Call to streamline agency conduct rules

Ministers should consider simplifying the Agency Conduct regulations if they want to cut red tape while mitigating the impact of the newly-introduced agency worker rules, a staffing body says.

The Recruitment and Employment Confederation last week used its formal submission to the government’s Red Tape Challenge to call for a “radical streamlining” of the 2003 regulations.

Based on feedback from its member firms, such as IT recruiters, the REC said its submission reflected the challenge’s focus switching to regulatory cutbacks that could help the recruitment industry.

“There is scope for some quick wins in terms of streamlining existing regulations like the Conduct Regulations,” Marshall Evans, employment policy chair, explained. “This will help to counter-balance the administrative onslaught of the AWR.”

Previous dialogue with the business department on “other areas of unnecessary bureaucracy” has led to “positive” measures, REC said, pointing to those promised last month in relation to employment tribunals.