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The cancelled meeting was supposed to represent the Government's final consultation with the recruitment industry before the EAA's final proposals are laid before Parliament.
The industry's main disagreement over the Act is the proposed inclusion of Personal Service Companies (PSCs) within the Act's temp-to-temp regulations. The DTI says this was included 'to protect individual temporary workers.'
REC members fear that highly paid PSCs would agree with a hirer to return to them via a different employment business at the end of a contract and that in the intervening period, they might take a holiday or different assignment.
The Recruitment and Employment Confederation has previously threatened legal action against the Department of Trade and Industry if it refuses to back down over the Act's proposals. It argues the Employment Agency Act 'demonstrates a lack of understanding by the Government of the business world when it attempts to regulate business-to-business relationships.'
REC has said the thrust of bringing a judicial review against the DTI would primarily be 'on the basis of irrationality, in that the regulations are disproportionate in terms of protecting PSCs in relation to the evil that they are apparently seeking to address.'
DTI Minister Alan Johnson also unexpectedly pulled out of the Recruitment2000 conference in December last year, leaving a stand-in, Paul Hadley, to take questions regarding transfer fees.
The meeting has been re-scheduled for late September/ early October.
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Richard Powell, Shout99
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