As far as the agency are concerned, i am sure its all down to the small print on the contract that the individuals sign.
If they turn up for work on your site, and do not have the appropiate PPE, you have two choices
1. Tell them to leave and return when they have rerquired the PPE. > 2. Issue them with required PPE and let them start work.
Take it a step further if the agency worker has an accident (which is reportable) on your site carrying out work for you, who would report it?? the agency as his so called employer ? or you the company who have put him to work??

And this is one of the greyest of grey areas!!!!!

It is so easy to keep on saying that it is the employers duty, but the question remains as to WHO is the employer for HEALTH AND SAFETY purposes. This is NOT clear and there is NO definitive guidance from the HSE or anyone else that I can see. What I do see is a LOT of contradictory and ambiguous information from the HSE, Business Link, Agencies and the REC. That the company pays the person and/or the PAYE/NI does NOT necessarily make them the employer. The HSE have even provided 'guidance' to that effect - http://www.hse.gov.uk/ab...e/2006/040706/misc06.pdf as follows:

"Some health and safety responsibilities depend on whether you are the employer. This is determined by the circumstances of each individual case. (and you should be aware that agency workers could be considered your employees for health and safety purposes even if they are not for tax and National Insurance). So agency workers might be employees of the agency, or employees of the business using them..."

Time and again we see people quoting ET cases where the employment/employee status of an agency worker is based on who pays their PAYE/NI contributions which is almost invariably the agency, but this ISN'T to be taken as written in stone especially where health and safety is concerned. I do not believe that this is the case and I would suggest others don't either.

In Dacas vs Brook Street/Haringey The ET decided that Mrs Dacas was neither an employee of the agency OR the Council (a seemingly absurd situation perhaps), the EAT however, decided that she WAS an employee of the agency. Brook Street appealed and the Court of Appeal decided that the fact that the agency paid her did NOT make them the employer. The COA did not fully address the issue of whether the Council was the employer as this was not part of Mrs Dacas's appeal, but 2 of the appeal judges indicated that it was the Council who was likely to be the employer; the other judge disagreed.

So, UNTIL there is a case where the employment status of an agency worker is FULLY considered in relation to a health and safety issue such as the provision of PPE the question of employee status for agency workers is likely to remain as elusive as ever.

The 'nonsense' persists because the employment status remains unclear and ambiguous and the HSE have done little or nothing to clarify or address this.

If the 'user' employer charges the agency, then it is likely that the agency will just recharge the 'user' back again.

The other 'nonsense' is to assume or being led to believe that the agency, as the person who pays and/or pays PAYE/NI is the employer. It is NOT as simple as that and the HSE remain sitting firmly on the fence.

The answer (if there is one) is to agree your 'terms' with the agency and agree who will pay for what, and who will do what etc. Again this is part of the HSE approach in the above doc.

Please, please don't assume the agency being the employer for H&S purposes inc provision of PPE. The HSE may well not see it that way.

Further to the above post, it can be a complex matter from an employment perspective and that is why I cut to the chase. I think the overriding principle here is that we are talking about PPE - it's not very expensive and protects people from harm. As far as I'm concerned if an agency cannot be bothered to supply basic PPE then they should be held accountable. Moreover, if agency workers turned up at any of my sites without PPE then they would be sent away and the agency would not receive any more business -now that's an incentive if there ever was one!

it's not very expensive and protects people from harm.

If this is the case why not just issue PPE and put them to work?

I know where you are coming from, that's why it is very rare that you would encounter this, as you say most agencies know that failure to ensure that the operatives they supply have at least the basic requirements of PPE, could affect their reputation and repeat work from employers

JM: Employees are not supposed to supply their own PPE its the employer/controller who is supposed to supply PPE as its they who know what is needed

This sort of thing should be addressed at contract stage between the agency and the client but many agencies are running scared as clients do not want to pay a going rate and many clients do not care about anything apart from low cost and getting their job done with the employee, who is desperate for money, in the middle

the arguement re who is the employer is dead easy to sort as the full meaning of employer is needed to be understood note and err to caution thereafter so people should read case law and the old [I do not know what the new one covers] NEBOSH diplomas fits in here

You're missing the point Bob.
Most agency workers are enlisted to multiple agencies.
It does a lot to guarantee continuation of employment, given that most are a maximum of 12 weeks.
Agencies tend to pass information around themselves about the workers, so getting "bolshie" about employment/ppe regulations is not going to do your employment prospects much good.
While much is being made about the "blacklisting" of construction workers due to illegal data being held, that sort of thing has been around in construction and engineering for decades. Word-of-mouth versus modern databases. Word-of-mouth is untraceable, but just as effective.
And, at the end of the day, all employees pay for their ppe in one way or another. After all, ppe cost means lower profit and lower pay/pay-rises.

Now is not the time to be outspoken: bad career move.
The quite simple reality is that HSE are a spent force.
Power, Yes.
Useful, Not very.
The press are against them.
Their colleagues in government have little time for them, and (bye and large) industry would rather they went on a long holiday and didn't come back.
Well, it looks like their holidays are approaching, and single fare.