Employment Agency Standards publish annual report
14 June 2022
- The Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate (EAS) has published its annual report for 2020 to 2021 which spans the period of the Covid-19 pandemic
- The report contains interesting statistics on work carried out by the EAS during the reporting period;
- EAS cleared 1800 complaints which is in line with the figures from the previous year
- 177 targeted inspections were completed
- There were 900 infringements of the Conduct Regulations 2003 and Employment Agencies Act 1973 found and the EAS issued 267 warning letters
- EAS collected £132,570 for workers which was a significant increase from the previous year of 122%. The workers in these cases had not been paid for various reasons ranging from administrative errors to deliberate non-payment
- Legal advice was sought in 22 cases and resulted in 2 successful prosecutions, 3 prohibitions and 1 Labour Market Enforcement Order being issued
- EAS ensured that the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme was available for both Work Seekers and those employed via Umbrella companies
To read the full report, click here.
Aspire Comment
The report also states that the Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) is working on a definition for an Umbrella company.
It will be interesting to see if Government presses ahead with the regulation of the temporary labour market by introduction regulation of contracting intermediaries (commonly known as umbrella companies). In addition to the existing Director of Labour Market Enforcement, it has been suggested that the EAS may have its remit extended or that a new “one-stop shop” body would be created which would govern the temporary labour market. See our news here.
The EAS report highlights that all departments within the Government are taking action against non-compliance in the temporary labour sector and we don’t think pressure from Government on the sector will ease any time soon.