Frank Field – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Frank Field on 2016-07-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people working for her Department or its executive agencies on a (a) directly employed, (b) agency or (c) outsourced basis are paid less than the living wage as defined by the Living Wage Foundation; and how many of those people are employed on zero-hours contracts.

Sarah Newton

All permanent members of staff directly employed by the Home Office and its agencies are paid the Living Wage Foundation rates or above. The Home Office and its agencies do not retain any directly employed staff on zero-hour contracts.

All temporary agency staff are employed in accordance with the Agency Workers Regulations which ensures parity with directly employed staff after 12 weeks. Starting pay rates comply with the requirements of the current Government Living Wage legislation; this is a contractual obligation on the supplier and is monitored through contract compliance mechanisms.

The Home Office only requires its outsourced contractors to comply with the legal minimum standards of pay of their staff as set out in the Government National Living Wage legislation; again this is a contractual obligation on the supplier and is monitored through contract compliance mechanisms and annually through out supplier assurance programme.

The Home Office does not however require outsourced contractors to pay the Living Wage Foundation rates or requires or monitors that such outsourced contractors do not employ staff on zero hours contracts.