• Government should amend the legislation to improve the transparency of information which must be provided to work seekers both in terms of rates of pay and those responsible for paying them; • The Director of Labour Market Enforcement should consider whether the remit of EAS (Employment Agency Standards (EAS) Inspectorate) ought to be extended to cover policing umbrella companies and other intermediaries in the supply chain; • The government should repeal the legislation that allows work seekers to opt out of equal pay entitlements (known as the ‘Swedish Derogation’); and • The government should consider extending the remit of EAS to include compliance with the Agency Workers Regulations (AWR). The Director of Labour Market Enforcement (the Director), Professor Sir David Metcalf, is also considering the first two recommendations through a consultation that was part of the first Labour Market Enforcement strategy published on 19 July 2017. We await the publication of his 2018-19 Strategy. CIPP comments: The CIPP policy and research team will be publishing a survey and running a roundtable to gather your views, experiences and responses to the proposals put forward in this paper and to the questions being asked. Further details will be forthcoming through News and in the Policy hub but in advance of that, expressions of interest are welcomed to policy. Please write Agency Workers in the subject line of your email.
Thank you
Back to Contents
BEIS leads on cross government Employment status consultation 9 February 2018
A joint, cross Government consultation lead by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) but also involving HM Treasury and HMRC has been published to consider the subject of Employment Status.
The consultation on employment status will run until the 1 June 2018.
BEIS recognise that ‘ any work taken forward as a result of this consultation on employment status will impact on other government policies. For example, employment status – or the concept of employee, worker and self-employed – is relevant in determining entitlement to social benefits, such as Universal Credit; and entitlement to Statutory Payments and Automatic Enrolment for pensions. We will be working across government departments to understand and mitigate any potential impacts where appropriate and ensure clarity and alignment across policies is achieved.’ This is a significant paper that look at an area that is complex in nature and in application, for a variety of reasons ‘although the review originally acknowledged that the current employment status framework works reasonably well for most people’.
It has no less than 64 questions and looks to pick up on the Taylor review recommendations that:
• Government should replace their minimalistic approach to legislation with a clearer outline of the tests for employment status, setting out the key principles in primary legislation, and using secondary legislation and guidance to provide more detail. • Government should retain the current three-tier approach to employment status as it remains relevant in the modern labour market, but rename as ‘dependent contractors’ the category of people who are eligible for worker rights but are not employees.
• In developing the test for the new ‘dependent contractor’ status, control should be of greater importance, with less emphasis placed on the requirement to perform work personally.
The Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals
Payroll: need to know
cipp.org.uk
Page 183 of 598
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker