Status determination statement (SDS)
A status determination statement is the document in which a client covered by the off-payroll working rules tells the contractor, and the party it contracts with, whether an engagement is inside or outside IR35 and why. Without reasons it is not a valid SDS.
HMRC sets out what makes an SDS valid. It must state whether the worker would be an employee or office holder of the client if engaged directly, give the reasons for that conclusion, reflect reasonable care in reaching it, and be passed to the worker and to whoever the client contracts with. HMRC is explicit that advertising a role as inside or outside the rules can add clarity but is not, on its own, a valid SDS.
In an agency chain the SDS travels down. The client gives it to the agency it contracts with, and every agency between the client and the contractor's company must pass it to the next party. An agency that fails to pass it on becomes responsible for the tax, National Insurance and Apprenticeship Levy itself. Keeping dated evidence of receiving and forwarding the SDS is the agency's cheapest protection.
The contractor, or the deemed employer, can disagree. The client must then run its status disagreement process and respond within 45 calendar days of receiving the representations, either confirming the SDS with reasons or withdrawing it and issuing a new one with its effective date. If the client does not meet those minimum requirements, liability for tax and National Insurance on further payments moves to the client. An agency that is not the deemed employer has no statutory right to use the process, although it can support the contractor in doing so.
Here is where an SDS goes stale. A client issues an outside SDS for a data architect on 1 March, starting 10 March. The agency forwards it to the contractor's company the same day and keeps copies of both. In month five the client asks the architect to line-manage two permanent staff and extends for six months. The original SDS described a different engagement. The agency's job is not to decide status but to ask the client whether the determination still stands, and to pass on whatever comes back.
Other failures are more mundane: an SDS that arrives after the start date, identical reasons pasted across dozens of roles, or an agency asking a small client for an SDS it is not required to give, when under Chapter 8 the contractor's company makes the call.
How Vayora handles it
Vayora does not handle status determination statements as their own record. There is no SDS field, no chase for a missing one and no check that one was passed down before a start. You can attach the SDS to the contractor's record as a file and set the resulting status on the role, but the dated evidence that it was received and forwarded is yours to keep. We would rather say that plainly than suggest a label on a role is compliance.