Introduction »

Do you know about the new Agency Workers Regulations?

From 1 October 2011, after a certain period of time, workers supplied to a company (or to any entity) by an agency will become entitled to receive the same equivalent pay and basic working conditions as any directly employed employees doing similar work. In many cases, until now, agency workers have received significantly less pay than the entity’s employees and have not had any entitlement to a number of other employee benefits.

This new entitlement will begin after a 12 week qualifying period, the 12 weeks commencing from 1 October 2011 for existing agency workers. If the employer wishes to avoid any additional cost and chooses to end the agency worker’s contract within 12 weeks, there will need to be a break of more than 6 weeks between assignments with the same employer. The regulations inevitably include comprehensive anti-avoidance provision dealing with issues such as moving the agency worker to a different department to try to avoid the obligation!

From 1 October 2011, agency workers will have an entitlement to access employer supplied facilities such as canteens, car parking, transport services and childcare from the first day they work for the entity, though if there were a waiting list they would have to wait until the facility became available.

There are also various provisions concerning pregnant workers and new mothers who, for example, would be entitled to attend antenatal medical appointments and classes after completing a 12 week qualifying period.

Where it is likely a temporary worker may benefit from the regulations, the agencies supplying the workers will require the hiring entity to provide information about pay and basic working conditions. The agencies bear the main practical responsibility for ensuring the appropriate comparability is achieved but obviously will pass on all relevant additional costs.

Breaches of the regulations, which could be committed either by the agency or the employer, may be dealt with by Employment Tribunals though the involvement of ACAS is encouraged prior to taking this step.

Comprehensive guidance of 51 pages was published in May 2011 by BIS (Department for Business Innovation & Skills) and is available on their website. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development have also published guidance written jointly with the Adecco Group.

Introduction »