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The Employment Agencies Standards (EAS) Inspectorate have recently warned 38 teaching and childcare recruitment agencies for failing to comply with the law.

Eleven of these agencies were found to be not following correct processes when carrying out Identity and Qualification checks on people they planned to supply for work.

During ‘Operation Hazard’ EAS inspectors visited 50 agencies and found 140 breaches. While many offences were minor, the worst practices included:-

Failing to agree terms with workers before trying to find them work.

Not obtaining all the necessary information from the hirer about the job.

Not providing 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 suppoed to be and when.

Best practice in adherance to employment law and in relation to the EAS requires that all workers are fully vetted prior to starting any assignment, preferably before the workers CV is submitted to the prospective employer.

These checks should include:-

The workers right to work in the UK by way of Passport and Visa checks

The verification of professsional qualifications or accreditations and certification to industry bodies and checking of the workers competencies.

A minimum of 5 years prior employment history and two references taken from their last employer.

Checking if the worker has any unspent criminal convictions via the CRB.

Where relavant and in a particular the taking / checking of Drugs and Alcohol tests and Medical certification, particularly in realtion to Rail and Underground Safety Critical workers and people employed in Construction under the CSCS scheme.

In the worst cases agencies may be heavily fined for failing to comply fully with these requirements and possibly banned from operating for up to 10 years.

If you have experienced any of this with an agency that you have used or are using we would really like to hear from you.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 14th, 2010 at 3:14 pm and is filed under All about Resourcing Solutions, Construction & Building, Outside of Work, Rail. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.