What you need to know about the Conduct Regulations and Working Time Regulations

As an umbrella company contractor, you need to ensure that you are well-informed when it comes to any regulations that affect you and your working practices.

Here, we take a look at the Conduct Regulations and the Working Time Regulations.

Conduct Regulations

The Conduct Regulations, otherwise known as the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003, manage and oversee how employment agencies and employment businesses conduct their business

They provide a structure of minimum standards that the UK recruitment industry must adhere to and help to protect you during your assignments, ensuring that:

• you’re still paid by the agency, even if the client doesn’t pay them.
• the agency cannot restrict you from working directly with the client once the contract has come to an end.
• the agency cannot withhold payment in certain circumstances, or for an ‘unreasonable’ amount of time.
• your assignment is presented clearly to you, in terms of rates of pay and contract length.
• you are not charged for the agency’s work-finding services.

Contractors can opt-out of the Conduct Regulations if they wish, however, there’s not much to gain by opting out, in fact, by doing so you can put yourself at a disadvantage.

It would mean that there’s a chance you could be prohibited from employment by the end client for a certain length of time after an assignment, as you won’t have the regulation’s protection to prevent this from happening.

There’s also the fact that the Conduct Regulations protect your pay, so your wages could very well be withheld if the end client is taking their time paying.

Working Time Regulations

The Working Time Regulations is a law put in place to protect workers from being forced to work more than 48 hours a week by their employer.

This is a benefit that does apply to umbrella company contractors.

The 48-hour limit is calculated over a ‘reference period’, which is usually 17 weeks (some jobs will have different time periods). This means that you are able to work more than 48 hours in one week, as long as the average over 17 weeks is less than 48 hours a week.

There are work-related tasks that will add to your total working hours, for example:

• Job-related training
• Any time spent travelling if it’s part of your job
• Overtime – whether it’s paid, or unpaid if you’re asked to work extra hours
• Being on call if it’s in the workplace
• Working lunches
• Travel between your home and work (if it’s not a fixed place of work)

You can opt-out of this if you wish; many workers might do this in order to increase their working hours and therefore earn more money, however, there are certain occupations where you’re not allowed to opt-out, such as airline staff and those working on ships/boats and in the road transport industry.

To find out more about contracting please contact Jaime on 01206 591 000 or email jaime.thorpe@contractorumbrella.com.