This is the second in an ongoing series where the experts behind our industry and professional bodies answer current and pertinent questions. For January I asked the REC, IOR, APSCo as well as TEAM, ARC and the IRG What are your thoughts on the Government’s consultation on reforming the regulatory framework for employment agencies and employment businesses?
Here are their responses:
Ann Swain, Chief Executive, APSCo
- The proposal sounds positive, clearly it’s in everyone’s interest to remove unnecessary and burdensome legislation, and we are also encouraged by the Government’s acknowledgement that the recruitment sector covers many different types of work-seekers, not all of whom are vulnerable. Hopefully this will be reflected in a move away from “one size fits all” legislation. The aim of the consultation appears to be to agree the main areas where statutory protection is required, and once agreed these principles can be used to produce regulations. Therefore, in principle much of the current legislation, not covered by these four areas could potentially be deregulated, which APSCo would view very positively.
- The proposal suggests continuing to regulate to ensure temporary workers are paid for work done. APSCo supports this in principle, however, operationally the lack of the requirement for a signed timesheet in the current legislation is problematic for staffing companies. We support the need for temporary workers to be protected from commercial disputes between the employment business and the client, however, we would like the Government to consider reviewing the situations in which all responsibility for providing evidence of work done is removed from the temporary worker.
- With regard to the movement of temporary workers within the labour market, this is where we would like the needs of the professional recruitment sector to be considered separately to those working with more vulnerable work-seekers. APSCo supports the restriction on employment businesses from penalising lower-paid and vulnerable work-seekers for terminating or giving notice to the recruitment firm. However, within the professional sector there is a commercial contract in place usually between the recruitment firm and a PSC or umbrella company, and in such situations any termination should remain in line with the terms of the commercial agreement in place.
- The proposal also suggests that work-seekers should have redress to employment tribunals with regard to the new legislative regime. This would seem more appropriate, however, we will review this when we have more idea what the new regime will entail.
Sean O’Donoghue, Founder & Chairman, Independent Recruiters Group (with a very different standpoint)
- We aware that most of the industry bodies have taken it upon themselves to get involved in this consultation by speaking on behalf of their members. However, it has never been our intention to get involved with politics as we believe that no membership organisation can speak on behalf of it’s entire base of members, let alone the industry as a whole. There will always be members who disagree with their trade body on political matters, especially when these trade bodies represent such a wide variety of agencies, with a wide variety of circumstances. In addition, at least 40% of the agencies in our industry hold no membership to any of the trade organisations mentioned above. How can any trade body speak out on their behalf? It’s not possible, or ethical for that matter.
- In keeping with fairness and equality, we would hope that the trade bodies involved in this consultation are going to be actively encouraging their respective members to take part in the online survey the BIS will be running. Equally, we would hope that the BIS are publicising this consultation far and wide in order to encourage as much of the industry to take part as possible, should they wish to do so. After all, changes in regulations will affect each and every one of us who operate in this industry, not just those who are members of a trade body. Given that the IRG are the only recruitment industry membership body with a leadership team (including myself as CEO) that all run their own respective recruitment agencies, we appreciate more than the others exactly how it would feel to have our voices taken away by a trade body.
- Thus, we do not wish to upset our members by making any recommendations that would not suit the best interests of all concerned, without anyone left out. We will however be actively encouraging our membership to put themselves forward for the consultation should they wish to play a part in dictating the future operation of our industry.
Azmat Mohammed, IOR Director General
- Amendments to the existing Employment Agencies Act 1973 and the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003 are well overdue. Replacing existing confusing and fragmented regulation with a simple regulatory framework is a welcome move that is good for the industry and those served by it.
- We support the aim of restrictions from charging fees to agency workers, an open and free route to finding employment is vital.
- Clarity on who is responsible for paying agency workers protects those workers from exploitation, we support this outcome wholeheartedly.
- A free employment market will help workers and employers, therefore we agree that agency workers should not be hindered from moving between jobs.
- We agree that agency workers should have confidence to use the recruitment sector and must be able to assert their rights. Having said that, the route to achieve this is not so straight forward and will observe closely the government’s willingness to take on board industry views.
Azmat also said “A framework that makes it easier to operate your business, while safeguarding workers rights is an outcome we all want to achieve from this consultation process. I see this as a great opportunity for industry bodies to work together is presenting a joined up response to government, not in isolation. To that end the IOR extends an open invitation for industry heads to work collaboratively and ensure we get the most from this opportunity. I want to see not just members of industry bodies, but all stakeholders consulted in order to get the best outcome.”
Adrian Marlowe, Chairman, The Association of Recruitment Consultants
The ARC will be commenting for the blog but for now have published a statement which explains their initial stance. Within this Adrian comments:
- The primary area of concern we have is that, whilst it may be appropriate to change some rules to ensure that any current unfairness is ruled out, the current rules do underpin and promote professionalism within the industry.
- Since 2003, when the regulations were introduced, professionalism has increased and statistics show that the number of successful complaints have steadily decreased to a very low level. The BIS inspectorate team has done an excellent job and agencies have worked hard to improve standards. Many agencies believe that the rules also mirror good commercial practice. They certainly help to keep cowboy operators, who can damage the reputation of the industry as a whole, at bay. Given this success story we will undertake our review of the proposals with the objective that the result achieves the appropriate balance. This must continue to support good standards within the industry, and also ensure that the outcome avoids unfairness which favours larger businesses over small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).
If you have any comments on the government consultation please do share.
