Labour Market Enforcement Strategy 2022/23

• Government has released their Labour Market Enforcement Strategy for 2022/23 which details recommendations to improve state-led enforcement of employment rights. It was submitted to Government on 31 March 2022
• The document was drafted by Margaret Beels, the Director of LME. This is her first annual strategy, which she later goes on to refer to as an “interim strategy” after taking over the role from Interim Director, Matthew Taylor CBE, on 22 November 2021
• Ms Beels considers that the recommendations from the previous two strategies remain relevant. Therefore, this strategy builds on these themes and does not make any new recommendations – see our news here on the two previous strategies
• The four key themes are;
  • Improving the radar picture – to understand the scale and nature of labour non-compliance
  • Improving focus and effectiveness – enforcement bodies will need to focus on prioritising their resources and adopting a systematic approach to understanding where their interventions work best
  • Better joined up thinking – enforcement bodies working together effectively to tackle issues across the labour marker (the high risk sectors being care, construction and hand washes)
  • Engagement and support – building on initiatives that promote best practice and ensuring workers have access to information and support to enforce their rights
• The creation of a Single Enforcement Body is still Government’s ambition and Ms Beels hopes that Parliamentary time will be found as soon as possible to deliver this manifesto commitment
• The strategy also references Government’s commitment of regulating umbrella companies and references this being depending on the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate (EAS) being supplied with the necessary budget to enforce the regulation.  This is interesting after Grant Shapps’ comment at the business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee meeting on 13th December 2022, when he said,  “…with two years left of the Parliament, we are still able to address single enforcement bodies. As the Permanent Secretary was saying, we are more interested in ensuring that the bodies that are already in place are operating effectively.”
• Issues listed that are associated with umbrella companies include; unfair deductions, lack of clarity and transparency around employer-employee relationships and unclear routes to enable workers to enforce rights
• Ms Beels states she believes there is a real risk in terms of the level of resourcing of the three enforcement bodies (the NMW team within HMRC, EAS and the GLAA) in terms of their effectiveness which needs to be addressed by the organisations themselves and the funding departments

See the full publication here.

Aspire comment

It doesn’t seem that this interim strategy has anything new to say and there has plainly been no progression of the development of the Single Enforcement Body. However, it is worth bearing in mind this strategy was supplied to Government almost 12 months ago.

Ms Beels states that she hoped to submit her strategy for 2023/24 in September 2022 so that it could be approved before the start of the 2023/24 business year. We will wait and see when this is published to see what action is being proposed by Ms Beels and her LME team to ensure that the recommendations dating back to 2020/21 start to take shape.

If you are concerned about whether you are meeting your obligations as an employer, to ensure you are compliant with your obligations and avoid the financial and reputational risk of being on the next name and shame list, give Aspire a call on 0121 445 6178.