The Government has broadly welcomed the long-awaited Taylor Review on Working Practices in the Modern Economy, in terms of its recognition of the advantages of the flexibility of UK working arrangements, balanced against the need to provided appropriate protection for all types of worker.
The Report identifies a number of principles and recommendations:
Unions and other worker representative organisations have criticised the Report for not going far enough to protect the interests and rights of workers in a broad range of new working arrangements, such as in particular delivery platforms and zero-hours contracts.
Flexible working arrangements and the comparatively unregulated employment law regime in the UK will doubtless be seen by the Government as a way of attracting inward investment post-Brexit, so it remains to be seen whether there will be any significant legislative changes as a result of the Taylor Report - although the outcome of the Uber appeal may prompt some changes to protections available to workers (or "Dependent Contractors").
The law has been struggling for over 100 years to provide a simple and clear distinction between employees and self-employed contractors, and the concept of "workers" introduced by the Working Time Regulations in 1998 has only added to the complexity of the status issue.
Perhaps the practical recommendations of the Report, in terms of ironing out the distinctions between the employment protections available to, and the tax treatment of, different ways of working, will make those distinctions less important in the future.
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