Tarlo Lyons Press release:
New draft was published at 3:45 pm this afternoon.
We were advised yesterday that the DTI were on the verge of issuing a new draft of the Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations.
We will be issuing detailed guidance in the next few days. In the meantime key issues include the following:
the regulations will come into force in April 2004;
suppliers of nurses and teachers will be obliged to carry out additional background checks; agencies will not be able to withhold payment purely on the basis that the worker has not supplied a timesheet; temp to perm fees will be limited; and workers supplying services via personal service companies may opt out of the Regulations in certain circumstances. We are pleased to see the last item having long lobbied for special treatment of relatively highly paid contract workers in sectors like IT, engineering and finance. We predict an increase in other sectors of the use of Personal Service Companies. Such structures will also help minimise the risk of employment rights accruing.
We cannot believe that the DTI would be putting these Regulations forward unless they felt that the potentially inconsistent Temporary (Agency) Workers Directive was for the time being dead in the water in Brussels . This is good news for suppliers and users of temporary workers because that draft Directive proposed the granting of full employment rights to agency workers.
More info to follow over the next few days.
New regulations for staffing companies
New draft was published at 3:45 pm this afternoon.