Association of Labour Providers

The ALP was established in February 2004 and has rapidly established itself as an effective trade association for labour providers, having a significant effect on government policy and providing a range of useful information and services to its members.

The Association has grown rapidly and now has nearly 200 members, largely in the agricultural and food packaging and processing industries. Much of its work is also relevant to other labour providers.

The Membership Secretary can be contacted on 01276 509306 .

Objectives
ALP’s objectives are -

To be a central representative body to put the views of labour providers to growers, packhouses, supermarkets, Government departments and agencies, Parliament and other relevant organisations.
To be a research and statistical centre, to aggregate and publish statistics, and to provide analysis on the market for labour.
To be a technical centre providing commentary, guidance and advice on all legal and other regulatory developments of relevance to the provision of labour.
To provide services, through approved service providers, such as insurance schemes, translation, tax advice, cost management, occupational health, HR consultancy, prepaid chip and pin cards for workers.
To promote labour providers.
To establish, endorse and enforce codes of practice for the provision of labour.
Executive Committee
ALP is governed by a Director, David Camp and an Executive Committee of 12 labour providers, together with an independent chairman, Mark Boleat.

Representative work
The Association has been particularly active in representing the interests of labour providers.

The Gangmasters (Licensing) Act became law at the beginning of July 2004. Two members of the ALP Executive Committee are members of the Board of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority (GLA) which has been established to operate the licensing regime under the Act. The Association has been extensively involved in finalising the details of the licensing regime securing substantial improvements to the benefit of labour providers and works with the GLA to try to ensure that it operates effectively in practice.

A major concern for labour providers are that the rates offered by some labour users are insufficient to enable legal requirements and management costs to be met and for a reasonable profit to be made. The ALP continuously urges both HMRC and the GLA to target labour users known to be paying an unrealistically low rate. The ALP proposed that one comprehensive set of rates be prepared and endorsed by key stakeholders before being published as guidance to the industry. These rates were prepared by the ALP and were subsequently endorsed by the GLA Board in October 2007 and are now available on the GLA website and or download here.

Information and services to members
The Association seeks to provide a comprehensive information service to members.

The Association’s website provides directly, and though links, access to all relevant information about labour providers. Members are provided with regular Members’ Newsletters and Member Briefs.