The PCG (Professional Contractors Group) has reassured its members that today's Agency Workers announcement will not have any immediate impact on them.

The Government, TUC and CBI have reached an agreement that "agency workers" should be entitled to equal pay and conditions after twelve weeks in a posting.

"The deal announced today represents the Government's new negotiating position on the Agency Workers Directive – no more, no less," commented PCG’s managing director John Brazier. "As with all other aspects of the Directive, it is not at all clear that freelancers are in scope: the precise scope of the measure will not be decided until the Government comes to implement it in the UK."

PCG understands that today's agreement on the twelve-week qualifying period has been reached as an alternative to setting up a "Commission" on agency workers, which will now not be taken forward. Instead, the Government will be seeking to secure the new arrangement in the text of the Directive.

The PCG's long-standing position is that it does not object to protection being extended to the genuinely vulnerable, but that any such measure must be very carefully defined, to avoid creating unintended consequences for freelance professionals, who are not vulnerable.