Right to Work checks: what employers should expect from an agency
Right to Work is the check most often done badly, and the one with the most serious consequences. Here is what a properly run agency process looks like from the client side.
Right to Work is not a box to tick at the end of a placement. Done properly it happens before a worker is offered an assignment, it is evidenced, and the evidence is retained in a form that stands up when somebody asks to see it. Done badly, it exposes both the agency and the client.
Who is responsible when you use an agency?
Where a temporary worker is engaged by the agency, the agency carries out the check as the engaging party. That does not mean the client has no interest in it. Most clients quite reasonably want assurance that the check was done, and many want to see the evidence — particularly in sectors where they are themselves audited by their own customers.
The practical question to ask a supplier is not "do you do Right to Work checks", because everyone says yes. It is "show me what you hold for the last three workers you sent us".
What a sound process looks like
- The check happens at registration, before any assignment is offered — not at the point of booking, when there is time pressure.
- Original documents or a valid online check are examined, not a photograph sent by message.
- The person carrying out the check is recorded, along with the date.
- A dated copy is retained securely for the required period and no longer.
- Where a document has an expiry date, the expiry is recorded and monitored, not filed and forgotten.
The expiry problem
Most Right to Work failures we see described in the industry are not failures to check. They are failures to re-check. A worker with time-limited permission is checked correctly on day one, works for eighteen months, and nobody notices the permission lapsed in month nine.
This is a systems problem rather than a diligence problem, and it is solved with a system: expiry dates recorded against the worker record, alerts raised in advance, and a rule that a worker with lapsed permission does not go on assignment regardless of how urgent the requirement is.
Speed of supply should come from having completed the checks in advance, never from shortening them at the point of booking.
Questions worth asking your supplier
- At what point in your process is the Right to Work check completed?
- How do you record and monitor time-limited permission?
- What happens to a booking if a worker's check is incomplete?
- Can you provide evidence of checks if our own client audits us?
- How long do you retain documents, and on what basis?
This article is general guidance rather than legal advice. Employers should refer to current Home Office guidance and take their own advice on their specific obligations.
