What Are the Conduct Regulations 2003?
The main rulebook for recruitment agencies in Great Britain: terms of business, transfer fees, KIDs and who enforces it now.
"The Conduct Regulations" is the short name for the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003 (SI 2003/3319). Made under the Employment Agencies Act 1973, they are the main rulebook for how recruitment firms deal with work-seekers and hirers in England, Wales and Scotland. They apply to both kinds of firm: employment agencies, which find people permanent jobs, and employment businesses, which supply temps (see employment business vs employment agency).
The main areas they cover are:
- Terms before services. An employment business must agree terms with a work-seeker before first providing any work-finding services (regulations 14 and 15). An agency must do so only where it is allowed to charge the work-seeker a fee under regulation 26 (regulation 16). There is no longer a duty to agree terms with hirers, because regulation 17 was omitted on 8 May 2016, but a transfer fee is only enforceable if the hirer terms meet regulation 10.
- Key Information Document. Since 6 April 2020, an employment business must give a temporary work-seeker a Key Information Document before agreeing terms (regulation 13A).
- Fees to work-seekers. The 1973 Act bars charging a work-seeker a fee for finding them work, with narrow exceptions (for example in entertainment and modelling) set out in regulation 26.
- Transfer fees. Regulation 10 limits the temp-to-perm fee a hirer can be charged. The terms must offer an extended period of hire as the alternative, and a fee is only chargeable within the relevant period: 14 weeks starting on the first day the worker worked for the hirer, or 8 weeks starting on the day after they last worked there, whichever ends later (supply before a gap of more than 42 days is ignored).
- Checks and information. Before introducing or supplying a work-seeker, firms must get information from the hirer and confirmations about the work-seeker (regulations 18 to 22), with extra steps for vulnerable-person roles and jobs that need qualifications.
- Records, client accounts and advertising (regulations 25, 27 and 29).
Since 7 April 2026, enforcement sits with the Fair Work Agency, which replaced the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate. Its overview of the Conduct Regulations explains the rules in plain English.