Both the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo) and the Recruitment Employment Confederation (REC) say that plans to instigate a judicial review of Agency Workers Regulations (AWR) stand little chance of success.

The Association of Recruitment Consultancies (ARC) plans to instigate a judicial review of the AWR by 19 April with the regulations due to come into force by 2011.

APSCo says a judicial challenge to the AWR could damage relations between the recruitment industry and the Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS), making it harder to win concessions on potentially harmful regulation in the future. APSCo argues the best way forward is to produce good guidance notes by continuing to work collaboratively with whichever government is elected.

Ann Swain, chief executive of APSCo, adds: “Getting the detailed guidance right will be absolutely crucial for recruiters in terms of helping them comply with the regulations. Given that some form of implementation of the directive is inevitable, forcing a review could upset the apple cart and make a future government less cooperative on this and other important regulatory matters going forward.”

Tom Hadley, external relations director at the REC, told Recruiter: “I don’t think it has any chance of success. With European Directives, there is the spirit of the Directive and anything that would add an obvious loophole would be against the spirit of it, so it doesn’t really have any real chance of succeeding.

“It is important to do what you can and maintain good relations with BIS and do things that are not headline grabbing.

“If they were to succeed - would that be a good thing? I don’t think it would. We spoke to a lot of recruiters during the consultation period and they said anything that would drive temporary workers to master vendors or umbrellas because there was an obvious loophole would not in the interests of the industry.”