Opt out of Conduct of employment agencies 2003 act?

[Steelman]

unscrupulous agency

ALWAYS opt in, no matter what anyone says.

My mate had a case with an unscrupulous consultancy in the UK, I think they were called <mod snip, if you can't remember there's no point posting the wrong name!> can't quite remember.

Anyhoos they didn't pay him the last invoice but because he opted out he could not pursue them for the money under employment agency law. Apparently there is a government agency that will purseue your case for free if you opt in - I think it is the Department of BIS or something like that - employment agencies standards? So he was pretty peeved when he found out that if he had opted in to begin with, he would have had this option. I think in the end he had to pay for small claims which of course cost him money.

Worth remembering!

I can confirm - the name of the agency is Acrotrend. So there.

[craig1]

I'm starting my nice shiny new contract a week on Monday Suited me perfectly as they didn't really want someone to start for a month and I really wanted a holiday. I'd recommend the Shangri La's Rasa Sayang hotel in Penang, fantastic holiday, especially if you're not too much of a cheapskate to upgrade to the double sized rooms in the Rasa Wing.

On the topic though... The agency have been dicking around with the contract since I was offered the role. I received a formal offer letter enclosing an opt-out term in the contract. A call to them had them insisting that no opt-out equals no contract. I gave them the overly dramatic sigh and told them that since I'd been long introduced to the client, had been for interviews, etc that I could not legally opt out even if I wanted to, and I didn't.

Senior mangler at agency calls me and tells me that the client will not accept opted-in contractors due to the risk to them. I told him that I'd call him back after I called the client and double checked that for myself as maybe he was confused. Two minutes of bluff and bluster about this being a contract with them, not the client and threats to cancel the contract offer immediately if I contacted them. I let him rant then told him that he had three options: allow me to operate without the opt-out, cancel the contract offer or let me clarify it with the client.

Lots of intervening calls, not a single bit written down by them. I told them I was off on holiday, I gave a firm written commitment to sign the contract on the rest of the terms agreed when I returned on the sole condition that they agreed to remove the opt-out clause.

Got home last night, nice new contract with the opt-out bit removed. They had tried to sneak in an amendment to the payment details from weekly invoice/weekly payment to monthly invoice/30 days payment. A quick phone call sorted that out after a bit of bluster about "opted in contractors being more work for their accounts people".

Revised version arrived by email about two hours ago, all correct. I signed and it's in the post today, I start a week on Monday.

[northernladuk]

<stuff>

Be interesting to see if they fulfil their obligations now you are opted in.

[craig1]

Be interesting to see if they fulfil their obligations now you are opted in.

I'm not really known for being that tolerant of agencies messing about. They pay up within a week of my invoice or I start hassling them unless they've got an excellent one-off excuse. Agencies on quite decent margins (this one is a fixed 15%) have no excuse for messing about regularly.

They usually buckle and start playing nicely when I start adding quite small bits of statutory interest on very late invoices! For some reason having to pay that trivial bit of extra money has more effect than 10-15 phone calls on most agencies.

[Wanderer]

Be interesting to see if they fulfil their obligations now you are opted in.

Of course not, they will still try to mess people around mercilessly but making the agency comply with the law is still a victory for the contractors.

[Wanderer]

Got home last night, nice new contract with the opt-out bit removed.

[barrydidit]

If they are a consultancy, and there is no agency in place, then the agency regulations don't apply.

That's interesting. It raises a couple of questions

If the contractor is being engaged via hisco-> consultancy-> Clientco, why is the any different to the usual hisco-> agency-> Clientco? Is it simply because Consultancy isn't Agency (even though they appear to me to acting like one)?

If the regs don't apply, is the default position 'in' or 'out'? So if the client refused to pay the Consultancy/went bust etc, where does the contractor stand?

[Wanderer]

If the regs don't apply, is the default position 'in' or 'out'? So if the client refused to pay the Consultancy/went bust etc, where does the contractor stand?

Default position is out, if the consultancy/client goes bust then you don't get paid.

There is some question over the status of working for a consultancy because some of them are pretty much acting as an Employment Business (as defined by law) though they claim not to be and you would have to get a lawyer to argue that point in court.

[barrydidit]

There is some question over the status of working for a consultancy because some of them are pretty much acting as an Employment Business (as defined by law) though they claim not to be and you would have to get a lawyer to argue that point in court.

Hmm, another regulatory triumph then.

Thanks anyway!

[TheFaQQer]

That's interesting. It raises a couple of questions

If the contractor is being engaged via hisco-> consultancy-> Clientco, why is the any different to the usual hisco-> agency-> Clientco? Is it simply because Consultancy isn't Agency (even though they appear to me to acting like one)?

If the regs don't apply, is the default position 'in' or 'out'? So if the client refused to pay the Consultancy/went bust etc, where does the contractor stand?

If the regs don't apply, then there is nothing to be in or out of

The contract would need to specify who is liable for the payment - your contract is with the consultancy, so that is who you would need to chase for anything.