1st Choice Recruitment, a recruiter with five branches in the Home Counties, has been found to have breached Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) regulation codes of honesty and truthfulness in a regional press advert it placed last year.

The ASA objected to 1st Choice Recruitment for not stating its full name and instead using the abbreviated term 'emp bus' (meaning 'employment business') at the bottom of an advert for an administrative/warehouse position placed in the Milton Keynes Citizen on 3 November 2005.

The advert read: “Urgent vacancy. Temp-perm contract. Basic admin. Picking and packing. Data entry. Start ASAP. Based in North MK. If all of the above interest you then contact Clair (emp bus).” It was found to have breached the Committee of Advertising Practice's Code clauses 6.1 (Honesty), 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 52.3 (Employment Agency).

In response to the ASA, which requested that the agency name be clearly displayed, 1st Choice accepted that the advert was not to its usual high standards.

At the time of going to press, 1st Choice Recruitment chief executive, Jill Knight, declined to comment, saying that “the matter had been dealt with through the correct media”.