Government urged to crack down on exploitative employers in landmark review

A long-awaited review into working practices across the UK will call on the Government to crack down on “insecure, exploitative” and “controlling” conditions while urging employers to banish weak management as a way of combating Britain’s productivity challenge.

Published on Tuesday, the Matthew Taylor Review— completed over nine months and based on hundreds of interviews with employers, workers and labour experts—will lay out seven principles for “fair and decent work”.

“If we want citizens who are engaged, responsible, active, who – to coin a phrase – ‘take back control’, we should encourage those same virtues in the workplace,” said Mr Taylor, a former policy chief to Tony Blair and chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts, who lead the review.

“Our idea of what it is to be a respected citizen should not stop at the office or factory door.”

The principles include ensuring that work should be for the good of all, that flexible working is made available to those who need it and that there is a clear distinction between so-called gig economy workers and those who are self-employed. The former should be classified under a new category of "dependent contractors" and be entitled to greater employment protections than they are at present.

The gig economy has mushroomed in recent years with the explosion in popularity of app-based service companies like Uber and Deliveroo.

At the same time, the number of people in the UK relying on zero-hours contracts for their main job has also surged, increasing 13 per cent, to 905,000 in 2016, according to the Office for National Statistics.

“The law and the way it is promulgated and enforced should help firms make the right choices and individuals to know and exercise their rights,” Mr Taylor said.

He said that when it comes to people who are employed in the gig economy, the Government needs to “provide additional protections […] and stronger incentives for firms to treat them fairly”.

He argued that the best way to achieve better work is not through national regulation but through responsible corporate governance, good management and strong employment relations within the organisation.

It is therefore “important that companies are seen to take good work seriously and are open about their practices and that all workers are able to be engaged and heard,” he said.

Tuesday’s report, which was commissioned by Theresa May shortly after she became Prime Minister, will also stress that it is of supreme importance to both individuals and the health of the UK economy that those in work feel they have “realistically attainable ways to strengthen their future work prospects and that they can […] record and enhance the capabilities developed in formal and informal learning and in on-the-job and off-the-job activities”.

Finally, the review also calls on the Government to adopt a “more proactive approach to workplace health” and to ensure that people, especially in lower paid sectors, “are not stuck at the living wage minimum”.

The most recent ONS figures show that the total number of people on zero-hours contracts – not just those who are solely dependent on that kind of work – was at around 1.7 million at the end of 2016, up from 1.4 million in 2014.

On average, someone on a zero-hours contract usually works 25 hours a week but one in three says that they want more hours.

Companies often favour the type of work because it grants them the flexibility to cut back on wages when business slows. Critics, however, have slammed the contracts for allowing employers to circumvent their responsibilities and make it difficult for people to plan for the future.