Government policy failing almost one million temporary workers

The Recruitment and Employment Confederation is launching a petition to support training opportunities for the UK temporary workforce.
 
The REC claims that 960,000 temporary workers could benefit from better skills training if government let them access the training funds their agencies pay to the Treasury. Courses which could lead to significant pay rises and higher productivity would be unlocked if money paid for the Apprenticeship Levy could also be used on other high quality qualifications as part of a skills levy.
 
The organisation has therefore launched a petition calling for the government’s Apprenticeship Levy, which is poorly designed, inflexible and doesn’t reflect modern working practices, to be changed to a flexible training levy.
 
The REC is also launching a new research report Training for Temps, which provides evidence and statistics to back up the importance of reform.

Employment agencies are often in the unique position of employing temporary workers in order to provide staff to other companies. This makes them eligible to pay the government’s Apprenticeship Levy, despite in many cases being small businesses at their core with only a few directly employed staff.
 
Temporary workers, whether they choose to work this way for the flexibility benefits it brings or because they are temping while looking for a permanent role, will often benefit more from investment than managers and senior staff, who are more able to access training under the current system.
 
Neil Carberry, chief executive of the REC, said: “The Apprenticeship Levy was designed with the best of intentions, but everyone knows it is not working as intended. It’s time for reform. As we redesign the levy, keeping support in place for apprenticeships matters, but we must end the scandal of locking temporary workers out of the system. Employers are paying a levy for them – but can’t use it to support their development. 95 per cent of REC members who pay the levy cannot use the funds available to them to train their staff.
 
“Our monthly Report on Jobs survey tells us that there are skills shortages in areas that training temps using levy funds could help to address, like hospitality, and health and social care. Recruiters are already doing what they can – but the contribution the recruitment industry could make on skills and progression would be hugely amplified if the government broadened the scope of the training Apprenticeship Levy funds could pay for. Letting agencies access the levy funds HMRC takes from them to provide quality training to temps would be transformational for career progression, productivity and inclusion. It would be a win for government, employers and temporary workers themselves.
 
“One of our members told us they would use a reformed levy to enable their staff to ‘secure longer-term sustainable employment and build their personal resilience’. We should be helping these well-intentioned employers unlock productivity in their workforce by using the levy to train temps.”