Taylors Of Harrogate Case Study

Agency Labour Compliance Audit Case Study

Taylors of Harrogate an independent family tea and coffee company from Harrogate in Yorkshire. They have strong family values, like a love for fairness, quality, creativity and the importance of treating people with respect. And they are completely, utterly devoted to the pursuit of extraordinary flavour.

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Their story starts back in 1886, when Charles Taylor and his two sons set up a tea and coffee company. C. E. Taylors & Sons became known for quality, and the flagship store at 1 Parliament Street, Harrogate became famous across the region.

In 2019 they achieved CarbonNeutral®, covering all of Bettys & Taylors operations. Both mark the culmination of many years work to reduce their emissions and establish carbon offsetting projects that directly benefit people and communities within our supply chain.

The Background

Taylors & Harrogate contacted us to help them carry out an audit on their recruitment agencies.

Datum RPO's audit checks for our clients cover 100% of supplied workers and are carried out every six months, ensuring the highest levels of quality service. By reviewing the processes, systems and records in place for each recruitment partner, you can verify ongoing compliance and ensure that your agencies have everything they need to meet the standards you deserve.

Audits are an excellent tool for evaluating the level of risk within a supply chain. We recommend setting up a programme which will verify;

The objective of Taylors & Harrogate recruitment agency audits was

1. compliance with legislative and regulatory requirements
2. compliance with the agreed terms of business
3. necessary worker pre-employment checks are completed
4. how workers have been engaged
5. the labour provider and any sub-suppliers are suitably insured
6. if the labour provider can be deemed to be socially responsibly with treatment of worker pay, benefits and statutory employment rights.

The Audit Solution

The major elements of the Datum Audit provided to Betty & Taylors are:

1. To verify if their suppliers comply with legislative and regulatory requirements
2. To verify if recruitment best practice is adhered to and suppliers are operating in line with any agreed SLA’s
3. To verify if suppliers are socially responsible with their treatment of worker pay, benefits and statutory employment rights
4. To verify if supplier’s operating processes regarding the disclosure of finances and redress of grievances can be deemed to be ethical.

Agency resource in scope of the audit included:

• Pre-audit questionnaire
• Certificate of incorporation
• VAT certificate of registration
• Documentary evidence that the labour
• provider is registered for PAYE
• Confirmation of business insurance
• Template registration forms
• Template worker contract
• Health & safety policy
• Equal opportunities and diversity policy
• Environmental policy
• Complaints policy and procedure
• Modern Slavery Statement
• ISO certificates (if held)
• Membership certificates (e.g. ALP, REC, APSCo)

The Result

Audit Report Findings

• Agencies advised to include details of complaints process with the job brief
• Recommendations were made to advise completing due diligence checks to ensure that there is no prep time that should be included in worker pay.
• Worker contracts needed to refer to the national living wage (NLW) in contracts
• Contacts confirm that workers will receive 5.6 weeks (28 days) annual leave.
• The Agencies were required labour provider to provide further evidence to demonstrate their operating processes for AWR

Action

A plan was put in place to rectify all the above failure items and Taylors & Harrogate supplier agencies and workers are now fully compliant with all relevant UK legislation.

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