The Government recently closed its evidence-collection phase for views on how the TUPE regulations as they stand have been affecting business.

I work for an organisation that tenders for service contracts from Local Authorities and the negative impact on us of the regulations as they stand has been enormous.

There is not a level playing field for competition for contracts since the most likely winners are always those that are prepared to take a gamble. The lack of clarity in the law means that they have a more than even chance of getting away with consulting to reduce the terms of TUPE staff from the date of transfer, and they enter their bid prices on this basis.

We are unable to commence redundancy consultation before the date of the transfer even though the services have been won on the basis of agreeing in advance with the Authorities that they must be re-shaped and slimmed down. The result is that we carry staff additional to complement for weeks after the transfer so the costs of running the contracts start to exceed the delivery price.

Most of the staff we have transferred in are great, but where there hasn't been a good match the costs and disruption of dealing with the issues and managing exits have been eye-watering.

And the worst thing about it is that TUPE really isn't any good even for the staff it's supposed to protect. They have to live with weeks of uncertainty before having the upheaval of transferring to a new employer, only to find out that they are going into a selection pot for redundancy with people from a range of other organisations that they don't know so they have no idea what they are up against.

The logistics in terms of job-matching and making selections are a nightmare for us and unsettling in the extreme for the staff. Particularly when existing staff who have been doing a great job and are told that as a result of someone transferring across who may have a claim to having done something similar in their old organisation, they have to go in a selection pool and are suddenly at risk of redundancy.

How much better it would be for everyone if staff could be consulted on redundancy and redeployment options before their outwards transfer, and be given the choice of either redeployment with their current employer or accepting a new job on the new terms that go with that in the transferee organisation.

There is little hope that the government, even if it does hear the reality of what is happening on the ground, will be able to do anything about it since a European directive is involved. But what a shame for us all that we are tied by the yoke of legislation that was dreamt up in the late 1970s aimed primarily at factory workers in a still predominantly industrial context. It simply isn't working for the infinitely more complex services-based economy of the 2010s.