The Fair Work Agency: what every recruitment agency needs to know
On 7 April 2026, the way employment rights are enforced 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 have dealt with for decades — and replacing the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA). HMRC's National Minimum Wage enforcement team now sits under the FWA's oversight, with day-to-day enforcement continuing under HMRC until the full transfer completes in 2027.
For recruiters, this is not a rebrand. Three regulators with different priorities, powers and postbags have become one body with a single view of your business.
What the FWA enforces
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 obligations that sat with the GLAA continue for the sectors they covered. National Minimum Wage and holiday pay enforcement continues through HMRC under FWA oversight. The difference is joined-up intelligence: a complaint about one part of your operation can now surface issues in another, because the same body sees all of it.
What's genuinely new
The FWA arrives alongside the phased rollout of the Employment Rights Act 2025 — so its remit will grow as the Act's provisions come into force through 2026 and 2027 (see the ERA timeline). An agency that last thought hard about EAS inspections some years ago should assume the inspection environment from here is more active, more coordinated, and more interested in documentation than its predecessors were.
What to do this quarter
First, confirm who in your business owns FWA compliance — in most SME agencies that is the director, in writing, not by default. Second, dust off the last EAS-era self-audit: terms of engagement with work-seekers, key information documents for temps, advertising accuracy, and fee transparency. Third, check your payroll chain: if you use umbrella companies, regulation of umbrellas is coming and the FWA will be the body enforcing it — agencies that can show due diligence on their chain now will be in a very different position from those that can't. Finally, put your paperwork where you can find 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.