Government is gold-plating Agency Workers Directive, says IoD

Dated: 19 October 2010

Commenting on Employment Minister Ed Davey’s plan to ignore business concerns about the Agency Workers Directive and press ahead with implementation on the same lines as the last government, Alistair Tebbit, IoD spokesman, said:

“The Government talks up its pro-enterprise agenda and then we see its regulatory policy in practice. Ministers have gold-plated this regulation, pure and simple. A 12 week exemption is all very well for big companies, but there is no requirement at all in the EU directive for the vast majority of small and medium-sized firms to be caught by the new regulations. This has been confirmed to the IoD by the European Commission, and consistently ignored by ministers. The interests of entrepreneurs, small businesses and, ultimately, the UK’s flexible labour market have been sacrificed to preserve a deal between multinationals and trade unions.

He added:

“This is one of the worst pieces of employment regulation in the last 10 years. It is disappointing that the Government is not taking the full opportunity presented by the European Commission to exempt, in effect, most SMEs from its full impact.”

ENDS

Contact Points

Edwin Morgan
Media Relations Manager
Institute of Directors, 116 Pall Mall, London SW1Y 5ED
Tel: +44 (0)20 7451 3392
Mob: +44 (0)7814 386 243
Email: edwin.morgan@iod.com
Website: www.iod.com/policy

Notes to editors

  • The IoD (Institute of Directors) was founded in 1903 and obtained a Royal Charter in 1906. The IoD is a non-party political organisation with upwards of 45,000 members in the United Kingdom and overseas. Membership includes directors from right across the business spectrum – from media to manufacturing, e-business to the public and voluntary sectors. Members include CEOs of large corporations as well as entrepreneurial directors of start-up companies.
  • The IoD offers a wide range of business services which include business centre facilities (including ten UK regional centres [three in London, Reading, Birmingham, Cardiff, Manchester, Nottingham, Edinburgh and Belfast] and one each in Paris and Brussels), conferences, networking events, virtual offices and hotdesking, issues-led guides and literature, as well as free access to business information and advisory services and a comprehensive Information Centre. The IoD places great emphasis on director development and has established a certified qualification for directors – Chartered Director – as well as running specific board-level and director-level training and individual career mentoring programmes.
  • In addition, the IoD provides an effective voice to represent the interests of its members to government and key opinion-formers at the highest levels. These include ministers, constituency MPs, Select Committee members and senior civil servants. IoD policies and views are actively promoted to the national, regional and trade media.
  • For further information, visit our website: www.iod.com
  • You can also keep up to date with the latest views from the IoD on twitter.com/The_IoD and at blogs.iod.com