From 1 October 2026, section 48 of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 will extend illegal working civil penalty exposure beyond direct employees to wider working arrangements, including contractual labour chains.

Businesses that use agency labour, subcontractors, consultants, freelancers, casual workers, gig workers or platform-based labour should act now. The new regime means liability may arise even where the individual is not directly employed by the end-user business, if prescribed requirements have not been met. This is a significant compliance shift for organisations with complex, outsourced or high-volume labour models.

Why this matters

The Home Office will usually look first to the direct employer. However, where the required checks, contractual controls or assurance processes have not been satisfied, liability can move upstream. That makes right to work compliance a supply-chain issue, not just an HR onboarding task.

Civil penalties can be substantial, and the wider consequences may include regulatory scrutiny, sponsor licence risk, disruption to operations, contractual disputes and reputational harm.

Who should be reviewing their arrangements?

The changes are particularly relevant to organisations that rely on:

• agency workers, temporary labour or contingent workforces;
• individual subcontractors, consultants or freelancers;
• multi-tier subcontracting arrangements;
• casual, zero-hours, seasonal or high-churn labour;
• online matching platforms or gig economy services; and
• labour providers operating across multiple sites or business units.

If your organisation benefits from labour supplied by others, you should be asking whether your current right to work checks, supplier contracts and audit processes are robust enough to give you confidence before work starts.

What should businesses do now?

Preparation should be treated as a practical compliance project. We recommend focusing on the following steps:

1. Map the labour supply chain: identify suppliers, worker cohorts, sites, subcontracting layers and the direct employer for each group.
2. Risk assess priority areas: focus first on high-volume, high-churn, multi-tier or higher-risk engagements.
3. Set a minimum right to work standard: define required checks, evidence records, repeat checks, escalation steps and identity assurance measures.
4. Update supplier contracts: include flow-down obligations, consent controls for further subcontracting, audit rights, investigation cooperation duties, warranties, indemnities and termination rights.
5. Build site-level identity controls: use verified-worker registers, named passes, spot checks and clear removal processes where identity cannot be confirmed.
6. Audit and test readiness: request sample evidence packs, test registers, run site checks and remediate gaps before go-live.

Key message for boards and senior teams

This is not simply a paperwork change. The extended regime requires businesses to demonstrate that the right people have been checked that suppliers are operating effective systems, and that the organisation has taken reasonable steps to oversee the labour chain. Commercial protections are helpful, but they do not replace the operational controls needed to manage exposure.

How we can help

We can support clients with a targeted readiness review, including labour-chain mapping, right to work standards, supplier contract updates, audit frameworks, verified-worker registers, site protocols, training and incident response playbooks.

If you use agency labour, subcontractors, flexible workers or platform-based services, now is the time to test whether your controls will withstand scrutiny. If you would like to discuss how the changes may affect your organisation or if you would like help preparing for 1 October 2026, we’re here to help. Get in touch with John Robinson at JohnRobinson@schofieldsweeney.co.uk.