The words agency compliance is written in. Conduct, parity, status, checks and the documents each one requires — what every term actually means, who it protects, and what an audit finds when a file was built after the placement rather than before it.
Conduct & regulation
Conduct Regulations
The Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003 govern how recruitment agencies and employment businesses may operate in Great Britain, setting rules on terms, charges and information..
Employment business
An employment business supplies temporary workers to hirers while itself engaging and paying those workers.
Key information document
A Key Information Document is a short document an employment business must give an agency work-seeker before agreeing terms, setting out who pays them, the rate, deductions and an illustrative net figure..
Work-seeker
A work-seeker is a person looking for work through an agency or employment business.
GLAA licence
A GLAA licence is required to supply workers into agriculture, horticulture, shellfish gathering and associated processing and packaging.
Modern slavery
Modern slavery covers forced labour, servitude and human trafficking.
Worker status & pay
Agency Worker Regulations
The Agency Worker Regulations 2010 give agency workers the right to the same basic working and employment conditions as a comparable direct employee, once they have completed a qualifying period in the same role with the same hirer..
Employment status
Employment status is whether an individual is an employee, a worker or genuinely self-employed.
Off-payroll working
The off-payroll working rules, commonly called IR35, determine whether someone providing services through their own company should be taxed as an employee of the client.
Umbrella company
An umbrella company employs temporary workers and pays them, invoicing the agency for the assignment.
Worker
A worker is someone engaged to perform work personally who is not running a business for a client.
Employee
An employee works under a contract of employment.
Self-employed
A self-employed person runs their own business and contracts to provide services.
PAYE
PAYE is the system by which income tax and National Insurance are deducted at source.
Holiday pay
Holiday pay is paid annual leave, which workers accrue including agency temporaries.
Checks & records
Right to work check
A right to work check confirms that someone is permitted to do the work in question in the UK.
DBS check
A DBS check is a criminal records check carried out through the Disclosure and Barring Service.
Compliance file
A compliance file is the set of records an agency holds for a worker evidencing that they were entitled and qualified to do the work they were placed in — checks, qualifications, references and agreed terms..
Candidate registration
Candidate registration is the point at which a work-seeker joins an agency's database — where identity, eligibility, qualifications and preferences are captured and the compliance file begins..
Share code
A share code is the reference an individual generates so an employer can check their right to work online against Home Office records, rather than by inspecting documents..
Barred list check
A barred list check confirms whether someone is barred from working with children or vulnerable adults.
Reference
A reference is confirmation from a previous employer or other approved source about a candidate's employment and conduct.
Qualification check
A qualification check verifies that a candidate holds the certifications a role requires and that they remain current — professional registration, tickets, cards and mandatory training..
Document expiry
Document expiry is the point at which a check, qualification or permission ceases to be current.
Client compliance audit
A client compliance audit is a hirer or a framework checking an agency's files against the requirements they set — usually by sampling rather than reviewing everything..
Candidate data protection
Candidate data protection is the obligation to handle candidate personal data lawfully — with a valid basis, for stated purposes, kept accurate, and retained no longer than necessary..
Commercial terms
Assignment
An assignment is a period of work a temporary worker carries out for a hirer through an employment business.
Temp-to-perm fee
A temp-to-perm fee is the transfer fee an employment business charges when a hirer takes on a temporary worker directly.
Opt-out
Opting out is an election available to limited company contractors, and the company supplying them, to disapply the Conduct Regulations to their engagement.
Timesheet
A timesheet records the hours a temporary worker actually worked, authorised by the hirer.
Terms of business
Terms of business are the agreement between an agency and a hirer covering rates, charges, transfer fees, liability and how the relationship works..
Margin
Margin is the difference between what a hirer is charged and what it costs to supply the worker — pay, employer National Insurance, holiday accrual, pension and the apprenticeship levy..
Preferred supplier list
A preferred supplier list is the set of agencies a hirer has approved to supply them.
A–Z
- Agency Worker Regulations
- Assignment
- Barred list check
- Candidate data protection
- Candidate registration
- Client compliance audit
- Compliance file
- Conduct Regulations
- DBS check
- Document expiry
- Employee
- Employment business
- Employment status
- GLAA licence
- Holiday pay
- Key information document
- Margin
- Modern slavery
- Off-payroll working
- Opt-out
- PAYE
- Preferred supplier list
- Qualification check
- Reference
- Right to work check
- Self-employed
- Share code
- Temp-to-perm fee
- Terms of business
- Timesheet
- Umbrella company
- Work-seeker
- Worker
More terms are being added. These pages explain what the words mean; they are not legal advice, and employment status in particular turns on facts a glossary cannot see.