The Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003

Additional requirements where professional qualifications are required or where work-seekers are to work with vulnerable persons

22.—(1) Where the work-seeker is—

(a) required by law, or any professional body, to have any qualifications or authorisation to work in a position for which he is to be supplied or introduced to a hirer;

(b) to be supplied or introduced to a hirer with a view to taking up a position which involves working with or caring for or attending any one or more persons under the age of eighteen; or

(c) to be supplied or introduced to a hirer with a view to taking up a position which involves caring for or attending any person who by reason of age, infirmity, or any other circumstances is in need of care or attention,

neither an agency nor an employment business may introduce or supply him to a hirer unless, in addition to the requirements in regulations 18 to 21, the requirements in paragraph (2) are satisfied.

(2) The requirements referred to in paragraph (1) are that the agency or employment business has—

(a) subject to paragraph (3) obtained copies of any relevant qualifications or authorisations of the work-seeker, and offered to provide copies thereof to the hirer;

(b) subject to paragraph (3), obtained two references from persons who are not relatives of the work-seeker and who have agreed that the reference they provide may be disclosed to the hirer, and offered to provide copies thereof to the hirer; and

(c) in a case falling within paragraph (1)(b) or (c), taken all other reasonably practicable steps to confirm that the work-seeker is not unsuitable for the position concerned.

(3) Where the agency or employment business has taken all reasonably practicable steps to comply with the requirements in paragraph (2)(b) and has been unable to do so fully, it may instead—

(a) comply with those requirements to the extent that it is able to do so;

(b) inform the hirer that it has taken all reasonably practicable steps to comply fully with those requirements and has been unable to do so; and

(c) inform the hirer of the details of the steps that it has taken in order to try and comply fully with those requirements.

(4) In this regulation “relative” has the same meaning as it is given in section 63 of the Family Law Act 1996(1).

(1)

1996 c. 27; section 63 was prospectively amended by the Adoption and Children Act 2002 (c. 38), Schedule 3, paragraphs 85, 88(a) and (b).