The REC has issued its key demands to the DTI following the end of the consultation period on the draft proposals for the Employment Agencies Act Regulations.

Crucially for the IT sector, the industry body has called for limited company contractors to be removed from the Regulations’ remit. ‘The way the Regulations treat limited company contractors makes little sense, and is surely unintended,’ said the REC’s chief executive Tim Nicholson.

The REC has also suggested that the temp-to-perm proposals for students or recent graduates be changed, to allow agencies to continue operating paid work experience schemes for graduates, which offer employers a ‘try before you buy’ period.

The REC ‘broadly welcomed’ the DTI’s temp-to-perm proposals, under pressure from the government, when they were published on 1 February.

However, other industry bodies have taken a more critical approach. Simon Garbett, chief executive of The Employment Agencies Movement (TEAM), an independent network of 190 recruitment companies, called for the DTI to ‘think again’ and ‘go back to the drawing board’ rather than ‘rush through’ the legislation.

TEAM contested the ‘sliding scale’ temp-to-perm quarantine period currently proposed. It recommended a fourteen-week period across the board, which would, it claimed, be less ‘confusing’ to temporary workers and clients.

The Forum for Professional Recruiters, a body of 13 companies in the professional services sector, claimed the temp-to-perm period was ‘unsuited’ to professional services. A three-month notice period is standard in this sphere, so employers are already accustomed to waiting for a new employee, the Forum pointed out. With such a short quarantine period, unscrupulous employers could easily recruit a candidate on a ‘try before you buy’ basis, claimed the Forum, and forego the temp-to-perm fee.

Tara Ricks, chair of the Forum and a director of Joslin Rowe, also expressed concern that temps must be paid regardless of whether their timesheet has been authenticated. In the professional services sector, at any one time an average of £10m of debt is owed at 30 days, and £5m at 60 days, said Ricks. If candidates must be paid without employer authorisation, the new proposals would severely damage the recruitment industry’s cash flow, she said.

The Association of Staffing Technology Companies (ATSCo) has also been vocal in its criticism of the draft Regulations, labelling them ‘disastrous’. Divisions across the industry persist over specific responses to the proposals.

Nicholson has refused to comment on the reaction of other recruitment organisations. While the REC has been calling for unity among recruiters in response to the government, the fragmented nature of the industry, and the bodies that represent it, look set to cause problems in allowing the recruitment community to present a united front.