ACR sponsors NHS Trust awards evening

Playing an active role in the community is very much part of our ethos. So it was with pleasure that we co-sponsored the Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Trust Annual Awards held this week.

And what an eye-opener the evening was.

One hundred NHS Trust employees and volunteers were recognised for their commitment, dedication and hard work during the event. It was the stories you never hear about which touched the guests – including me. There was the volunteer who has played the piano at the hospital chapel’s Sunday morning service for 20 years. The employees who have worked in the hospital, unstintingly, for 25 years. The teams who have worked so well together they have made the kind of difference a group of individuals never could.

Our sponsorship enabled the Trust to put on an event that really helped show its staff and volunteers just how much they are appreciated – not just by the Trust but by the region as a whole.

From our perspective, helping to mark the achievements of so many incredible local people was nothing short of an honour.

AWD - 2011

One of our management team Karen Dykes spent Friday in Leeds at the fourth Agency Summit to discuss the EU Agency Workers Directive draft regulations.

This Directive will give agency workers equal treatment to permanent staff 12 weeks into an assignment. It has been recognised since these regulations were first discussed that there is going to be a huge impact on the recruitment industry – we’re going to be in the frontline of its delivery.

We now know it’s going to be implemented on October 1, 2011.

The good news is that its introduction has been delayed until then. The over-riding feeling among agencies is that this legislation is going to stall demand for temps as companies manage without rather than incurring the costs involved in implementing the new rules. With the economy as it is if that had happened now it could have proved disastrous.

The other win as far as we’re concerned is the second consultation period which the government has agreed to before the legislation is rubber stamped early next year.

It’s another eight weeks grace for us to lobby parliament and our MPs about the nitty gritty of the document. There is a lot of ambiguity within it and some loopholes which must be dealt with.

We will be continuing to work with the REC and other agencies to ensure that when the final document is produced it is both realistic and workable. And once it’s been through parliament and is on the statute books we will be working with our clients to ensure that its implementation is as smooth as possible.

AWD latest news

The Agency Workers Directive isn’t a ‘sexy’ subject like house prices, tax rises and public spending. But I was delighted to see it on the agenda at this season’s political party conferences. It means the Directive, and its implications, are being seriously considered by our politicians.

The REC (Recruitment and Employment Confederation)was at each of the conferences, representing its members – which includes ACR – and putting the case against the immediate implementation of this legislation.

Political arguments aren’t my style but I was pleased to see that at least one of the major parties seemed to understand the concerns that thousands of agencies like ours share about the impact the introduction of the Directive will have on an already slack labour market.

The European Parliament has stipulated the Directive must be brought in by December 2011 at the latest. There has been a suggestion it will actually be on the statute books by next April. That makes us very nervous. Our worry is that the cost of putting in place the necessary strategies to deal with the Directive – let alone the cost of actually funding the new rules – will mean many small businesses, charities and the like will simply refuse to use temporary staff. This could be disastrous – not only for industry but for the already precarious employment market.

Our argument is that the Directive – inspired by a desire to offer more extensive protection to ‘vulnerable’ agency workers – is going to have a negative effect on all agency workers.

The REC is holding a conference next month which should give us more information about how we can continue to fight to delay the introduction of the Directive.