Entertainment and modelling agencies
Rules when running an employment agency for the entertainment and modelling industries.
There are rules that you need to comply with if you are running an employment agency that finds work for jobseekers within the entertainment and modelling industries. This guide explains agreeing terms with jobseekers, providing additional services to jobseekers, cooling off periods and accounts and records.
Entertainment and modelling jobseeker types
These types of jobseekers include:
- professional sports person
- actor, musician, singer, dancer, background artist, extra, walk-on or other performer
- composer, writer, artist, director, production manager, lighting cameraman, camera operator, make-up artist, clothes, hair or make up stylist, film editor, action arranger or coordinator, stunt arranger, costume or production designer, recording engineer, property master, film continuity person, sound mixer, photographer, stage manager, producer, choreographer or theatre designer
- photographic and fashion model
This guide also sets out the rules around charging fees to certain jobseekers as well as the exceptions for up-front fees for fashion and photographic models.
The rules outlined in this guide apply mainly to entertainment and modelling agencies that operate as 'employment agencies' and are in addition to other rules set out for employment agencies and employment businesses.
Entertainment and modelling agencies: agreeing terms with jobseekers
Terms must be agreed upon with the jobseeker before you help them find work.
You must issue terms to jobseekers before providing any work-finding services.
What should the terms include?
The jobseekers terms must include:
- details of the work-finding services you will provide
- your authority, if any, to act on behalf of the jobseeker, and to enter into contracts on their behalf
- whether you are authorised to receive money on behalf of the jobseeker
- details of any fee which may be payable by the jobseeker, eg, commission fee for finding them work) including details of any refund provisions
- how the fee is to be paid or collected
- the length of notice that the jobseeker is required to give and entitled to receive from you to terminate the contract
Agreeing jobseekers terms for publications or websites
Where you provide the jobseeker with a work-finding service that includes inserting information about them in a publication or a website and you intend to charge them a fee for this service, prior to them carrying out any work, the terms must include:
- that you will not charge a fee to the jobseeker during the 'cooling off period' - see entertainment and modelling agencies: cooling off periods
- that the jobseeker has the right, without detriment or penalty, to cancel or withdraw from the contract during the cooling-off period
- that you will not include information about the jobseeker in a publication until seven days have elapsed from the date they agreed to the publication service (or, where the jobseeker is seeking employment as an actor, background artist, dancer, extra, musician, singer or other performer, until the jobseeker's reasonable requests for amendments have been addressed)
- that the jobseeker is entitled to receive a full refund of the fees paid if the publication is not produced within 60 days from the date of payment
Furthermore, where the terms are issued to a jobseeker seeking employment as an actor, background artist, dancer, extra, musician, singer, or other performer, and you are going to include their information in a publication, the terms must include:
- that you will make a copy of the information available to the jobseeker
- inform the jobseeker of their right to object, and the time limit for exercising that right is seven days, during which the information should not be included in the publication
Ensure agreed terms are recorded
You must ensure that the terms are recorded in a document and issued to the jobseeker before the provision of any service.
If you and the jobseeker agree to any changes to the terms, you must, as soon as possible, after the changes have been agreed, give the worker a new document setting out the details of the changes and stating the date the varied terms take effect.
Entertainment and modelling agencies: charging fees to certain jobseekers
Subject to certain rules, you can charge fees to certain jobseekers for work-finding services in the acting, entertainment or modelling sectors.
If you run an employment agency, you can charge fees to certain jobseekers for work-finding services in the acting, entertainment, or modelling sectors, subject to the rules below.
You can only charge fees or commission out of the jobseeker's earnings from employment you have found for them. Details of the service and fee to be charged must be agreed in writing before it is paid by the hirer or deducted from the worker's earnings.
Fees for including information in publications and on websites
The only up-front fee you can charge is for including the details of certain types of jobseekers in a publication (including on a website) for the purpose of finding them work.
The publication must be wholly aimed at finding jobseekers employment or providing hirers with information about jobseekers.
Types of jobseekers that apply
These types of workers are:
- professional sports person
- actor, musician, singer, dancer, background artist, extra, walk-on or other performer
- composer, writer, artist, director, production manager, lighting cameraman, camera operator, make-up artist, clothes, hair or make-up stylist, film editor, action arranger or co-ordinator, stunt arranger, costume or production designer, recording engineer, property master, film continuity person, sound mixer, photographer, stage manager, producer, choreographer or theatre designer
You can only charge the fee if placing the jobseeker's information in the publication is the only service you are providing eg you are not involved in matching or selecting workers for hirers), or the fee is no more than a reasonable estimate of the cost of production and circulation of the publication attributable to the inclusion of information about that jobseeker in the publication.
In addition, you should make available to the jobseeker a copy of the current edition of the publication in which you are offering to include information about the jobseeker.
Exceptions for up-front fees for fashion and photographic models
When supplying photographic and fashion models, you cannot charge any up-front fees for work-finding services.
If you supply photographic and fashion models, you cannot charge any up-front fees for work-finding services, which include placing information about them in a publication on a website.
When can you charge fees?
