Agencies have begun signing up to become gangmasters, to comply with the controversial legislation announced by the Government last month (Recruiter, 8 March).

The Act, which requires large recruitment firms to pay £4,000 for a licence to supply workers in agriculture or food processing and packaging, has had a healthy response in its first week.
As Recruiter went to press, about 130 agencies had put forward their applications.

“We believe that we’ve had 10% of the applications so far, which is a good start. But obviously, we want more,” said Nicola Ray, director of communications and policy at the Gangmasters Licensing Authority.
The first licence is set to be awarded within the next week.