On 21 January 2010 the Agency Workers Regulations 2010 were laid before Parliament, and will come into force on 1 October 2011.
The main purpose of the Agency Worker Directive (AWD) is to ensure the appropriate protection of temporary agency workers through the application of the principle of equal treatment and to address unnecessary restrictions and prohibitions on the use of agency work. The AWD follows similar directives on fixed-term and part-time work (which were based on European social partner agreements). Under the Directive 'equal treatment' relates only to basic working and employment conditions of temporary agency workers (eg pay, working time). The Directive does not affect the employment status of temporary workers. This means that after 12 weeks in a given job, an agency worker will be entitled to equal treatment (at least the basic working and employment conditions that would apply to the worker concerned if s/he had been recruited directly by that undertaking to occupy the same job).
Final Guidance has now also been published which can be found at the following link: http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/employment-matters/docs/a/11-949-agency-workers-regulations-guidance.pdf
We have a number of solutions that are guarenteed to meet the regulations and limit the commercial impact that they have on your business, all of our solutions have been thorught rigourous legal consultantion to ensure that we provide "complete AWR compliance".
If you would like to talk to us more about Agency Worker Directive please give us a call on 0845 600 8376.
