[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":393},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-post-right-to-work-checks-explained-for-temporary-staffing-agencies":3,"blog-related-right-to-work-checks-explained-for-temporary-staffing-agencies":120},{"id":4,"title":5,"author":6,"body":7,"category":104,"description":13,"extension":105,"meta":106,"metaDescription":107,"navigation":108,"path":109,"publishedAt":110,"readTime":111,"seo":112,"stem":113,"summary":114,"tags":115,"__hash__":119},"blog\u002Fresources\u002Fright-to-work-checks-explained-for-temporary-staffing-agencies.md","Right to Work Checks Explained for Temporary Staffing Agencies","TempAlly Research Team",{"type":8,"value":9,"toc":94},"minimark",[10,14,19,22,25,29,32,35,38,42,45,48,52,55,58,61,65,68,77,81,84],[11,12,13],"p",{},"If you've ever had a candidate ready to start on Monday and realised on Friday afternoon that their right to work documents weren't quite in order, you'll know how stressful this bit of compliance can be. Getting it right matters, both for your agency and for the people you're placing, so let's walk through what a proper check actually involves.",[15,16,18],"h2",{"id":17},"why-this-matters-more-for-temporary-agencies","Why this matters more for temporary agencies",[11,20,21],{},"Permanent recruiters usually check right to work once, at the point of hire. Temporary agencies have it harder, because you're often placing the same candidate with different clients, on different sites, sometimes with gaps of months in between. Each of those placements is your responsibility to get right, not just the client's.",[11,23,24],{},"The good news is that once you've built a solid process, it doesn't need to be repeated from scratch every time. You just need a system that flags when a check is due and won't let you book someone whose documents have lapsed.",[15,26,28],{"id":27},"what-counts-as-a-valid-right-to-work-check","What counts as a valid right to work check?",[11,30,31],{},"A right to work check has three steps, and skipping any one of them puts you at risk.",[11,33,34],{},"First, you need to obtain original documents (or use the Home Office's online checking service where the candidate has a digital status, which is increasingly common for skilled worker visas and settled status). Second, you check those documents are genuine and belong to the person in front of you. Third, you make a clear copy and record the date you checked it.",[11,36,37],{},"It sounds simple written out like that, but the detail trips agencies up. A List A document (like a British or Irish passport) gives someone an ongoing right to work with no need to recheck. A List B document usually comes with an expiry date or a visa condition, and that's where you need a reminder system, because forgetting to recheck is one of the most common compliance gaps we see.",[15,39,41],{"id":40},"what-about-candidates-on-a-visa","What about candidates on a visa?",[11,43,44],{},"Visa-holders are where most of the genuine complexity lives, because their right to work is almost always time-limited and usually tied to a specific status rather than a single document you check once. A skilled worker visa, for example, might come with a digital share code rather than a physical document, which you verify through the Home Office's online service instead of eyeballing a passport stamp.",[11,46,47],{},"The important thing to remember is that a time-limited right to work isn't a one-off check, it's an ongoing commitment to recheck before the current permission expires. Agencies that treat a visa-holder's onboarding check as the only check tend to be the ones who discover, months later, that someone's been working without valid permission for weeks. Building the recheck date into the candidate's record at the point of onboarding, rather than trying to remember it separately, is what keeps this from becoming a problem later.",[15,49,51],{"id":50},"where-do-agencies-usually-go-wrong-with-right-to-work-checks","Where do agencies usually go wrong with right to work checks?",[11,53,54],{},"Honestly, it's rarely dishonesty. Most compliance slips happen because someone's tracking expiry dates in a spreadsheet, or worse, in their memory, and a candidate falls through the cracks during a busy week. A few things worth watching for:",[11,56,57],{},"Documents get checked once at onboarding and never looked at again, even when they clearly have an expiry date attached. Copies get saved in someone's inbox rather than a central system, so when that person's on holiday, nobody else can find them. And sometimes a candidate is booked onto a shift by a different consultant who didn't realise a check was overdue.",[11,59,60],{},"None of these are big dramatic failures. They're just gaps that build up when the process depends on someone remembering, rather than the system doing the remembering for you.",[15,62,64],{"id":63},"building-a-process-that-actually-holds-up","Building a process that actually holds up",[11,66,67],{},"The agencies that handle this well tend to do a few things consistently. They check documents before the candidate is added to any booking, not after. They store copies somewhere