Agency workers' health and safety
Understand your duties in relation to agency workers' health and safety
When a business uses agency workers, the business and the agency have a shared duty to protect their health and safety.
Some health and safety responsibilities depend on whether you are the employer. This is determined by the circumstances of each individual case (and you should be aware that agency workers could be considered your employees for health and safety purposes even if they are not for tax and National Insurance).
Agency workers might be employees of the agency, or employees of the business using them (in both cases, under a contract of employment), or (in some limited cases) self-employed/freelance. If you are the employer, you cannot transfer your health and safety responsibilities to another person or business.
However, even though employment status can be important, and the actual legal responsibility cannot be given to someone else, the most important thing is for both the user business and the agency to clarify and agree at the start of a contract the practical arrangements for day-to-day supervision, direction and control of the work that agency workers will be doing.
Subjects covered in this guide
- Introduction
- Understand your duties in relation to agency workers' health and safety
- Health and safety risk assessment for agency workers
- Co-operate to protect agency workers' health and safety
- Agency workers and health and safety information and training
- Ensure agency workers use health and safety equipment and follow procedures
- Monitor agency workers' health and safety
- Control agency workers' working hours
