be fired anytime, but equally if the work genuinely exists then it is a great solution for both parties.
HMRC attention varies widely and I've seen some amazing lapses of their attention, but also the very opposite.
Anybody using SE contractors should do the following
- get absolutely proper invoices from them
- make sure they bring their own equipment (PC, slide rules
etc)
- pay them like normal trade suppliers (30 day terms)
- offer NO job/work guarantees of any kind whatsoever
- terminate the contract every few months, for a few weeks
and the list goes on; it's a well worn topic.
I should think that flight instruction is a perfect area for SE instructors because the workload varies so much.
OTOH the instructor has to make a living too so if he doesn't get enough dosh overall he will seek other employment......