Four recruiters who repeatedly criticised the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) management and practices in an online forum run by the REC have been kicked out of the group in the latest stage of a long-running dispute.

REC chief executive Kevin Green told Recruiter that the four members of the so-called Manifesto for Progress group had used the online forum to attack members of the REC Council, that their actions had “stifled debate, and discouraged members to use the site”. They had also brought the REC and the recruitment industry into disrepute, he claimed.

The purpose of the online forum was to encourage members’ professional development, and not to give feedback on the REC, added Green. He claimed these actions contravened the group’s code of etiquette that all members agree to. 

“The Manifesto Group do what they do and how they operate is down to them… We cannot let four people dominate the conversation,” Green added.

The four recruiters are Jeanette Robinson, managing director of Cavill Robinson Financial Recruitment, and former chair of the REC Employment Policy Committee; Phil Harmsworth, director of The Workshop Resourcing; Ray Ellis, recruitment director at James Rushmore; and Martin Smith, managing director, CAMCO Corporate Services. They were denied access to the REC’s Institute of Professional Recruiters (IRP) LinkedIn group at the end of June.

Among changes it seeks at the REC are greater openness and transparency, and a cap on fees.

In an email to Green, Robinson questioned whether the REC and its council was discriminating against smaller members by throwing them out of the forum while it “cannot make the same bold decisions when it comes to throwing out larger members who brought the industry and the REC into disrepute”.

Robinson has confirmed to Recruiter this referred to the recruiters caught up in an Office of Fair Trading investigation into price fixing by construction recruiters.

Green responded: “They are confusing two completely different things… This [the price-fixing debacle] is very different from four members who repeatedly contravene the rules of a website.”

He added that the four members could be readmitted to the LinkedIn group if they adhere to its rules.

Recruiter has been unable to confirm that a fifth member of the Manifesto for Progress group was denied access to the LinkedIn group late last week.