The long-feared introduction of the Agency Workers Regulations (AWR) does not take effect until 1 October, but already the government is looking ahead to a two-year review of the legislation’s impact, Edward Davey MP, minister for employment relations, has revealed.

“There will be a formal review of the regulations and its impact in 2013,” Davey told recruitment industry dignitaries on Tuesday evening at the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) head office in London.

“Clearly, we will want to work with you in the run-up to that, to learn the lessons and see what extra things we could flex as a result of that review.”

The regulations are intended to give temporary agency workers parity in pay and employment conditions with permanent staff doing the same job. To qualify, the temporary worker must be engaged for 12 weeks to do the same job with the same employer.

The event on Tuesday was to launch the REC’s ‘Your AWR Advisor Toolkit’, a multi-media set of support materials for REC members. The materials include legal briefings, training workshops, webinars and an impact assessment checklist. A suite of model contracts will be available from Friday (29 July).

Davey joked that recruiters might not want to share news of the review with employers “but I want to reassure you that there will be a process we will be engaged with you on, to review it from the experience of the first two years of running it”.

After the launch speech, Davey spoke with Recruiter editor DeeDee Doke about the challenges posed by the AWR. Click on the video below to hear what he had to say.