The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Home Office have named academic Sir David Metcalf as the government's first director of labour market enforcement, charged with cracking down on workplace exploitation and enforcing the payment of the minimum wage.
Sir David will set strategic targets for the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate, and HM Revenue & Customs’ National Minimum Wage enforcement team in his new role.
The three agencies are centralising their intelligence work, allowing the director to draw up an annual strategy targeting sectors and regions which are vulnerable to unscrupulous employment practices.
Fresh batch of Civil Service Commissioners to vet top jobs
Latest civil service & public affairs moves — January 3
Sir David’s new role will also see him work alongside Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner Kevin Hyland to better tackle exploitation and slavery in the labour market.
He will report to both business secretary Greg Clark and home secretary Amber Rudd.
Business minister Margot James said Sir David’s extensive experience of labour market issues would be invaluable in his new role.
“The government is determined to make sure the economy works for all,” she said.
“That’s why we are investing £1.7 million in a national minimum and living wage awareness raising campaign alongside a record £25.3 million on national minimum and living wage enforcement next year to make sure the UK’s lowest paid workers get the pay rise they deserve.”
After a decade at the Low Pay Commission, Sir David was chairman of the Migration Advisory Committee from 2007 to August 2016 and was also a member of the Senior Salaries Review Body from 2009 to 2015.
He is currently emeritus professor of industrial relations at the London School of Economics.
Metcalf's appointment has been welcomed by the GMB union, although general secretary Tim Roache said it "must herald a long overdue move to step up the fight against worker exploitation in the UK in 2017".
He added: “Just three employers have been prosecuted for paying workers below the minimum wage, despite HMRC finding 700 who have broken the law in the past two and a half years.”