The Taylor review of modern working practices has made a number of recommendations which may affect the heritage sector. Perhaps the most important is the recommendation on interns. Any reforms the Government makes must not jeopardise volunteering which is key to supporting the heritage sector.
The Review states: ‘We believe that the law is clear as it currently stands. If a person is obtaining something of value from an internship, they are most likely to be a worker and entitled to the National Minimum or Living Wage’.
‘Government should ensure that exploitative unpaid internships, which damage social mobility in the UK, are stamped out. The Government should do this by clarifying the interpretation of the law and encouraging enforcement action taken by HMRC in this area’.
The report also recommends, among other things, that:
‘as part of the statutory evaluation of the Right to Request Flexible Working in 2019, Government should consider how further to promote genuine flexibility in the workplace’; and
Government should reform Statutory Sick Pay so that it is explicitly a basic employment right, comparable to the National Minimum Wage, for which all workers are eligible regardless of income from day one’.
The Government will now engage with stakeholders to understand their views ahead of publishing a full government response later in the year.