every consultant can access, not just the one who did the onboarding. And they set automatic reminders well ahead of any expiry date, so there's time to sort a renewal before it becomes urgent.",[11,69,70,71,76],{},"This is exactly the kind of thing ",[72,73,75],"a",{"href":74},"\u002Ftemporary-recruitment-software-features\u002Fcompliance","TempAlly's compliance tracking"," is built for. Right to work status sits on the candidate's profile, expiry dates trigger reminders automatically, and if a check has lapsed, the system won't let you book that candidate onto a shift until it's sorted. It takes the pressure off remembering and puts it onto the process instead.",[15,78,80],{"id":79},"if-youre-ever-audited","If you're ever audited",[11,82,83],{},"Home Office checks and client audits both come down to the same question, can you show a clear paper trail for every candidate you've placed. Keeping copies, dates and check outcomes in one place, rather than scattered across emails and folders, is what makes that conversation painless rather than panic-inducing.",[11,85,86,87,93],{},"If you want to see how TempAlly handles this day to day, ",[72,88,92],{"href":89,"rel":90},"https:\u002F\u002Fcalendly.com\u002Ftempally\u002Fdemo",[91],"nofollow","book a demo"," and we'll walk you through it.",{"title":95,"searchDepth":96,"depth":96,"links":97},"",2,[98,99,100,101,102,103],{"id":17,"depth":96,"text":18},{"id":27,"depth":96,"text":28},{"id":40,"depth":96,"text":41},{"id":50,"depth":96,"text":51},{"id":63,"depth":96,"text":64},{"id":79,"depth":96,"text":80},"compliance","md",{},"A plain-English guide to right to work checks for UK temporary staffing agencies: what to check, how to keep records, and how software can help.",true,"\u002Fresources\u002Fright-to-work-checks-explained-for-temporary-staffing-agencies","2026-08-24","5 min read",{"title":5,"description":13},"resources\u002Fright-to-work-checks-explained-for-temporary-staffing-agencies","What you actually need to check before you place a candidate, and how to keep records that hold up if you're ever audited.",[116,104,117,118],"right to work","onboarding","audits","YbkPEc50kCAaHsCS7zw9QnM07-OltQGOM1OhUqTV8VM",[121,201,303],{"id":122,"title":123,"author":6,"body":124,"category":104,"description":128,"extension":105,"meta":189,"metaDescription":190,"navigation":108,"path":191,"publishedAt":192,"readTime":111,"seo":193,"stem":194,"summary":195,"tags":196,"__hash__":200},"blog\u002Fresources\u002Fhow-recruitment-businesses-stay-compliant-with-employment-law-changes.md","How Recruitment Businesses Stay Compliant as Employment Law Keeps Changing",{"type":8,"value":125,"toc":183},[126,129,133,136,140,143,146,150,153,156,159,162,165,169,172],[11,127,128],{},"Employment law that touches temporary and agency workers has a habit of changing just as you've got comfortable with the last version. AWR, holiday pay calculations, and more recently the right for eligible workers to request more predictable terms, none of it arrived with a single memo you could read once and file away. For a staffing agency, that's a bigger deal than it is for most employers, because you're often the one legally on the hook as the employer, even when the work happens somewhere else entirely.",[15,130,132],{"id":131},"why-agencies-feel-it-first","Why agencies feel it first",[11,134,135],{},"A permanent employer updates a handful of contracts when the law shifts. A staffing agency is updating pay calculations, contract terms and client agreements across every assignment, every client, and often every job type, because the rules don't always apply the same way twice. Get behind on a change and it's not one contract that's wrong, it's every assignment running under it.",[15,137,139],{"id":138},"whats-actually-changed-recently","What's actually changed recently",[11,141,142],{},"The Agency Workers Regulations remain the one most consultants know by heart: equal treatment on basic pay and conditions once a worker hits 12 continuous weeks with the same client in the same role. Less well known, but increasingly relevant, is the Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Act, which gives eligible workers, including agency workers in many cases, the right to formally request a more predictable working pattern once they've built up enough service. It works in a similar spirit to a flexible working request: a formal ask, a response the employer has to give within a set window, and a process you need in place before the first request lands on your desk, not after.",[11,144,145],{},"The detail of exactly who qualifies and when tends to get refined through guidance after the headline change, so treat any specific figure you read, including the ones here, as a starting point for checking current government guidance rather than the final word.",[15,147,149],{"id":148},"building-a-process-that-keeps-up-instead-of-catching-up","Building a process that keeps up, instead of catching up",[11,151,152],{},"The agencies that handle this well don't try to memorise every change as it happens. They build a habit around it instead. A few things tend to make the difference:",[11,154,155],{},"Someone owns it. Not necessarily