Morgan Spencer & AWR

Morgan Spencer and the New Agency Worker Regulations 2011

You may be aware that October 2011 will see the introduction of the Agency Workers Regulations 2010. This letter is designed to provide you with some information regarding the new regulations and how Morgan Spencer can work with your organisation in order to minimise the impact of this legislation, whilst maintaining our supply of high quality staff.

There are a lot of myths and misconceptions regarding the new regulations, for example that they give agency workers employment rights or that they will make temp supply very expensive. However, this is not the case and the regulations can be effectively managed so that the impact does not have to be significant.

Rights under the Agency Worker Regulations 2010 ("AWR")

The AWR will come into force on 1st October 2011 and will provide individuals that are classed as agency workers with additional rights. The rights can be split into two categories (i) those which apply from the first day of an agency workers assignment (or 1st October 2011 if they are already on assignment) and (ii) those rights which apply after an agency worker has been engaged with a hirer in the same role for a continuous period of 12 weeks (with some short breaks or breaks for particular reasons, such as illness or maternity preserving such continuity).

(i) Day One Rights

An agency worker will have a right to access collective facilities and amenities on your site and to be notified of suitable vacancies within your organisation. The collective facilities and amenities would include facilities such as canteens, car parks, toilets and changing rooms, crèche facilities, prayer rooms etc. However, this is only to the extent that you would provide them to directly engaged person undertaking the same job and you can be excused from providing access to such facilities if you can provide a good objective reason why you cannot provide such access. With regard to the notification of vacancies, this extends only to suitable vacancies and can be achieved by posting vacancies in a central location, such as a notice board or intranet, or alternatively you can provide details to us at Morgan Spencer and we will circulate the details to any agency workers we have supplied.

For many hirers these obligations will not necessitate any changes to your current arrangements, as it is our experience that agency workers are already notified of vacancies and have access to facilities and amenities.

(ii) 12 week rights

As indicated above, an agency worker will also have rights after they have been working in the same role for the same hirer for 12 weeks. These 12 weeks can be through any agency or a combination of agencies, so it will therefore be important that you advise us if a candidate we supply has worked for you previously and in what role.

After 12 weeks an agency worker will have a right to receive the same pay and basic working conditions that they would have received had they been engaged directly by you on the first day of their assignment, provided that such rates and terms are "ordinarily in force" within your organisation i.e. formally recorded or usual custom or practice. This effectively means that Morgan Spencer will need to pay the agency workers the same rate as you would have paid had you taken them on directly and provide the same rest breaks, overtime, bonuses and annual leave that would have been applicable.

How will Morgan Spencer be addressing this matter?

Staff from Morgan Spencer will therefore need to discuss with clients the terms that are ordinarily applicable within your organisation, in order that we can establish the correct rates and terms to apply to the temporary workers we supply, after they have completed 12 weeks on an assignment. If an assignment is for less than 12 weeks, we do not need to change anything.

In looking at these terms, it is very important that we make the correct comparison, in particular we need to establish the role and type of engagement had the agency worker been engaged directly, whether the engagement would have been as an employee or worker and what the applicable rates and terms would have been at the start of their assignment. This exercise may also provide an opportunity to set applicable starter rates or ensure that recruitment policies are accurate moving forwards.

At Morgan Spencer we believe that the best way to address these issues is to meet with you, discuss and record this information. Alternatively we can provide you with a questionnaire that you can complete and return to us with details of your requirements. As a result of this exercise we will be able to advise what the applicable rates and conditions will be after 12 weeks on assignment, in most cases we do not envisage a significant difference as compared to what we currently offer our agency workers.

Once we have obtained information from you, Morgan Spencer will apply the relevant rates and terms and deal with any administration with regard to contractual requirements with temporary workers, the monitoring of assignment periods and the application of rights to the individual agency workers. We have already re-written our recruitment software to ensure the tracking and monitoring is fully compliant with all new legislation.

We look forward to discussing the best way forward with our customers and to answer any questions that you may have regarding the AWR, our services and how we can best work together to achieve the same high standards as now currently offered, whilst minimising and potential liability, costs or administrative burdens.

In the meantime, if you could like to contact us to discuss this letter or any other aspect of our services, please call Margaret George on 0207 680 7000 or mg@morganspencer.co.uk