TRADE body PRISM have been campaigning for over a year for the Government to launch a review of employment legislation within the UK and their campaigning has finally paid off.
Matthew Taylor, Tony Blair's former policy chief has been asked to carry out the study by Theresa May. This is because she says she wants to be "certain that employment regulation and practices are keeping pace with the changing world of work", which is a point PRISM has been continually highlighting.
Crawford Temple, CEO or PRISM said "As a former director of the Institute for Public Policy Research, Matthew Taylor is the right person for this job because he will bring a fairness and rigour to an issue with many competing vested interests. It's now vital that planned changes including the apprenticeship levy are put on hold while this important work is carried out."
PRISM hope that this review will bring an end to what they believe is the sticking plaster approach to legislative which the Government have been adopting with recent legislative changes that have been impacting the temporary workers market.
Crawford Temple, CEO of PRISM, said: "It's fantastic that Theresa May has now recognised this issue and appears serious about making sure that employment legislation keeps up with the world of work which has changed so dramatically over the last 20 years.
Before the Government made their decision to carry out the study PRISM had already engaged independent think tank the Social Market Foundation (SMF) to carry out a review of employment and tax legislation which will be crucially important as one of the first studies to report initial findings on this topic later this year, finally reporting in full in early 2017.
PRISM, whose members service the needs of contractors, expects the findings made by the SMF, which is due to begin reporting later this year and conclude next year, to inform the Government's own review.
Mr Temple added: "PRISM has been campaigning for a strategic review for the past year because flexible workers are crucial to the UK's prosperity and they have been getting a raw deal.
"I am not just talking about how some are exploited unfairly by some in the gig economy but about the hundreds of thousands of contractors who identify with the self-employed but who have been unjustly stripped this year of the right to access a key benefit linked to flexible work, which is tax relief on Travel and Subsistence (T&S).
"PRISM is happy to fully support and engage with the Government's review to ensure the outcomes deliver a simplified tax and employment framework suited to modern business models, which becomes even more important as we enter the Brexit period."