Recruitment sector and Labour market consultations

28 October 2015 Two new consultations from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills are now open.

28 Oct 2015| News

28 October 2015

Two new consultations from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills are now open.

The first consultation – Labour market exploitation: improving enforcement – regards proposals to improve the effectiveness of the enforcement of employment rights to protect workers from exploitation.

These include:

  • Establishing a statutory Director of Labour Market Enforcement

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  • creating a new offence of an aggravated breach of labour market legislation

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  • Increasing intelligence and data sharing between the existing enforcement bodies

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  • Widening the remit, increasing the powers and changing the name of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority to enable it to deal with serious exploitation

    • TUC General Secretary, Frances O’Grady, said: “Better coordination between labour enforcement agencies could be helpful, but only if properly funded. There should be no hiding place for cheapskate bosses who try to cheat their workers out of their rights.

    “The proposed Director of Labour Market Enforcement must have sufficient resources and a broad enough remit to ensure that all workers receive at least the national minimum wage and basic employment rights.”

    We encourage our readers to respond to the consultation, which closes on November 9. This can be done here.

    Recruitment sector: changes to the regulatory framework including stopping EEA-only recruitment, relates to the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations.

    The government says it proposed “to ban employment agencies and businesses from recruiting solely from other European Economic Area (EEA) countries without advertising in Great Britain”.

    The proposed legislation comes out of a more general government consultation on reforms to recruitment sector legislation in 2013. The consultation closes on November 23.