The government has said it will look at the area of indemnity clauses in the guidance notes on the Agency Workers Regulations (AWR), according to the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo).

While draft guidance on AWR was published late on Friday, the Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) agreed at the APSCo members’ meeting last Thursday to look into the issue of indemnity clauses in a future draft.

APSCo says its members have repeatedly been asked by end users to accept liability for claims brought by agency workers under the AWR. These indemnity clauses mean that in the event that the end user fails to provide the recruiter with sufficient information on temporary workers’ pay and conditions, or withholds information altogether, the recruiter is liable for the breach of the AWR.

Ann Swain, chief executive of APSCo, says: “It is clearly not fair or right for the agency to have to pay for a claim under the Regulations when an end user has misinformed them about how much relevant full-time staff are paid. It is encouraging that BIS is sympathetic to recruiters on this issue — though recruiters can help themselves by not signing contracts with these kinds of clauses in.

“These kinds of liabilities can be uninsurable, which can make selling a recruitment business which has agreed to such terms extremely difficult. Recruiters need to be careful what they sign up to, although anything BIS can do to highlight and potentially resolve this issue will be welcome.”