The divisive issue of tax avoidance through recruiter and payroll firms’ use of travel and subsistence has taken a national stage.

As previously reported by Recruiter, such pay arrangements are under scrutiny not just for their legal, but also their ethical viability.

In an hour-long programme last night [Sunday, 21 September] on BBC Radio Five Live, presenter Adrian Goldberg urged: “If you’re an agency worker, go and get your payslip now and take a close look at it. If it shows a load of expenses you didn’t actually incur, you could be part of one of these tax avoidance schemes.” The recorded programme is available online via the BBC’s iPlayer service.

Last Thursday [19 October], the Daily Mirror produced a report entitled ‘The Payroll Parasites’ in which shadow treasury secretary Rachel Reeves expressed that she was “very concerned” with such schemes and urged government “to sort this out”.

On the BBC radio show, reporter Phil Kemp said that 2008 government figures showed a loss to the public purse of £250m in the year, and that with the number of workers having “almost certainly” risen in the intervening years, this figure too will have increased.

Concluding the programme, Goldberg said: “I tell you what, judging by the response tonight on the text, on the email, on Twitter, this is one that will run and run.”