From April 2020 it will be a requirement for employment businesses to provide any temporary work-seekers they supply, either on a contract for services or via a limited company, with a Key Information Document (K.I.D.). The purpose of this document is to clearly and succinctly set out the essential information a work-seeker requires prior to starting an assignment. The idea of this document is to promote greater transparency and accountability in the relationship between an employment business and a work seeker. The requirement to have a K.I.D. was developed as a response to increasing concern by the government regarding arrangements where a worker is supplied through an intermediary such as an umbrella company. As it currently stands, there is a lack of clarity surrounding who the employer is of a worker who is engaged via an intermediary for the purposes of paying the worker and ensuring the correct deductions are made from that pay.

One area of confusion here is the concept of the “work-seeker” for the purposes of to whom the K.I.D. should be provided. In context, the term work-seeker can be used to refer to both an individual work-seeker, or to an umbrella or limited company that then engages an individual to do the work. The intent of the K.I.D. is to benefit the individual work-seeker, or if the work-seeker is a company, the individual who is being supplied by that company to do the work. It is a statutory obligation for employment businesses to provide the K.I.D. and to ensure that the individual performing the role receives it. This means it is increasingly important for employment business to carry out appropriate due diligence checks on other parties within the supply chain to ensure the K.I.D. is provided to all the required recipients.

The requirement to provide a K.I.D. is set out in The Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses (Amendment) Regulations 2019, which will amend the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003 to contain an additional regulation, 13A, which covers the K.I.D. and what it needs to contain. These regulations were made Law from 6 April 2020 and it will be a requirement for employment businesses to provide a K.I.D. to all work seekers.

Like PAYE workers and those working through an umbrella company, workers that wish to engage with an employment business through their own PSC must be provided with a key information document before agreeing terms.

The requirements for PSCs differ to umbrella companies and other intermediary arrangements because the PSC is defined as the work seeker and is controlled by the person to be supplied.

This means that only one Key Information document must be issued unlike with umbrella company arrangements where both the umbrella company and the individual carrying out the work must receive a Key Information document. Employment businesses will usually have to obtain some of the relevant information from the PSC in order to complete the key information document. Any deductions made between the employment business and the PSC will need to be shown so that the work seeker has a full idea of what they expect to receive in their pay.