Tues, 14 Feb 2012

The Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) has issued a public reprimand to former member firm, the IT recruiter IT Talent Solutions (ITTS) following an investigation into the firm’s affairs.

The investigation found the agency had “seriously breached” the body’s code of professional practice in three separate cases – two related to ITTS consultants pretending to be candidates and submitting fake CVs to other agencies in order to gain client information. A third involved continued unsolicited contact despite requests for it to stop.

Asked by Recruiter to respond, ITTS’s managing director Kevin Howes tells Recruiter that the two staff members involved are no longer with the company, and that the firm is no longer an REC member.

He adds that he is “quite disgruntled” with the timing and nature of the REC’s statement on the reprimand, suggesting a link between it and the fact that the firm decided not to renew its membership of the body.

The REC decided following a hearing to:

    Issue a formal reprimand to ITTS. This remains on file for two years and if further complaints about the agency are received by the REC during this time, the original complaints will also be taken into account
    Inspect one ITTS site every six months until the end date of the reprimand

Howes confirms to Recruiter that these inspections will not take place now the firm has withdrawn its membership.

Chris Kenny, the new chair of the REC’s professional standards committee (PSC), says: “We are committed to stamping out bad practice such as faking CVs and the REC will take action against any members who show disregard for our code and the law.”

“We have taken into account  ‘IT Talent Solutions’ assurances that they have put in new systems, trained their staff, modified their policies and removed the offending members of staff. However, we are keen to keep an eye on their progress.

“ITTS did co-operate with our investigation [something Howes was also keen to emphasise when speaking to Recruiter], submitted to inspection of their offices and attended our standards committee twice to answer our questions.

“This public reprimand will remain on file for two years. There is a very fair, consistent and robust process for handling compliance issues such as this, always with the ultimate objective of ensuring membership compliance and thereby improving industry standards. We will continue to have a zero tolerance approach in place to such breaches of our code. We will also make other interested parties fully aware of our PSC findings on IT Talent Solutions.”

In a statement issued prior to the REC’s, ITTS said: “Plane [sic] sailing, it has not been. Since inception we have endeavoured to ensure honesty, integrity, communication, fairness and professionalism dictate our working practices. These are high ideals, we do not always succeed.

“However, although frustrating it is to find fault in your business practices, we are determined to learn from our mistakes, approaching feedback with enthusiasm and positivity to build our brand.”