Compliance update - June 2023

This latest compliance update provides information on the common areas of non-compliance found during recent inspections.

Compliance updates are provided at the Online Stakeholder Webinars.

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Umbrella companies

The first issue the Compliance team comes across regularly is Labour Providers (LPs) using Umbrella companies and Micro Umbrella companies outside of the sector without realising the implications of such companies or HMRC’s views on them. See our brief on this: Licensing News (gla.gov.uk)

Holiday pay

A frequent issue is non-payment of holiday pay to workers who have left. Companies do not class them as leavers (even if they have not worked for many months), and thus do not issue a P45 so holiday pay remains unpaid. Once the holiday year ends, this entitlement is lost and the business “pockets” the money.

Induction training 

Induction training is still not being paid in all cases – where induction is site specific (for a specific Labour User), this should be treated as working time and paid. We have recently found cases where workers were told to go to an induction on a certain day but were then not required to start work until a week or two later. Upon checking timesheets and payslips, this induction period had not been added on to their first pay.

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

PPE should be offered free of charge to all workers. More frequently we are seeing LPs own interview sheets completed by consultants who interview workers, confirming if a worker already has their own PPE. What will often happen is a worker will be asked if they have their own PPE as it is needed for the role, and the worker believes if they say no, they won’t get the job, so they say they have got it and subsequently buy it themselves.

What should happen is they should be offered it and if a worker asks to wear their own (which may be better quality), then it should be recorded they have been offered and declined free PPE.

It should also be recorded that the Labour Provider has checked to ensure the worker's PPE is fit for purpose. Safety boots being one such issue because the worker's own boots may not have a steel midsole when a site requires it, or could have laces which might catch in machinery.

When we see the majority of workers stating they have their own PPE and the LP not providing it, it indicates the workers may have felt pressured to provide their own and this can be verified during worker interviews.