TempAllyIf you've ever had a candidate ready to start on Monday and realised on Friday afternoon that their right to work documents weren't quite in order, you'll know how stressful this bit of compliance can be. Getting it right matters, both for your agency and for the people you're placing, so let's walk through what a proper check actually involves.
Why this matters more for temp agencies
Permanent recruiters usually check right to work once, at the point of hire. Temp agencies have it harder, because you're often placing the same candidate with different clients, on different sites, sometimes with gaps of months in between. Each of those placements is your responsibility to get right, not just the client's.
The good news is that once you've built a solid process, it doesn't need to be repeated from scratch every time. You just need a system that flags when a check is due and won't let you book someone whose documents have lapsed.
What counts as a valid check
A right to work check has three steps, and skipping any one of them puts you at risk.
First, you need to obtain original documents (or use the Home Office's online checking service where the candidate has a digital status, which is increasingly common for skilled worker visas and settled status). Second, you check those documents are genuine and belong to the person in front of you. Third, you make a clear copy and record the date you checked it.
It sounds simple written out like that, but the detail trips agencies up. A List A document (like a British or Irish passport) gives someone an ongoing right to work with no need to recheck. A List B document usually comes with an expiry date or a visa condition, and that's where you need a reminder system, because forgetting to recheck is one of the most common compliance gaps we see.
Where agencies usually go wrong
Honestly, it's rarely dishonesty. Most compliance slips happen because someone's tracking expiry dates in a spreadsheet, or worse, in their memory, and a candidate falls through the cracks during a busy week. A few things worth watching for:
Documents get checked once at onboarding and never looked at again, even when they clearly have an expiry date attached. Copies get saved in someone's inbox rather than a central system, so when that person's on holiday, nobody else can find them. And sometimes a candidate is booked onto a shift by a different consultant who didn't realise a check was overdue.
None of these are big dramatic failures. They're just gaps that build up when the process depends on someone remembering, rather than the system doing the remembering for you.
Building a process that actually holds up
The agencies that handle this well tend to do a few things consistently. They check documents before the candidate is added to any booking, not after. They store copies somewhere every consultant can access, not just the one who did the onboarding. And they set automatic reminders well ahead of any expiry date, so there's time to sort a renewal before it becomes urgent.
This is exactly the kind of thing TempAlly's compliance tools are built for. Right to work status sits on the candidate's profile, expiry dates trigger reminders automatically, and if a check has lapsed, the system won't let you book that candidate onto a shift until it's sorted. It takes the pressure off remembering and puts it onto the process instead.
If you're ever audited
Home Office checks and client audits both come down to the same question, can you show a clear paper trail for every candidate you've placed. Keeping copies, dates and check outcomes in one place, rather than scattered across emails and folders, is what makes that conversation painless rather than panic-inducing.
If you want to see how TempAlly handles this day to day, book a demo and we'll walk you through it.
