Agency Worker Regulations Consultation: APSCo's Response

The Make Work Pay consultation, Modernising the Agency Work Regulatory Framework, sets out plans to tighten rules around umbrella companies, increase transparency in pay, and strengthen protections for workers.  

The Conduct Regulations establish requirements around:

• the correct treatment that both employment agencies and businesses must give work-seekers, for example not withholding pay, not including detrimental terms in contracts, and not preventing transfers to permanent work;
• the information and checks required before supplying agency workers, for example that the experience and qualifications of a worker are appropriate, and that workers are aware of health and safety risks;
• record-keeping and transparency. Agency workers additionally benefit from rights under the Agency Workers Regulations 2010, which ensure equal treatment with directly employed staff. These rights are enforced by individuals via the employment tribunal.
  
  

The government is consulting on bringing umbrella companies into the regulations and simplifying and modernising these regulations. The government intends for the new definition of “employment business” in the Employment Rights Act and amended regulations to come into force in parallel.

Tania Bowers, Global Public Policy Director at APSCo UK and OutSource commented:

“Piecemeal reform will neither benefit workers nor reduce business administration. Government should make focused legislative adjustments to implement bringing umbrella companies within scope of the Employment Agencies Act 1973 and Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003, achieving the policy objectives with minimal disruption to the current framework.

 

There is an appetite across Government and the staffing sector to develop a safe, flexible, interactive hiring framework, which will reduce administrative burden, but this ambition extends far beyond the scope of this consultation and involves employer and worker representation.

 

Rather than reduce administrative burden, reform of the Conduct Regulations may greatly increase costs, particularly for SME staffing businesses, at a time of ongoing economic turmoil. Members choose umbrella companies as preferred partners because agency worker payroll services are complex and umbrella companies not only have in house expertise but also benefit from economies of scale and sophisticated automation.

 

Joint and Several Liability for umbrella company payroll tax obligations is now in place, which understandably led to Preferred Supplier Lists as risk mitigation. Government can not now regulate to effectively remove any control an SME business, or any business, has over its umbrella company partners.

 

Of course, our members agree with the principles of simplicity, clarity and transparency in respect of services provided to the agency worker, the terms on which the agency worker works and the pay they receive."

 

Read the full APSCo UK and OutSource Submission.