The guaranteed hours provisions in the recently published Employment Rights Bill are extremely complicated and we expect much of the detail will be fleshed out by future regulations.

The Government’s measures aim to tackle one-sided flexibility in zero hours contracts through a right to guaranteed hours with a contract that reflects the number of hours regularly worked, a right to reasonable notice of shifts and to payment for shifts cancelled or curtailed at short notice. Interestingly, the provisions in the Bill do not currently cover agency workers.

The Government has today launched a consultation seeking views on the extension of the provisions to agency workers.

Specific issues raised include:

  • whether agency workers should be offered guaranteed hours by the employment agency, or by the end hirer – acknowledging that the agency has very little control over demand and that a requirement placed on the end hirer might change the nature of the relationship between the agency worker and end hirer to one of direct employment;
  • whether liability for reasonable notice of shifts should be apportioned between the employment agency and end hirer as appropriate on a case-by-case basis;
  • whether employment agencies should be responsible for the cancellation payments to agency workers where a shift is cancelled or curtailed at short notice. This would be in line with the responsibility of the agency to pay the agency worker’s wages;
  • whether employment agencies should then be allowed to recover cancellation payments from the end hirer if the end hirer was responsible for the shift cancellation, with the government suggesting a preference this should be left to contract rather than being set out in legislation.

The consultation is expected to remain open until 2 December 2024.