From 1 October, the right to work regime extends beyond employees to workers on contracts for services, individual sub-contractors and people engaged through online matching platforms, with liability extending up the supply chain. The Home Office estimates 3.75 million workers come newly into scope. The penalty is up to £45,000 per worker for a first breach.
The survey also found that 33 of the 57 agencies track right to work status manually, 13 of them on spreadsheets. None of those 13 could evidence a compliant check for every worker on assignment the same day. Of the 13 firms using a dedicated checking tool, 11 could.
A further finding has no published precedent in the UK: 27 of the 57 agencies have already been asked by a client for contractual guarantees on their right to work process. Among temp and contract specialists it is 18 of 22. Among perm-focused firms it is none of 20.
The research, published by Stack Logic on 28 August, is the first measurement of readiness for the October changes in the sector that will carry most of their operational load. No published data existed on awareness of the changes in any sector, on how long agencies take to evidence checks under audit, or on the proportion still tracking right to work on spreadsheets.
Jack Roberts, who ran the survey, said: "The Home Office's own research found 89% of employers were confident they do right to work checks correctly, and 80% of them then got a compliance question wrong. What we found in recruitment is that the confidence gap, the tooling gap and the audit gap are the same gap, and it runs along firm size."
He added: "The draft Code of Practice does not mention employment businesses, agency workers, umbrellas or labour supply anywhere. The sector carrying the operational load of this change is invisible in the rulebook written for it."
The full report is at https://stacklogic.co.uk/research/right-to-work-readiness. All figures and charts are free to reproduce with attribution under a CC BY 4.0 licence: https://stacklogic.co.uk/research/right-to-work-readiness/media
