Teaching and childcare employment agencies warned on legal breaches

Thirty-eight employment agencies in the teaching and childcare sectors have been issued with warnings by the Employment Agency Standards inspectorate (EAS) for a variety of legal breaches, including failing to carry out identity and qualification checks, not agreeing terms with prospective workers before trying to find them work and failing to obtain sufficient information from employers about the jobs they were offering.

Inspectors visited fifty agencies in total as part of a targeted national exercise called Operation Hazard. Towns and cities visited include London, Birmingham and Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Between these fifty agencies, inspectors found 140 breaches. Eleven agencies were not following the correct processes when carrying out identity and qualification checks on people they planned to supply for work, although none of the workers concerned had yet been placed yet.

The EAS described many of the other offences its discovered as “relatively minor”, although some of the other more serious bad practices included:

• not agreeing terms with workers before trying to find them work.
• not obtaining all the necessary information from the hirer about the job.
• not giving written information to the worker and / or hirer about the assignment such as who was to turn up and do the work, and where they were supposed to be and when.

All of the agencies concerned, which have not been named, will be subject to follow up investigations to ensure that the correct practices have been implemented. Any that fail to do so can be fined and/or banned from operating  for up to 10 years.

Employment Relations Minister Lord Young said: “Agencies in the teaching and childcare sectors should be especially vigilant that they are meeting all of their responsibilities.  It is important that children are not put at risk.”