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Introduction to this document

Agency health and safety letter

If you’re hiring temporary workers via employment agencies, you need to do what you can to ensure the health and safety of the hired worker.

Using our letter

We recommend that before you enter into an agreement with an agency, you send them a letter detailing the basic outline of the job and include information about the risks and any special requirements, such as training or the type of clothing they need. They should ask you for this anyway, but many of them won’t. To help you to do this we’ve created a template Agency Health and Safety Letter. To simplify the process we’ve also included other basic details, such as the job location and start date, so that you can include all the relevant information at once, whether health and safety related or otherwise.

Legal responsibilities

Doing this will help you to fulfil your obligations under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 (MHSWR). It will also pressurise the agency to fulfil their responsibilities under MHSWR and the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003. We recommend that in addition to requiring the agency to return a signed copy of the letter, you also supply a copy of it to the hired worker on their arrival. This will fulfil your responsibilities under Regulation 15 of the MHSWR.