Q: Under the new right to work checks, if we employ a gang under a limited company and pay that limited company for all the labour they’ve supplied, do you know if we need to check the eligibility of each member, or is it the responsibility of the ‘gang leader’?

A: Specific responsibility will be determined by the nature of the contract that you have with the supplier of labour.  Although there is no legal requirement to check the Right to Work (RTW) of those who work for a different entity, best practice will be to confirm within the contract where responsibility rests and ensure that this covers any GDPR related issues that would prohibit sharing of essential information to support compliance checking.

Once responsibility is clear, it would be sensible to exercise reasonable endeavours to audit your supply chain on a regular basis to ensure appropriate checks are taking place and also to ensure that robust procedures are in place to ensure that there is no risk to you or your workforce under the Modern Slavery Act.

For the avoidance of doubt – labour only subcontractors who work under a contract for services and who are subject to the direction and control of the end user, will be workers and therefore subject to RTW checks by their employer.

You can access the updated FIS Employment and Workforce Management Toolkit here

You can access the updated FIS Modern Slavery Toolkit here

You can access a recent recording of our webinar on Modern Slavery and Right to Work Checks here