You can still charge a fee to fashion and photographic models for:
- including information about them in a publication - but you can only take the fee from earnings from work you have found for them
- providing a work-finding service using commission or other fees from earnings, as long as the details of the fees are agreed in the terms of your agreement with them
Entertainment and modelling agencies: providing additional services to jobseekers
Providing additional services to jobseekers in the entertainment or modelling sectors.
In addition to the guide for all employment agencies - providing additional services and goods, where you operate as either an employment agency or an employment business and you provide additional services to jobseekers in the entertainment or modelling sectors, you cannot make a charge for certain services for a period of 30 days from the date of entering into an agreement with the jobseeker.
The services include the production of a photographic image or audio, or video recording of the jobseeker.
During the 30-day period, the jobseeker shall be entitled without detriment or penalty to cancel or withdraw from any contract for these services with immediate effect and will have no obligation to make any payment for these services.
Entertainment and modelling agencies: cooling-off periods
Cooling-off periods where you cannot charge a fee if you enter into a contract with a work-seeker in several of the entertainment sectors.
Cooling-off periods when charging fees are as follows:
Actor, background artist, dancer, extra, musician, singer, or other performer
You cannot charge a fee for 30 days from the date you enter into a contract with an actor, background artist, dancer, extra, musician, singer, or other performer for including information about them in a publication or website (including promoting a photographic image or audio or video recording of them). In that 30-day period, they can cancel or withdraw from the contract without penalty and do not have to make any payment under the contract.
If you intend to charge an actor, background artist, dancer, extra, musician, singer, or other performer for including information about them in a publication or website, you have to show them the information before it's published and inform them that they have seven days to object.
Note that, rather than waiting until the end of the 30-day period and then waiting for a further seven days for the jobseeker to make any objections, you can agree on the information to be included in the publication during the 30-day period. However, where the objection period has passed and you have addressed any reasonable requirements from the jobseeker, the 30-day period continues to apply in respect of any fees that can be charged under any agreement.
Other workers
You cannot charge a fee for seven days from the date you enter into a contract with a composer, writer, artist, director, production manager, lighting cameraman, camera operator, make-up artist, clothes, hair, or make-up stylist, film editor, action arranger or co-ordinator, stunt arranger, costume or production designer, recording engineer, property master, film continuity person, sound mixer, photographer, stage manager, producer, choreographer or theatre designer for putting information about them in a publication or website (including promoting a photographic image or audio or video recording of them).
In that seven-day period they:
- can cancel or withdraw from the contract without penalty
- do not have to make any payment under the contract
- you shall not include the information in the publication
Refunds
Jobseekers have the right to a refund if no publication is produced and made available to potential hirers within 60 days of the jobseeker paying the fee.
Entertainment and modelling agencies: client accounts
When an employment agency receives money on behalf of a client the money must be paid into a client account.
Where you operate as an employment agency and you receive money on behalf of a jobseeker (client), the money must be paid into a client account. The account must be in the name of the agency, and its title must include the word 'client' and, if the account contains money for a single client, the name of that client.
You must get the jobseeker's consent to make payments out of the client account except where:
- the payment is to repay the money used to open or maintain the account
- the money has been wrongly put into the account
- the money is that which is required by law to be deducted from earnings before it is paid to the client
In these cases, the money can be withdrawn, provided that the amount to be withdrawn does not exceed the total amount held in that account for the client.
Payments
Any money that you receive on behalf of a jobseeker and paid into a client account must be paid out to the relevant worker within ten days of you receiving the payment, less any agreed or statutory deductions.
Payments can only be held longer than ten days if you have obtained an agreement in writing with the jobseeker. Any agreement must be agreed upon before the money has been received.
If you hold on to any money with the agreement of the jobseeker they can request the money to be paid to them from the client account, and you must pay this money to them by the end of the second business day from the date of the request.
In addition, where you hold on to money longer than 30 days, you must issue a statement to the jobseeker by day 32 and every 30 days thereafter detailing how much money you are holding in the client account for the jobseeker.
Entertainment and modelling agencies: accounts and records
As an entertainment or modelling agency you are required to maintain sufficient accounts and records to show transactions relating to client money.
You are required to maintain sufficient accounts and records to show transactions relating to any client money you receive on behalf of jobseekers and any other money paid into the client account.
Accounts of client transactions
The accounts should show the current balance of each client's account in the client's ledger. You should ensure that this can be readily obtained. All transactions must be appropriately recorded in a client's cash account or a client's column of a cash account and in a client's ledger or a client's column of a ledger. No other transactions may be recorded in that account, ledger, or columns. All other transactions should be recorded separately.
Record-keeping of client accounts
Agencies must also keep a record and copies of all invoices and statements in respect of payments made from the client's account. The records must distinguish between fees and expenditures, delivered or made by the agency to its clients.
See employment agencies and employment businesses: record keeping.
Inspection and report of accounts and records
Agencies that are required to keep accounts and records must arrange for them to be inspected by an independent and suitably qualified person. This must be done within ten months of the end of the accounting period.
Agencies that are required to maintain client account(s) must keep and display a copy of the reporting accountant's most recent report at each of their premises so that it can be readily seen.