Legislation – Employment Rights Act 2025
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Part 3Pay and conditions in particular sectors
Chapter 2Social care workers
Agency workers
51Agency workers who are not otherwise “workers”
(1)
This section applies in any case where an individual (the “agency worker”)—
(a)
is supplied by a person (the “agent”) to do work for another (the “principal”) under a contract or other arrangements made between the agent and the principal,
(b)
is not, as respects that work, a worker, because of the absence of a worker’s contract between the individual and the agent or the principal, and
(c)
is not a party to a contract under which the individual undertakes to do the work for another party to the contract whose status is, by virtue of the contract, that of a client or customer of any profession or business undertaking carried on by the individual.
(2)
The provisions of this Chapter (other than this section) have effect as if there were a worker’s contract for the doing of the work by the agency worker made between the agency worker and—
(a)
whichever of the agent and the principal is responsible for paying the agency worker in respect of the work, or
(b)
if neither the agent nor the principal is so responsible, whichever of them pays the agency worker in respect of the work.
(3)
For the purposes of Part 2 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (protection of wages), as it applies in relation to the entitlements conferred by sections 47(2) and 48(5)—
(a)
if at any time the agency worker and the person who, as a result of this section, is the person’s employer for the purposes of this Chapter would not (apart from this subsection) be regarded as the worker and the employer for the purposes of that Part, they are to be so regarded;
(b)
it is to be assumed that there was a worker’s contract between those persons at that time.
(4)
If there would (in the absence of this section) be no worker’s contract between the agency worker and the person who, as a result of this section, is the person’s employer for the purposes of this Chapter, for the purpose of enforcing any entitlement conferred by section 47(2) or (3) or 48(5) or (6) in civil proceedings on a claim in contract it is to be assumed that there is (or was) such a contract between those persons.
(5)
Any reference in this section to doing work includes a reference to performing services, and “work” is to be read accordingly.