Private Employment Agencies (Hansard, 28 February 1997)

Mr. John M. Taylor

I have asked directors of the Department's executive agencies to reply to the hon. Member separately.

For the headquarters of the Department, excluding agencies and the Government offices, it is not possible to provide information in the form requested. Temporary staff are recruited from employment agencies to cover, usually, short-term secretarial and administrative support duties. Data on the average length of temporary staff recruited from agencies, the numbers employed and the median cost paid to agencies per person employed are not available.

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However, the agencies most commonly used in the past three years are Alfred Marks, Brook Street, Manpower, Josephine Summers and Kelly. The total cost to the Department for agency staff in the past three financial years is as follows;

1994–95 £0.4 million
1995–96: £1.3 million
1996–97 (April—January) £2.1 million

Expenditure in 1996–97 is not directly comparable with previous years, which do not take account of the machinery of government changes announced in July 1995.

Letter from Peter Joyce to Mr. Mike Hall, dated 28 February 1997: The President of the Board of Trade has asked me to reply to your question about the use made by The Insolvency Service of private employment agencies. I should first explain that The Service undertakes its own recruitment of permanent and many of its casual staff, and does not use the services of employment agencies for that purpose. It does however take on temporary staff from agencies, usually to cover a short-term need for example to assist in the completion of a specific project or to cover for the temporary absence of permanent staff. In addition, The Service has taken on accountancy and legal staff on short term contracts through agencies to support its investigative role. The total cost to The Service of agency staff in each of the last two years has been—

1994–95: £476,700
1995–96: £2,650,400

The information held by The Service on its agency staff is not maintained in a form which would enable it to provide the further details you have asked for except at disproportionate cost.

Letter from Iain MacGregor to Mr. Mike Hall, dated 28 February 1997: The President of the Board of Trade has asked me to answer the question on behalf of the Chief Executive of NWML who is on business away from the office. The answer is set out below.

Year	Agency (a)	Numbers (b)	Total cost (c)	Length of contract (d)¹
Employment agencies
1993–94	Reed Employment	1	²—	14 months
1994–95	Reed Employment	1	²	4 months
1995–96	Reed Employment	1	²—	4 months
1996–97	Walch Employment Ltd.	1	²—	3 months
Recruitment agencies
1995–96	Capita Recruitment Services	1	1,983	Permanent
1996–97	Draft Personnel Ltd.	1	2,645	Permanent
¹ We are unable to provide an average length of contract because two recruits remain members of staff.
² Because of the nature of payments to Employment Agencies we are unable to extract the information at reasonable cost.

Letter from J. C. Octon To Mr. Mike Hall, dated 28 February 1997: In the absence of the Chief Executive I am replying for the Patent Office to your Parliamentary Question to the President of the Board of Trade about the use of private employment agencies. The Patent Office operates in a competitive international market and has operated a policy of employing agency staff to minimise the risk to its permanent staff of redundancy consequent on fluctuations in demand. The agencies it has used to supply temporary staff are: Reed Employment, Securicor Recruitment Services Ltd., Western Staff Services, Acorn Recruitment, Manpower Employment Agency, Kelter International Ltd., Brook 410W Street, Meridian Business Support, Kelly Services and Select Appointments PD Bureau—London. The monthly average number of agency staff employed in the last three years has been 1994: 30, 1995: 50 and 1996: 42 and the total annual cost £323,958, £539,689 and £495,240 respectively. The average hourly rate paid to the agencies for the staff supplied was around £4.20 in 1994, £4.50 in 1995 and £4.80 in 1996. The average length of employment for agency staff has been in the range 3.5 to 4 months. The Patent Office also employs a small number of specialist IT practitioners employed normally through specialist companies. The figures given above exclude such staff.

Letter from John Holden to Mr. Mike Hall, dated 28 February 1997: You recently asked the President of the Board of Trade for information about the use of private employment agencies within his Department and Agencies. I am responding as Chief Executive of Companies House Executive Agency. The following table gives names of agencies used over the last three years, the numbers of people from each agency, length of contract and the cost per hour.

Year	Agency name	Length of contract	Number employed	Cost per hour £
1994	Jobwise	5 weeks	1	6.85
1994–95	Target	13 weeks	1	6.50
1995	Office Angels	3 weeks	2	7.35
1996	Office Angels	2–3 weeks	2	8.25
1996	Pertemps	¹2–17 weeks	5	²6.30
¹ Average.
² Average 7
The total cost to the Agency for the years 1995–96 was £20,580; the average cost per person recruited is £6.90 per hour; contract periods average 5–6 weeks per person.

Letter from Jim Norton to Mr. Mike Hall, dated 28 February 1997: To ask the President of the Board of Trade, if he will list the private employment agencies used by his Department and its agencies in each of the last three years for which figures are available indicating (a) the names of the agencies, (b) the numbers employed by the agencies in work for his Department, (c) the total cost to his Department of using employment agencies and the median cost paid to the agency per person recruited and (d) the average length of contract for persons recruited via such agencies. The President of the Board of Trade has asked me to reply on behalf of the Radiocommunications Agency to the above PQ. Over the past three years the RA has used the following private employment agencies:

1994–95
Accountancy Personnel
Adeeko/ADIA Ltd (Alfred Marks)
Arena Staff Agency
Manpower plc
Reed Staffing Services Ltd
1995–96
Adeeko/ADIA Ltd (Alfred Marks)
Badenoch and Clark
EGB
Manpower plc
Nextep Ltd
Office Angels
Professional Recruitment Solutions
Reed Staffing Services Ltd
1996–97
Adeeko/ADIA Ltd (Alfred Marks)
Badenoch and Clark
London Staff Bureau
Manpower plc
Nextep Ltd
Office Angels
RJC (UK) Ltd.
The total cost to the Radiocommunications Agency of using the employment agencies in the last three years was:
1994–95: £64,322.05
1995–96: £498,456.14
1996–97 (April—January): £277,809.17.

I am sorry that it is not possible to identify for each of the years the number of employment agency staff, the average length of contract for persons recruited from agencies and the median cost paid to agencies per person employed.