I have responded by PM

Thanks Can et al for PM's so far.
I will anonymise the data and feedback after the thread has been open a few days.

Yes and not sure

In my extensive experience most companies pay the agencies as little as possible and are not really interested in the person doing the job as long as the work is done and many agencies pay the staff as little as they can and expect the person to supply all their own kit [clients dont check] - this is getting worse and worse and I cannot foresee it getting better especially so we are in a 'no permanent job' society for many many people and this 'no permanent job' situation will be the norm/standard situation for the majority of people within the next 10/15 years

Please note that I do not have a 'downer' on agencies [having run one myself in the past - we lost work on many occasions because we treated our people properly and that was in the boom times!!!] ]

Dunno - I'm thankfull either way!

With a previous employee, we made it part of the contract with the Agency provider to ensure agency employee's supplied were kitted out in the basic site required PPE IE high Vis & Boots. We then provided task based PPE ie gloves.

Thank you all for your feedback both above and on PM.

As you can imagine there is a representation right across the spectrum but by far the most common response is that yes, there is an expectation that the agency worker provides their own safety footwear. From those responses there is roughly a 50/50 split on if the worker or the agency actually provide the footwear. A couple of respondents will later 'replace' the footwear after the worker appears to be 'staying' but this is not necessarily linked to a particular time period/12 weeks etc.
3/4 of respondents did confirm that they provided task based PPE from risk assessment (gloves and the like) a couple of respondents treated Hi-vis vests similar to Safety Footwear in the fact there was an expectation that the agency worker would turn up with one.

Although not originally asked, some respondents included checking that the shoes were suitable ( steel midsole, EN345, chemical resistance etc) if they knew they had to be of a certain standard and not just a £10 market job - this did not appear to be common place but again, I did not ask this originally so would be unfair to give a percentage feel to this - maybe something to think about though if you do not already.

Obviously this is just a summary from the responses and people can make of it what they will, consider what they are providing/expecting, see what others are doing and consider if they believe they are legally compliant.

Have a good weekend.

Used to do a bit of agency driving as and when I felt like working after I left the Army, always had to provide my own (Full) PPE. Could have purchased through the agency but at very inflated costs.

Now in construction and with the very complex "Labour Only Sub Contractors" scenarios. No we do not provide footwear. Everything else we provide FOC - from Hi Viz, Gloves, Helmet, day to day Eye Protection as well as Ear Protection.

We also carry out checks on the footwear during induction to ensure it is to BS 345 or BS EN ISO 20345 and is either S1(P) or S3 anything else and they are not permitted on site.

Regards

Clive