Following Ed Miliband’s speech on welfare yesterday, REC Chief Executive Kevin Green again called on the Labour leader to focus on the real issues impacting on compliance in the sector:

“Whilst we welcome elements of Ed Miliband’s speech – particularly around welfare change that delivers good jobs and employment prospects – he just isn’t getting his facts right about our industry.

“One myth is that recruitment agencies are sourcing candidates exclusively from overseas. This simply isn’t the case. Time and again our members operating in sectors like manufacturing and hospitality tell us that they struggle to attract home-grown candidates for the roles on offer. Members supplying higher-end sectors like IT and engineering also report significant problems finding UK candidates with the skills that employers need, and find themselves forced to search abroad to fill these gaps. Labour’s focus needs to be on the root cause of the problem – skills deficiencies in the UK workforce and school leavers who are unprepared for the world of work – not on demonising recruitment agencies for doing what they are paid to do by employers.

“The more serious issue is Ed Miliband’s suggestion that agency workers are being used to undermine the pay and conditions offered to permanent staff. This oblique reference to the AWR is not based on fact and is particularly galling for our industry as it was the last Labour government that was responsible for writing the UK Agency Worker Regulations. Since AWR was implemented in 2011, REC members have strived to comply with the letter of the law, and every case brought under the regulations so far has reinforced that fact that agencies are operating wholly compliantly. The vast majority of agency workers are either receiving full equal treatment with permanent employees after 12 weeks, or are being permanently employed by their agencies and receiving full employment benefits plus additional payments when they are not working as part of that arrangement.

“Where there is bad practice, we want to work with policy makers to stamp it out.  Rather than targeting compliant agencies, Ed Miliband and Labour should be focusing on the real issues affecting agency workers and the recruitment industry – top of which is the exponential growth of unregulated employment intermediaries that facilitate the use of tax, NI and VAT avoidance schemes throughout the labour market. The REC has previously contacted the Labour Shadow Business team about this issue and remain keen to work productively on some real policy solutions.”