On 8 June 2021 Government announced the next stage of plans to ‘clamp down on workplace abuse’ with the introduction of a powerful new body which would provide a ‘one-stop shop’ for tackling modern slavery, enforcing minimum wage, and protecting the rights of agency workers.
The new workers’ watchdog will be created to protect the rights of UK workers and ‘ensure employees and businesses know where to go for help on workers’ rights’ would merge powers of the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate and HMRC's National Minimum Wage Enforcement team. Notably, the remit of the new body will include the regulation of umbrella companies.
The new body will also continue the Naming and Shaming scheme, which is used to identify companies who fail to pay workers correctly and issue employers with fines of up to £20,000 per worker. This will be extended to cover other regulations protecting the pay of workers employed through agencies or by gangmasters in the agricultural sector.
The plans were announced in the outcome to a consultation “Good Work Plan: establishing a new single enforcement body for employment rights” which was published in July 2019, with the consultation period closing on 6 October 2019. The response has now been published here. The consultation responses included concerns about the system being ‘under resourced, a loss of specialisation and expertise and a potential for increased bureaucracy.’
Despite varying concerns, the Government confirmed that they intend to proceed with plans to bring together the existing labour market enforcement bodies and have outlined in the consultation response detailed plans on reforming the current system.
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