Employment Income: Scope |
5 |
| a company auditor,16 a National Health service consultant17 and a local land charges registrar.18 |
By contrast a person appointed to act as an inspector at a public inquiry does not hold an office since the post has no existence independent of the holder; there is neither continuity nor permanence.19 The Court of Appeal has said that an office and an employment are not mutually exclusive.20 It is not necessary that an office should be constituted by some enactment or other instrument, nor that it should have any public relevance; however, an office is more than just a job description.21 It thus seems that the essence of an office is the independence of its existence from the identity of the present holder.22 It is from this element of independence that the element of continuity may be said to derive.23 |
| 13A.2.2 Employment24 |
| The definition of employment in ITEPA provides a good example of one of the worst features of its drafting style. By section 4 employment ‘includes in particular (a) any employment under a contract of service, (b) any employment under a contract of apprenticeship, and (c) any employment in the service of the Crown’. The use of the words ’includes in particular rather than ‘‘means’’ is unnecessary caution in an age when judges interpret the words of statutes purposively and in their context. The definition should not include the words to be interpreted. To make matters worse ‘employment in a contract of apprenticeship’ is a legal nonsense since an apprenticeship is not an employment. |