Employment agencies face review over £10k barber’s bill

Tuesday 26 May 2015

A review will be held into whether employment agencies should be able to “hire out” licences for non-qualified staff, after Bailiwick Express raised the case of a barber forced to pay an agency £10,000 over two years to keep his business alive.

The Population Office that handles licences allowing staff to hire newcomers to the Island says it will review the rules, and that the review will focus on the number of licences held by employment agencies.

The politician in charge of the policy and the licensing rules says that the agencies have a role to play, but that their licences are being reviewed over the next couple of months.

Assistant Chief Minister Paul Routier issued a statement saying: “The Population Office is scheduled to carry out a review of employment agency licences over the next two months.

“This will include how employment agencies use licences and any impact on their clients, to ensure the process is as effective as it can be.”

The review follows the story in Bailiwick Express last week about Tony Fitzpatrick of Jason’s Barbers in New Street – he says he’s had to pay out £10,000 to an agency over the last two years because he can’t get a licence to employ someone with fewer than five years’ residency, but the agency can.

He has to pay out to the agency every week even though he recruited the member of staff himself, and had to ask the agency to put her on their books. Mr Fitzpatrick says that he has advertised for a barber with five-years’ residency, but there aren’t any around – and he says that Highlands College don’t train them, so there’s no “production line” of local barbers.

Senator Routier has refused to be interviewed on the story, or to say how it benefits anyone for the agency to have a licence, but for the barbers to be denied one.

Bailiwick Express contacted the three district Deputies – Education Minister Rod Bryans and Deputies Geoff Southern and Sam Mezec – but none of them have responded.