News stories discussing the impact (or lack of it) that AWR has had to date continue to flow into newsrooms in the UK and in the last week we have seen two that have attracted a great deal of media attention.

The first came from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation’s (REC) latest Report on Jobs which found that while contract staff billings fell slightly for the second month running, the latest figures show an improvement on those recorded in December.

This prompted Kevin Green, the REC’s chief executive, to comment that AWR has not dented employer’s demand to make use of the UK’s flexible workforce.

He said: “Although temporary billings have contracted slightly over recent months, the latest figures show an improvement on December. This confirms that there is still little evidence that the Agency Workers Regulations have had a significant impact on hiring, and employers are still making considerable use of flexible working arrangements.

Mr Green’s comments are echoed in a similar study published by temporary labour supplier de Poel. Their study reports that the number of temporary staff in the UK rose by 13% in January when compared to the same time last year. de Peol Managing Director, John Salisbury commented: “Our data indicates that the AWR has not directly impacted the use of temporary staff and that any changes are more related to the economic climate and specific industry trading patterns.

“The fragmented nature of the recruitment industry means often companies are unclear on how much they pay out on temporary labour as well as where and how spend is allocated. Having in place standard pricing structures and service level agreements helps manage and reduce costs, as well as improves agency service delivery. Absolute visibility of spend is also paramount in order to remain compliant with the AWR.”

So some really strong, positive comments coming out of our industry in the last week that mirror our own experiences here at Parasol. We would love to hear what your experiences are so far on all things AWR and we are happy to publish your thoughts and comments here. So if you are a recruiter, hirer or worker, leave a comment below, tweet us @understandawr, or you can email our PR Manager at steven.proud@parasolgroup.co.uk.

Recruiters are weathering the AWR storm but would a collective agreement have avoided all this anyway?

There was some good news in the Recruitment & Employment Confederation’s (REC) latest AWR Monitor published last week as the report indicates that there has been only a slight decrease in temp billings. This is largely attributed to the poor economic conditions in the UK as opposed anything AWR related and future forecasts remain strong with 87% of employers looking to grow or maintain temporary staffing levels over the next 12 months.

So demand for flexible workers hasn’t dropped off since the introduction of AWR if the latest reports are anything to go by.

Swedish irony
The Parasol Group remains supportive of the Swedish Derogation model, or Reg 10 solution to AWR, as long as it is applied correctly and in the right circumstances. There is no getting away from the fact though, that the model is still being debated in our industry and will continue to be so until case law sets the record straight. However, perhaps the biggest irony of AWR’s progress has always been that Sweden has never adopted the model it first proposed to the EU itself. Upon further reading however, this might not be strictly true.

When talking about the Swedish Derogation, you immediately think of the qualifying period element of the legislation and the provision for pay between assignments.

But there has always been a third element that has not been discussed in the UK despite it being adopted by many other EU countries. This third element allows for derogation from the equal treatment rules of AWR if there is a collective agreement in place which gives appropriate protection to agency workers.

A collective agreement is an agreement between employers and employees which regulates the terms and conditions of employees in the workplace and sets out their duties and those of their employer. These agreements usually come about after a process of collective bargaining between an employer (or a number of employers) and a trade union representing the workers.

However, in the UK, collective agreements are deemed to be not legally binding under the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1992 (section 179 if you are interested) unless specifically included in the agreement. As a result, we don’t have industry wide collective agreements in the UK as a consensus would be difficult to achieve.

It’s hard not to form the opinion that if labour relations were less confrontational in the UK then a lot of the issues currently surrounding AWR could have been avoided all together and that the AWR itself would largely be obsolete.

What do you think?

German car giant, BMW, has re-entered negotiations with unions about its use of the Swedish Derogation model as an AWR solution.

We recently reported how BMW was heavily criticised by the Unite union for both its plans to close down its pension scheme and its use of the Swedish Derogation. Large employers such as Jaguar Land Rover, Morrisons, Premier Foods and Carlsberg have already gone on record as users of the model and BMW looked set to follow suit.

A BMW statement said: “The company and Unite, the union, have jointly agreed to enter into discussions relating to the use of agency staff. While these discussions are ongoing the company will not proceed with its plan to use regulation 10 of the Agency Workers Regulations [the Swedish derogation].”

As the negotiations develop we’ll keep a close eye on it and will report any news here.

Finally today, one sector of the UK that we receive a lot of AWR queries about is supply teachers and the staffing businesses that place them.

Supply teachers have very much been a special case on all things AWR and separate guidance was issued last summer.

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) has issued fresh guidance for its supply teacher members this week which you can access here.

Do you place supply teachers as part of your role or are you a supply teacher yourself? If so we’d love to hear from you. Tell us what you think.

The true impact of AWR and why terminating contracts at 12 weeks might not be a good idea.

Anyone trying to work out the true cost or impact of AWR will have a job at the moment as we’ve seen three conflicting reports published in the last few weeks alone.

REC’s JobsOutlook survey, published just before Christmas, found that 81% of employers are planning to either grow or keep their agency workforce at current levels. Almost a third of respondents (31%) planned to increase their temporary workforce, compared with 22% at the same time last year. So based on this AWR seems to have had very little impact, if any at all, on the intentions of employers to maintain their flexible workforce at the very least.

A separate survey conducted by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), and published last week, found that 13% of UK businesses pay their temporary workforce less than they pay their permanent employers which would suggest that only a limited number of companies would be impacted by AWR when it comes to pay and the parity of pay.

Now this week the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo) have published the findings of their survey of members who supply professional-level candidates in areas such as IT, engineering and finance.

The APSCo research has found that of the 42 companies surveyed, 29% expect employers to terminate assignments before the end of the 12 week qualifying period under AWR and therefore avoiding the equal payment element of the legislation. In the same report however, APSCo states that only 19% of the recruiters surveyed thought that AWR was contributing to reduced demand for contractors and temps.

So various reports are painting a confusing picture and, in our view, we still can’t really tell what impact AWR has had. It is only once we get to a stage where there is AWR case law that we will all know what we are really working with.

What we would say however is that we are still hearing about some poor practices in the industry which could be leaving staffing businesses and their clients on shaky ground and at serious risk of being taken to tribunal. AWR does include some fairly far reaching provisions for anti-avoidance and some staffing businesses are leaving themselves vulnerable. Poor treatment of workers and accusations of failing to ‘comply with the spirit of the legislation’ can also have a negative impact on a company’s reputation and image as an employer and this can lead to problems hiring in the future.

In our view, professional high level contractors and temps could be best employed via a Swedish Derogation model which when applied correctly has advantages for everyone in the supply chain. Match Perm Pay or comparator models are also relevant and in some circumstances can be a better solution, particularly in lower paid sectors. Finally, highly skilled professional contractors and freelancers also have the option to set up their own limited company and manage their business that way and in most circumstances this can lead to a higher amount of take home pay. Organisations such as the Parasol Group, which includes the specialist accountancy practice, ClearSky Accounting, are in a position to offer all three options to staffing businesses and their temporary workers, as well as bespoke solutions when necessary, and are therefore a great source of ‘best advice’ when it comes to AWR.