a lawyer, but a named person whose job includes noticing when something's changed, even if their day job is running the desk.",[11,157,158],{},"Contracts and templates get reviewed on a schedule, not just when something goes wrong. An annual pass through standard contracts, worker agreements and client terms catches drift before a client's legal team does.",[11,160,161],{},"Changes get communicated in plain language to consultants, not just filed away in a compliance folder nobody opens. A one-page summary of what changed and what it means for bookings does more good than the original legislation ever will.",[11,163,164],{},"And critically, the systems tracking assignment length, pay parity and worker requests are treated as living things that need updating when the rules do, not a one-off setup task from three years ago.",[15,166,168],{"id":167},"what-this-doesnt-replace","What this doesn't replace",[11,170,171],{},"None of this is a substitute for proper legal advice on a specific case, especially anything involving a dispute or a genuinely ambiguous situation. What it does do is stop the ordinary, day-to-day compliance from slipping simply because nobody had the bandwidth to notice a rule had moved.",[11,173,174,175,177,178,182],{},"That's the part TempAlly can help with directly: once you know what a rule requires, ",[72,176,75],{"href":74}," applies it consistently across every candidate and client, tracks AWR qualifying periods automatically, and flags anything approaching a deadline before it becomes a problem. ",[72,179,181],{"href":89,"rel":180},[91],"Book a demo"," if you'd like to see it against your own contracts and job types.",{"title":95,"searchDepth":96,"depth":96,"links":184},[185,186,187,188],{"id":131,"depth":96,"text":132},{"id":138,"depth":96,"text":139},{"id":148,"depth":96,"text":149},{"id":167,"depth":96,"text":168},{},"How recruitment businesses stay compliant with employment law changes: what's changed recently for temp and agency workers, and how to build a process that keeps up.","\u002Fresources\u002Fhow-recruitment-businesses-stay-compliant-with-employment-law-changes","2026-09-01",{"title":123,"description":128},"resources\u002Fhow-recruitment-businesses-stay-compliant-with-employment-law-changes","UK employment law affecting temporary workers doesn't sit still. Here's how staffing agencies keep up with changes like AWR and the Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Act without a dedicated legal team.",[197,104,198,199],"employment law","temporary workers","AWR","TSNHY_g1esBSwlZJiTROjiyKG2fxlBEB3z9PvDBuZh8",{"id":202,"title":203,"author":6,"body":204,"category":104,"description":208,"extension":105,"meta":291,"metaDescription":292,"navigation":108,"path":293,"publishedAt":294,"readTime":295,"seo":296,"stem":297,"summary":298,"tags":299,"__hash__":302},"blog\u002Fresources\u002Fawr-compliance-made-simple.md","AWR Compliance Made Simple for Temporary Staffing Agencies",{"type":8,"value":205,"toc":284},[206,209,213,216,219,223,226,234,237,241,244,247,255,259,262,265,269,272,277],[11,207,208],{},"Ask most consultants about the Agency Workers Regulations and you'll get a slightly nervous look. It's one of those bits of compliance that sounds more complicated than it is once you break it down, so let's do that.",[15,210,212],{"id":211},"what-is-the-awr-12-week-rule","What is the AWR 12 week rule?",[11,214,215],{},"AWR gives temporary workers the right to the same basic pay and working conditions as a comparable permanent employee, once they've worked in the same role, with the same client, for 12 continuous calendar weeks. Before that point, the rules are lighter, workers just need equal access to facilities and job vacancy information from day one.",[11,217,218],{},"The bit that catches agencies out is what counts as \"continuous\". Short breaks, like a week off sick or annual leave, don't reset the clock. Genuine breaks in the assignment, where the worker goes off to do something else entirely, can. Getting this wrong in either direction either shortchanges the worker or has you applying pay parity too early, and neither is a great position to be in.",[15,220,222],{"id":221},"what-actually-changes-at-week-12","What actually changes at week 12",[11,224,225],{},"Once a worker hits the qualifying period, they're entitled to the same basic pay as a comparable permanent employee doing the same job at the same client. That's not just hourly rate, it includes things like overtime rates, bonuses tied to performance, and shift premiums, though pension contributions are usually handled separately.",[11,227,228,229,233],{},"If you want to sanity-check what a given pay rate actually costs once employer NI, pension and holiday pay are added on top, our free ",[72,230,232],{"href":231},"\u002Ftools\u002Fagency-margin-calculator","agency margin calculator"," does the maths for you.",[11,235,236],{},"This is where a lot of the practical difficulty lives, because you need your client to actually tell you what a comparable permanent employee earns. It's worth building that request into your onboarding process with every new client, rather than scrambling to find out when a worker is approaching