In its JobsOutlook survey, REC found that, in the next 3 months, 34% of the firms surveyed planned on employing more agency workers with only 21% looking to decrease the number of agency workers they engage with. This latter figure dropped to 16% for the next 12 months.

The PCG study revealed that 77% of respondents to their survey had not been affected by AWR in the slightest. Of those who had been affected, 16.3% have been affected ‘a little’ and 6.7% affected ‘a lot’.

The PCG credits this to the education campaigns organisations such as themselves conducted in the run up to AWR. They put it down to the fact that agencies and freelancers have kept themselves informed on all things AWR and are aware that the new rules largely didn’t apply to them if they are in business on their own account.

While this is true to some extent, it is perhaps a too simplistic point of view and now is not the time for us all to take our eye off the AWR ball.

It’s just over 4 months since the first qualifying period for equal pay and conditions for agency workers came to a close. Service providers, such as Parasol Group and their ‘best advice’ approach to the regulations can also take some of the credit for a smooth introduction, and the subsequent management of the regulations, and will continue to work with staffing businesses and the workers they place to ensure compliance with AWR. But we are seeing some interesting staffing decisions from the end-users of agency workers, such as the local Council we reported on last week which has made the decision to make 150 agency staff direct employees. The long term implications of AWR and the UK’s response to it are yet to be revealed so now is not the time for complacency.

What has been your experience of AWR so far? Leave a comment below and tell us what you think.

As reported in their local paper recently, the Council has made 150 agency staff direct employees in response to AWR, a move it believes has saved the council £70,000 every year.

The majority of the Council’s agency workers are in refuge collection, street cleaning and ground maintenance and all at the lower end of the pay scale. There are some Council employees in higher paid positions in areas such as social care and legal services and the Council has reported that it still has 134 agency workers currently on assignment.

As well as a way of ensuring AWR compliance, the Council has also claimed that the move was part of a cost cutting exercise in order to trim the £8 million a year bill it currently has for employing agency workers.

Our challenge is has the Council actually made these savings or simply shifted the cost? Its agency bill may have fallen as a result of the move but by making the workers permanent employees the Council will undoubtedly incur additional costs elsewhere, National Insurance Contributions being just one example.

The Council has also lost the flexible element of its workforce which could have led to further savings. We all know the public sector is currently facing a huge campaign to reduce costs, year on year, as the Government looks to address the UK’s budget deficit. Any additional cuts to its funding may mean that the Council can no longer afford to employ these workers and redundancies may be required, which comes at a cost.

In the short term the Council has been able to offer permanent roles to some agency workers and has picked up some positive press coverage as a result, so far so good. However, a pessimistic view you could take is that they are simply solving one problem by storing up another for the future. It will be interesting to see how this pans out.

One alternative the Council could have taken would have been to audit its entire supply chain for agency workers and identify where robust, compliant service providers, such as Parasol Group, could have stepped in to mitigate the risks associated with AWR.

What do you think? Has the Council done the right thing? Leave a comment below and gives us your view.

First off let’s look at the easier analysis. The study found that almost one in five (17%) employers have opted for a regulation 10 contract for their agency workers as a way of mitigating some of the responsibilities under AWR. Taking a straw poll amongst our Field Sales team would back this up, albeit anecdotally.

Secondly, the survey also found that while AWR had increased employers’ costs, almost two-thirds (65%) had seen a rise of between zero and 10%.  More than one in five (22%) reported a cost increase of between 11 and 25%, while “a small minority” of 3% of organisations saw costs rise by between 25 and 50%. 10% said they didn’t know the impact on their hiring costs.

Again, if you speak to our team in the field, and from the conversations we have with staffing businesses and their clients, this rings true. Nobody was under any doubt that the introduction of AWR would lead to an increase in the cost of employing a temporary worker and our industry has worked hard to ensure these costs were kept to a minimum for everyone in the supply chain.

So, on both the main points of the report it’s hard to disagree.

However, the FT’s headline read; ‘Employer’s dodging temp pay rules” and its opening line claimed that; “almost two-thirds of employers are exploiting loopholes to escape the worst impact of new rules giving temporary workers equal pay with permanent staff….”

Last week we covered in some detail why the phrase ‘loophole’ is wrong in so many ways and you can read that here.

But two-thirds? Really?

This is quite an accusation to make, especially when the sample size of the survey is just 143 companies and organisations such as the TUC, which has promised to complain to the European Commission about Britain’s introduction of AWR, are looking for campaign angles. There doesn’t seem to be any explanation of how this figure was arrived at which doesn’t help either.

We’ve seen surveys from industry bodies and service providers on a regular basis lately, and all have their own agenda at heart. There is still no commitment other than to a ‘paper review’ in October from DBIS but what our industry really needs now is a detailed, impartial analysis into AWR which looks at more than 143 businesses and drills down into the size of companies affected, their industrial sector, the size of their temp workforce, the region they are operating in, the breakdown of skills amongst their temporary workers, and so on.

This is the only way to see the full impact of AWR and the only way to make intelligent decisions as to how we all move forward without the politicking and clamour for publicity.

If you were in charge of the research project what questions would you be asking?

That doesn’t mean that the industry needs to switch off, we believe that there will be a tribunal at some point in the not too distant future, but there has been a couple of exchanges in the House of Commons last week that would suggest that the Government is looking to wash its hands of all things AWR.

First of all we had Mark Lancaster, the Conservative MP from Milton Keynes North, who asked the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills what assessment has been made of the effect the Agency Workers Regulation has had on the unemployment figures for 2011.

Norman Lamb, the Lib Dem Minister for Employment Relations, Consumer and Postal Affairs replied that no assessment has been made of the impact the impact AWR has had on the unemployment figures for 2011. However, he did say that the Government would monitor the impact of AWR on the job market.

In a follow up question, Mr Lancaster then asked what assessment had been made of the effect of AWR on small, independent recruitment agencies. Something we looked at in last week’s blog after reports in the FT.

Norman Lamb replied that no assessment has been made by the Government on the effect of AWR on small, independent recruitment agencies. However they will work with representatives from trade associations to monitor the impact of the regulations on the market.

We also know that the Government has committed to a paper review of AWR in November 2012 which we discussed last December, however all this does is smack of trying to brush it all under the carpet. Perhaps the UK Government has realised there isn’t much they can do with this EU led legislation and are picking their battles. There have been some well publicised skirmishes with Europe over Greek financial bailouts and the European Court of Human Rights for example and perhaps AWR is small fry compared to these and not worth going into bat for or against?

What do you think? Leave a comment below and tell us your view.