Employment minister Gerry Sutcliffe has dismissed complaints that the regulations on the recruitment industry were rushed.

Sutcliffe told Recruiter that the government could not wait for a European directive on agency workers before implementing its own regulations, the Employment Agencies Act (EAA).

The minister said the regulations were necessary to crack down on rogue agencies and establish good practice in the industry.

Other regulations on temps’ pay in the European Agency Workers Directive were still a long way off, he said. “It has already taken several years to get this far,” he added.

“[The directive] will be returned to but I don’t think there is cause for any immediate worry,” Sutcliffe said. He added that the rules drafted by the government were fair to recruitment agencies, temps and employers.

The new EAA regulations, which come into effect on 6 April next year, state:

•Agencies cannot charge a fee unless they give the client the alternative option of taking the temp on for a longer period of hire.

•If it is the temp’s first assignment, an agency can charge a fee until 14 weeks after an assignment starts or eight weeks after it finishes. The fees only apply if the client has the option of an extended hire period.

Limited Company Contractors can also opt out of the regulations – a measure that will please IT recruiters. Ann Swain, chief executive of the IT recruitment body ATSCo, said: “We are pleased the UK government has decided to allow them to opt out, providing the conditions that allow them to do so are not excessively onerous.”

Industry body the Recruitment and Employment Confederation is publishing a plain English guide to the rules to help agencies comply.