Denial of ability to fulfil contract

[Orinoco]

Hi,

I have been engaged in a contract with a digital agency, doing work for them which is paid hourly and invoiced monthly. There is no specific work I am contracted to do, just whatever is going through the studio and needs doing.

Last week there was an issue with a single piece of work that I didn't quite manage to finish, and suggested may be better off being completed by another member of the team who knew the project significantly better, to prevent it going over time any more than it had already.

In response to this, I was immediately taken off all work, with no further discussion on the matter, and without anybody else, including the team leader, being consulted. I have now had no work for the past 6 days which means I've been unable to invoice for anything.

My question is, is there such a thing as denial of the ability to fulfil a contract? As far as I'm concerned, I agreed to be given work which I could do and be paid for, and now that has been withdrawn unilaterally. Am I just out of luck, or do I have any recourse regarding this?

[ULA]

Hi, I am sure we can provide some advice but I just need to ask a few more questions.

Are you self-employed?

Do you have a contract for service in place with the digital agency that determines whether they have to give you a certain amount of hours work per week/month?

Just to let you know I will delete the duplicate thread.*

[Orinoco]

Thank you; yes, I am self-employed and am operating as a sub-contractor to the agency with this arrangement. It doesn't explicitly give a number of hours per week that will be guaranteed, however it does give a total value on the contract, which can only be attained by doing 40 hours a week, and there was a mutual understanding that 40 hours a week was the expectation, both to be provided and to be done. Also, the person who has made this decision is the account manager I report to, and not the MD of the company with whom I signed the contract; I'm not sure he is even aware of what is going on, and, weirdly, I have been told not to talk to him about it.

[ULA]

Thanks for the further information. So you have a contract in place to provide services to the value of £xxx. Does this contract have a termination clause in it? If you want to anonymise it and post it up then happy to take a look and see what recourse you have contractually to this.*