Government inspections target education and childcare recruitment
Released on 14 January 2010

The REC has today responded to the Government inspections of recruitment agencies working in education and childcare sectors.

The Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate (EAS) mounted a national exercise involving visits to 50 agencies. A total of 38 were subsequently issued with warnings for failing to comply with the law with 11 of them found to be not following correct procedures on identity and qualification checks.

The EAS report did also make it clear that the majority of breaches were for relatively minor infringements.

Commenting on the specific findings of the BIS inspections, Fola Tayo, the REC’s Head of Professional Standards added:

“Agencies play a key role in providing safe and flexible resourcing options to schools and childcare providers across the country. Huge progress has been made in terms of professional standards but we need to remain vigilant. The REC’s Professional Standards team will be looking to work closer with the EAS inspectorate over the coming year and specific initiatives such as the Government’s Quality Mark scheme in the education sector will also continue to raise the bar.”

Commenting on the overall enforcement campaign, REC Director of External Relations Tom Hadley says:

“The REC fully supports the better enforcement campaign and we understand the need to publicise the increased activity. However, we are concerned with the tone of recent press releases and the potential impact on industry perceptions. The reality is that detailed inspections of businesses in any sector would find similar minor breaches of applicable regulations.

“Where more serious breaches are found, we would welcome more details on the specific infringements so that we can raise awareness and potentially launch our own investigation. The Government’s enforcement campaign must be about working together to address the more serious examples of bad practice.”
source:http://www.rec.uk.com/press/news/915