81% of Employers Are Wrong About This. Are You One of Them?
The recruitment agency sent you the candidate. The recruitment agency asked for their documents. The recruitment agency told you the right to work check had been done. So when the Home Office came knocking, you assumed you were fine.
You were not.
This is one of the most costly myths in UK employment compliance, and it catches organisations out regularly. A Home Office survey published in 2025 found that 81% of employers using agency workers assumed the recruitment agency was responsible for conducting right to work checks. That is not a fringe misunderstanding. It is the majority position. And in most cases, it is wrong in a way that leaves employers directly exposed to civil penalties of up to £60,000 per worker.
What the Law Actually Says
The Home Office guidance is unambiguous. You cannot establish a statutory excuse against liability for a civil penalty if the right to work check is performed by a third party such as a recruitment agency. The liability sits with you as the employer. Delegating the task does not delegate the legal exposure. If the worker is later found to be working illegally and the check was not carried out correctly by you, the penalty lands on your business regardless of what the agency told you, what the agency gave you, or what you genuinely believed at the time.
There is a narrow exception. Where a certified Identity Service Provider conducts a digital right to work check on British or Irish passport holders, that check can contribute to your statutory excuse. But that is a specific technical route with its own requirements. It does not apply to the general scenario where a recruitment agency simply asks for documents and tells you the candidate is fine.
Where the Confusion Comes From
It is understandable. When you engage agency workers, the agency does have its own obligations. Agencies supplying temporary workers are required to carry out right to work checks under the conduct regulations that govern recruitment businesses. So in many situations, the agency will have done a check. The candidate will have provided documents. Everyone moves on. And because nothing goes wrong in the vast majority of cases, the assumption hardens into habit.
The problem is that an agency check and a compliant employer check are not the same thing. Even where the agency has done everything correctly, you as the employer remain liable for the civil penalty should the employee later be found to be working without the requisite permission. The statutory excuse belongs to the employer who conducted the prescribed check, not to whoever happened to look at the documents in the supply chain.
This connects directly to something we covered earlier this week. Our post on outsourcing your screening and retaining your accountability makes the same point in a broader context: handing a task to a third party does not hand them your legal responsibility. Right to work is perhaps the clearest and most financially painful example of that principle in practice.
The Enforcement Reality Right Now
This is not a theoretical risk sitting quietly in the background. Illegal working enforcement is at its highest level in UK history. Between July 2024 and December 2025, Home Office raids increased by 77% and arrests by 83%. Between April and June 2025 alone, the Home Office issued 548 penalties to employers who failed to carry out proper right to work checks, totalling over £28 million in fines.
The employers receiving those penalties did not all knowingly hire illegal workers. Many believed they had done everything right. One case involved a business fined £40,000 after hiring someone who had used forged identity documents, where the employer believed the check had been completed properly. Belief is not a statutory excuse. Only a correctly conducted check, carried out by you, is.
If you use agency workers regularly, now is the time to look at your process with clear eyes. Are you relying on a verbal assurance from the agency? Are you keeping your own records? Do you actually know what a compliant check involves for the range of workers you engage?
What You Actually Need to Do
For your directly employed staff, the position is straightforward. You conduct the prescribed right to work check before employment begins, keep a copy of the evidence, and for workers with time-limited permission you conduct a repeat check before that permission expires. You use either the manual document method, the Home Office online service for share code checks, or a certified IDSP for British and Irish passport holders. Full guidance on building a compliant process is in our post on right to work checks for employers in 2026.
For agency workers, the picture requires more care. Ask the agency what check they conducted, what document or share code they examined, and whether they hold a record. Maintain your own documentation. And be aware that the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025, which received Royal Assent in December, has extended right to work obligations to contractors, sub-contractors and individuals engaged through online matching platforms. The landscape has expanded. The exposure has expanded with it.
It is also worth revisiting the BRP change that came into force in January 2026. Physical Biometric Residence Permits are no longer valid for right to work purposes. Any worker who previously proved their status with a physical card must now generate a share code through the Home Office online service. If your agency, or anyone in your hiring process, is still accepting physical BRPs, the statutory excuse on those hires is already gone. We covered this in full in our post on the BRP phase-out and what employers must do now.
The Myth, Plainly Dismantled
The agency doing the check does not protect you. It never did. It is your organisation that faces the civil penalty. It is your business that carries the reputational damage. It is your director who may face personal liability in the most serious cases.
The only thing that protects you is a compliant check, conducted or properly overseen by you, with the right evidence retained correctly. Everything else is assumption. And when the Home Office comes through the door, assumption is worth nothing at all.
Working With Vetting Hub
At Vetting Hub, we work with HR Directors, Compliance Managers and Business Owners who need to get employment screening right and want the knowledge, tools and direct expert access to do exactly that with confidence.
Our subscription gives your organisation its own fully branded Hub, with CPD certified training built from two decades of real operational experience, practical compliance toolkits, and direct access to Graham and Vivianne Johnson when a specific situation needs a specific answer. Not a course you buy once and move on from. An ongoing consultancy relationship that moves with the regulatory landscape as it changes around you.
Subscriptions start from £397 per month. Expert Consultancy is available at £300 per hour without a subscription, and Pre-Audit Vetting File Reviews are available from £997 for ten files.
