I saw an excellent piece in SHP Online about agencies charging workers for PPE http://www.shponline.co....ons-of-defying-ppe-rules I have come across this several times. In my present company (A Bakery) the agency are supplying Standard safety boots but the full time employees wear Bakery Safety shoes, thus meeting ppe requirements re specific risks The agency are obviously loath to invest in bakery shoes just for one client, therefore I am just about to audit them re ppe and their pre training and inductions to nudge them in the right direction (excellent article on using nudges recently in SHP) Is this common experience in your business? Do agency supply ppe or charge the poor employee (illegally of course) Are they supplying the correct PPE?

Most agencies provide no PPE. The agency "worker" is required to provide any PPE him/herself. I work for agencies. In cases where a worker has to wear, for instance, a high-viz waistcoat (transport in my case) and it is name-specific, the worker will have to pay the client for the high-viz. Yes. Against regulations. Now: Where are you working tomorrow ? And in case you did not know it: Agencies chat to each other. Nothing like the illegal database...just a quick phone call to a few others....in most cases workers enlisting to agencies will be recommended to also enlist to specific other agencies (most agency workers enlist with several agencies to guarantee continuity of work)