their 12th week.",[15,238,240],{"id":239},"does-awr-apply-to-every-temporary-worker","Does AWR apply to every temporary worker?",[11,242,243],{},"Not quite, and this is another common source of confusion. Genuinely self-employed contractors who aren't working under the agency's day-to-day direction generally fall outside AWR, as do a handful of other narrow exceptions. But \"genuinely self-employed\" is doing a lot of work in that sentence, if you're setting someone's hours, telling them where to work and how to do the job, they're very likely a worker for AWR purposes regardless of what their contract calls them.",[11,245,246],{},"The safest approach is to assume AWR applies unless you've specifically checked otherwise, rather than assuming it doesn't and finding out later that it did. Misclassifying someone as exempt is a much more expensive mistake to unwind than applying the rules to someone who, it turns out, didn't strictly need them.",[11,248,249,250,254],{},"Worker status questions like this often lead to a related one: agency PAYE or umbrella company? Both are genuine employment, so AWR applies either way, but take-home pay can differ once you account for the umbrella's margin. We've covered ",[72,251,253],{"href":252},"\u002Fresources\u002Fumbrella-vs-paye-for-temporary-workers-explained","how umbrella and PAYE actually compare",", including a calculator that shows the difference deduction by deduction.",[15,256,258],{"id":257},"the-mistakes-that-come-up-again-and-again","The mistakes that come up again and again",[11,260,261],{},"The most common one is simply losing track of the clock. If you've got workers across multiple clients and assignments, and you're tracking start dates in a spreadsheet, it's easy for a 12 week deadline to slip past unnoticed. The second most common is not having accurate pay comparator data from the client in time, so even when you know the deadline's coming, you're not ready to act on it.",[11,263,264],{},"There's also a subtler one, agencies who apply AWR pay correctly but forget it also covers things like annual leave entitlement and rest breaks, not just the hourly rate. It's worth treating AWR as a full package of entitlements rather than just a pay adjustment.",[15,266,268],{"id":267},"building-a-process-that-doesnt-rely-on-memory","Building a process that doesn't rely on memory",[11,270,271],{},"The agencies that handle AWR smoothly all do the same few things. They track assignment start dates from day one, not from when someone remembers to check. They request comparator pay information from the client early in the relationship, not at week 11. And they get an automatic flag well before the 12 week mark, so there's time to sort the pay change before it's due, not after.",[11,273,274,276],{},[72,275,75],{"href":74}," tracks assignment length automatically against each client placement, and flags workers approaching their qualifying period so nothing slips through because a consultant was busy that week. It's the kind of thing that's much better handled by the system than by memory.",[11,278,279,280,283],{},"If you'd like to see how it works in practice, ",[72,281,92],{"href":89,"rel":282},[91]," and we'll talk you through it.",{"title":95,"searchDepth":96,"depth":96,"links":285},[286,287,288,289,290],{"id":211,"depth":96,"text":212},{"id":221,"depth":96,"text":222},{"id":239,"depth":96,"text":240},{"id":257,"depth":96,"text":258},{"id":267,"depth":96,"text":268},{},"A plain-English guide to AWR compliance for UK temporary staffing agencies: the 12 week rule, pay parity, and how to track it without the stress.","\u002Fresources\u002Fawr-compliance-made-simple","2026-08-26","4 min read",{"title":203,"description":208},"resources\u002Fawr-compliance-made-simple","What the Agency Workers Regulations actually require after the 12 week qualifying period, and how to avoid the common mistakes.",[199,300,301,104],"agency workers regulations","pay parity","rqCmSb0zQF2IBQ1Ktoyaxr4eWl5qX2LvE9in-0s7oTI",{"id":304,"title":305,"author":6,"body":306,"category":104,"description":310,"extension":105,"meta":381,"metaDescription":382,"navigation":108,"path":383,"publishedAt":384,"readTime":295,"seo":385,"stem":386,"summary":387,"tags":388,"__hash__":392},"blog\u002Fresources\u002Fdbs-checks-for-temporary-staffing-agencies.md","DBS Checks for Temporary Staffing Agencies, What You Actually Need",{"type":8,"value":307,"toc":374},[308,311,315,318,321,324,328,331,334,338,341,344,348,351,354,358,361,367],[11,309,310],{},"DBS checks trip up a lot of agencies, not because the rules are hard, but because there are three different levels and it's easy to assume the wrong one is enough. If you've ever had a client ask \"is this candidate's DBS okay for this role?