Commenting on an article in Recruiter magazine on 28th July (“Recruitment bodies welcome new Small Business Czar”), Adrian Marlowe, Chairman of the Association of Recruitment Consultancies (ARC) said “We identified ‘pay when paid’ and other related unfair payment clauses in RPO contracts as an issue that government urgently needed to address back in 2011 against the backdrop of growth in the RPO market. Since then we have consistently lobbied for the government to legislate because of the ongoing negative consequences of this aspect of the RPO model.”
“I am glad that the government has signalled its willingness to put this inherent systemic issue on the table. It is in the interests of the recruitment industry that these types of clauses and other unfair payment provisions should fall within the remit of the new small business commissioner initiative and I am pleased to see that APSCo and the REC agree this should be addressed.”
ARC is the only recruitment trade association named in the ‘small business commissioner’ consultation document published on 26th July 2015. Referring to this, Marlowe continued “It is noteworthy that the proposals for the commissioner’s scope reflect our input. There is now a reasonable prospect that our campaign will succeed, but much more work needs to be done to ensure that the government does adopt the principles and that any new rules work well without creating further anomalies. Given the government’s focus on helping disadvantaged businesses, we are cautiously optimistic.”
Information about ARC can be found at www.arc-org.net. ARC supports the appointment of a small business commissioner – see ARC’s other article on this
