Government finalises Agency Workers Regulations

The Government has published the Agency Workers Regulations 2010 (SI 2010/93), which give agency workers the same basic employment conditions after 12 weeks in a given job as those that would have applied if the workers had been recruited directly by the hirer. The Regulations implement the Temporary Agency Workers Directive (2008/104/EC). 

Publication of the Regulations follows a consultation seeking responses to draft Regulations. A number of changes have been made to the Regulations following responses to the consultation, including:

  • widening the definition of “pay” to include bonuses that are directly attributable to the quantity or quality of work done by the agency worker;
  • strengthening measures to prevent avoidance of the Regulations, by giving a worker the right to be treated as if he or she were entitled to equal treatment, for example where the hirer or agency has rotated the worker between substantively different roles to ensure that he or she never completes a qualifying period, and giving the employment tribunal the power to make an additional award of up to £5,000 where a hirer or agency is in breach; and
  • removing the ability to derogate from the Directive in respect of collective and workforce agreements, while continuing to allow alternative arrangements in the case of agency workers who are on permanent contracts of employment and paid between assignments. 

The Regulations will come into force on 1 October 2011. 

Also

The draft Agency Workers Regulations 2010 IRS examines the draft Agency Workers Regulations 2010. 

How to employ agency temps as permanent members of staff Entry from the XpertHR "how to" section, covering the considerations to be taken into account when an end-user company wishes to retain the temp as a permanent member of its staff. 

The XpertHR line manager briefing on agency temps looks at the law and best practice on managing agency temps. 

Temp to perm transfer fees worked examples The XpertHR worked examples section demonstrates how the rules on temp to perm fees work in practice.