\" and had a moment of doubt, this one's for you.",[15,312,314],{"id":313},"the-three-levels-and-when-each-applies","The three levels, and when each applies",[11,316,317],{},"A Basic check just shows unspent convictions. Pretty much anyone can request one, and it's fine for roles with no particular safeguarding element, general warehouse or hospitality work, for example.",[11,319,320],{},"A Standard check adds spent convictions, cautions, reprimands and warnings, and it's for roles with a bit more responsibility or trust, security work is a common example. A candidate needs to be doing a role that's legally eligible for it, you can't just request a Standard check because a client would prefer one.",[11,322,323],{},"An Enhanced check is the one most education and healthcare placements need. It includes everything in a Standard check plus relevant local police information, and for roles working with children or vulnerable adults, it can include a barred list check too. This is the one agencies get caught out on most often, because a barred list check has to be explicitly requested, it doesn't happen automatically just because the role involves children.",[15,325,327],{"id":326},"matching-the-check-to-the-role-every-time","Matching the check to the role, every time",[11,329,330],{},"The mistake we see most is an agency running the same level of DBS check across a whole pool of candidates for convenience, rather than checking what the specific role actually requires. It feels efficient, but it either leaves you under-covered for higher risk roles, or you're paying for and waiting on Enhanced checks for roles that never needed them.",[11,332,333],{},"It's worth building a simple mapping of role type to required check level, and sticking to it consistently. If you're not sure what a client's role actually requires, it's always worth asking rather than guessing, since getting this wrong on a school or care placement is a genuinely serious compliance gap.",[15,335,337],{"id":336},"how-long-does-a-dbs-check-last","How long does a DBS check last?",[11,339,340],{},"There's a common myth that DBS checks expire after three years. They don't, a DBS certificate itself never expires. What matters is whether the information on it is still current, and most agencies choose to recheck every one to three years as good practice, especially for roles involving children or vulnerable adults.",[11,342,343],{},"The better approach, if a candidate is registered with the DBS Update Service, is you can check their status online instantly rather than waiting weeks for a fresh certificate. It's worth encouraging every candidate to sign up when they first apply, it saves everyone time later.",[15,345,347],{"id":346},"do-you-need-a-fresh-dbs-check-for-every-agency-a-candidate-works-with","Do you need a fresh DBS check for every agency a candidate works with?",[11,349,350],{},"This one comes up constantly. A candidate who already has a DBS check from another agency, or from a previous role, doesn't automatically transfer that check to you, unless they're registered with the DBS Update Service and you're checking the same or a higher level. Without the Update Service, each new employer is legally expected to carry out its own check, because DBS certificates belong to the individual, not the agency that requested them.",[11,352,353],{},"In practice, this means a candidate working for two or three agencies at once might genuinely need separate checks at each one, which candidates sometimes push back on, understandably, since it feels repetitive from their side. The Update Service is the fix here: once a candidate subscribes and keeps their certificate current, any agency can verify their status online in seconds rather than requesting a brand new certificate every time. It's worth explaining this clearly during onboarding, because a candidate who understands why is far more likely to sign up for it than one who just gets asked to pay another fee.",[15,355,357],{"id":356},"keeping-track-without-losing-your-mind","Keeping track without losing your mind",[11,359,360],{},"Once you've got more than a handful of candidates on your books, tracking DBS levels and check dates in a spreadsheet gets unmanageable fast. What you really want is a candidate profile that shows the check level, the date it was done, and whether they're on the Update Service, with a reminder that fires well before you'd want to recheck, not after.",[11,362,363,364,366],{},"That's how we've built it into ",[72,365,75],{"href":74},". Each candidate's compliance status is visible at a glance, and if a check needs revisiting, you'll see it before it becomes a problem on a booking rather than after a client's already asked.",[11,368,369,370,373],{},"If you'd like a walkthrough of how it works, ",[72,371,92],{"href":89,"rel":372},[91]," and we'll show you.",{"title":95,"searchDepth":96,"depth":96,"links":375},[376,377,378,379,380],{"id":313,"depth":96,"text":314},{"id":326,"depth":96,"text":327},{"id":336,"depth":96,"text":337},{"id":346,"depth":96,"text":347},{"id":356,"depth":96,"text":357},{},"A guide to DBS checks for UK temporary staffing agencies: Basic vs Standard vs Enhanced, who needs which, and how to track renewals.","\u002Fresources\u002Fdbs-checks-for-temporary-staffing-agencies","2026-08-25",{"title":305,"description":310},"resources\u002Fdbs-checks-for-temporary-staffing-agencies","A plain guide to Basic, Standard and Enhanced DBS checks, who needs which one, and how to keep track of renewals.",[389,390,104,391],"DBS checks","safeguarding","background checks","a3h0nPE0Tf0v9JZw_eZ5CdekGp2JN4VghWS0SLzgiOQ",1788213469960]