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The British Institute of Recruiters

COMPLIANCE & ENFORCEMENT

One regulator now sees your whole business.

On 7 April 2026, state enforcement of employment rights in the UK changed structurally. The Fair Work Agency (FWA) launched as a single enforcement body, absorbing the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate (EAS)—the regulator recruitment agencies dealt with for decades—and replacing the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA). HMRC's National Minimum Wage enforcement now operates under FWA oversight, with the full transfer completing in 2027.

For recruiters this is not a rebrand. Three regulators with different priorities and postbags have become one body with a single view of your business—and its remit grows as the Employment Rights Act 2025 phases in through 2027.

What the FWA Enforces

Agency conduct. Everything the EAS enforced still applies: the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003, the Employment Agencies Act 1973, and the rules on fees, advertising and worker protections that flow from them.

Licensing. Licensing obligations that sat with the GLAA continue for the sectors they covered, including agriculture and the fresh food supply chain, alongside enforcement against labour exploitation.

Pay. National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage enforcement continues through HMRC under FWA oversight. Statutory Sick Pay changed in April 2026 (day-one entitlement, no lower earnings limit) and sits in the same landscape.

Coming next. The government is consulting on giving the FWA the power to enforce statutory holiday pay from 2027—including investigating up to six years of underpayments—and umbrella company regulation is due in 2027, with the FWA as the enforcing body.

Powers and Sanctions

The FWA inherits the full toolkit of its predecessors:

  • Warning and nudge letters.
  • Civil penalties (National Minimum Wage underpayment carries a penalty of 200% of arrears, up to £20,000 per worker).
  • Licence refusal and revocation.
  • Prohibition orders banning individuals from running an employment business for up to ten years.
  • Labour market enforcement undertakings and orders.
  • Prosecution.
  • Public naming of non-compliant businesses.

What is genuinely new is joined-up intelligence. A complaint about one part of your operation—a pay query, an advert, or a KID—can now surface issues in another because the same body sees all of it.

The consistent lesson from every enforcement regime is that the businesses that suffer are rarely the deliberate offenders. They are the ones that cannot evidence compliance quickly when asked.

Keeping Up as the Rules Change

The enforcement landscape is moving faster than at any time in a generation. BIOR tracks every change that affects recruiters in the free FWA & Employment Rights Hub—plain-English guidance, no login required, updated every week.

Start with the ERA timeline every agency should pin to the wall and the free 12-point FWA compliance health check.

Where BIOR Stands

The BIOR Recruitment Certification Scheme was created with input from the UK's employment-rights enforcement bodies—whose functions now sit within the Fair Work Agency—and the BIOR Code of Professional & Ethical Conduct includes an express duty to co-operate with the FWA.

Certified agencies commit to the standards inspectors look for and can evidence them.

If you want your agency to demonstrate that standard—to clients and to the regulator—start with Agency Membership & Certification.