The Stage

New legislation launches legal minefield

Published Monday 6 September 2004 at 16:00

In your article, ‘Agency laws ‘to cost £35 million” (News, September 2, front page) and in the advert on the back page of the same edition, the Agents’ Association’s immediate past president, Bob James, gripes about how much the new legislation will cost the entertainment industry. Mr James cites the requirement in the “new” legislation that agencies must provide both hirers and artists with copies of the agency’s terms of business, before providing the agency’s services, as being one of the reasons for the said costs.

Are we to assume from this that for the last 28 years the members of the Agents’ Association has been breaking the law? Could it be the case that for the last 28 years none of the members of the association have provided hirers with copies of their terms of business before providing hirers with the agency’s services?

I would refer Mr James and the Agents’ Association, back to the previous legislation - the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Business Regulations 1976 and, more specifically, to section 4 of same. Section 4(1)(a) of the said regulations stating that: “Except in a case to which regulations made under section 6(1) of the (Employment Agencies) Act apply (that is to say in which a person carrying on an employment agency charges a worker a fee for finding or seeking to find employment for him), an agent shall, immediately on receipt of an application from an employer to find him a worker, provide the employer with a written statement containing details of his current terms of business set out in easily legible characters (except where the employer has already received such a statement setting out those terms).” Perhaps Mr James can explain how the “new” legislation,which to a great extent is just a re-wording of the previous legislation, places any extra cost on agencies?

As to the Agents’ Association taking the stance of querying the fact that “the DTI insist that entertainment agents are employment agents” - what would the association like them to be classed as? To refer to the definition of an employment agency as set out in the Employment Agencies Act 1973: “13(2) For the purposes of this Act ‘employment agency’ means the business (whether or not carried on with a view to profit and whether or not carried on in conjunction with any other business) of providing services (whether by the provision of information or otherwise) for the purpose of finding workers employment with employers or of supplying employers with workers for employment by them.” Surely this is what the members of the association do?

The alternative would appear to be that the members of the association would prefer to be classed as employment business. In which case they may prefer to reconsider. As employment agencies they have no responsibility regarding employees and employment rights. As employment businesses they would be the employers of the artists - and would acquire the relevant employment risks - such as unfair, dismissal, maternity rights, etc - as well as being directly responsible for paying the artists. In addition they would not be allowed to charge the worker a fee, in any circumstance, for finding them employment.

Your journalist has, again, repeated the myth and misconception that the new regulations include a clause which has “brought to an end the practice of agencies asking for up-front fees - payment in advance for services.” A look at the letters in Opinion, not least of all from myself, will have shown him that there are a number of ways in which agencies can still charge fees up-front. A look at the adverts in The Stage will show him some “agencies” which are doing this.

Could this, in fact, be why the Agents’ Association does not want its members to be classed as employment agents - in that if they are not classed as employment agents then they are not governed by the employment agency regulations, and there will not be any prohibition on them charging artists a fee for finding (or seeking to find) them employment?

Ray Hoppkrofft

Proprietor

Modelling Information Service

Baker Street

Todmorden

West Yorkshire