The Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003

Situations where work-seekers are provided with travel or required to live away from home E+W+S

24.—(1) Neither an agency nor an employment business may arrange for an au pair to take up a position where the au pair is to be required to repay the hirer or the agency or employment business the fare for the journey from the au pair’s home to the place of work, or from the place of work to the au pair’s home, out of money payable to the au pair by the hirer or the agency or employment business.

(2) Neither an agency nor an employment business may arrange for a work-seeker to take up a position other than as the hirer’s employee (within the meaning of section 230(1) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 M1 ) if in order to take up that position the work-seeker must occupy accommodation other than his home, unless the conditions in paragraph (3) are satisfied.

(3) The conditions referred to in paragraph (2) are that the agency or employment business has taken all reasonably practicable steps to ensure that—

(a) suitable accommodation will be available for the work-seeker before he starts work;

(b) the work-seeker has been provided with details of the accommodation referred to in sub-paragraph (a), including the terms on which it is offered and any cost to the work-seeker; and

(c) suitable arrangements have been made for the work-seeker to travel to such accommodation.

(4) Where a work-seeker is—

(a) to be introduced or supplied to a hirer other than as the hirer’s employee (within the meaning of section 230(1) of the Employment Rights Act 1996), or is under the age of eighteen; and

(b) the agency, employment business or hirer has arranged free travel or payment of fares for the work-seeker’s journey to the place of work,

the agency or employment business shall, if the work does not start or upon it ending, either arrange free travel for the work-seeker’s return journey or pay his return fare, or obtain an undertaking from the hirer that he will arrange free travel or pay the return fare. The agency or employment business shall give notice to the work-seeker setting out the details of the free travel or payment of fares including any conditions on which the same are offered.

(5) If a hirer does not comply with his undertaking referred to in paragraph (4), the agency or employment business shall either arrange free travel for the return journey of the work-seeker or pay his fare.

(6) Where a work-seeker is seeking employment in domestic service in a private household, or to be an au pair, an agency or employment business, providing work-finding services to him with a view to his obtaining a position in either of those occupations, shall ensure that the work-seeker is provided with such information as the work-seeker may reasonably request in order to decide whether or not to take up any particular position.

(7) In the case of a work-seeker who is under the age of eighteen, neither an agency nor an employment business may introduce or supply him to any hirer with a view to him taking up a position which will require him to live away from home unless the condition in paragraph (8) is satisfied.

(8) The condition referred to in paragraph (7) is that the consent to the work-seeker taking up the position, in respect of which the agency or employment business seeks to introduce or supply him to the hirer, has previously been given by, and obtained by the agency or employment business directly from, a parent or guardian of the work-seeker.

(9) Neither an agency nor an employment business may arrange for a work-seeker to take up a position with a hirer on the basis that the work-seeker is to be loaned money, by either the hirer or the agency or employment business, to meet his travel or other expenses in order to take up that position, on terms that the work-seeker is to be required to repay the lender a sum greater than the sum loaned.

(10) Where an agency, employment business or hirer is to lend money to a work-seeker to meet his travel or other expenses to be incurred in order to take up a position with a hirer, the agency or employment business shall give to the work-seeker a document setting out details of the amount to be loaned and details of the terms for repayment save, in the case of a loan from the hirer, to the extent that the agency or employment business is not aware of any such details.

(11) Paragraph (7) does not apply in relation to a person under the age of eighteen to whom section 25 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 M2 or section 42 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1963 M3 applies.

(12) In this regulation, “au pair” means a person who is received or is to be received into a private household under an arrangement whereby that person is to assist in the domestic work of the household in consideration for receiving hospitality and pocket money or hospitality only.

Marginal Citations

M1 1996 c. 18; section 230(6) was inserted by the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (c. 23), section 15(1).

M2 1933 c. 12; section 25 was amended by the Children and Young Persons Act 1963 (c. 37), section 64(1), (3), Schedule 3, paragraph 7 and Schedule 5, the Children Act 1989 (c. 41), Schedule 13, paragraph 3, the Employment Act 1989 (c. 38), section 10 and Schedule 3, Part III, paragraphs 6 and 10 and the Children (Protection at Work) Regulations 1998 (S.I. 1998/276), regulation 5. Functions of the Secretary of State under section 25, so far as exercisable in relation to Wales, were transferred to the National Assembly for Wales, by the National Assembly for Wales (Transfer of Functions) Order 1999 (S.I. 1999/672), article 2 and Schedule 1.

M3 1963 c. 37; section 42 was amended by the Employment Act 1989 (c. 38), section 29(3) and Schedule 6, paragraph 8 and the Children (Protection at Work) Regulations 1998 (S.I. 1998/276), regulation 16(2) and (3).