Permanent and temporary staff, without the adjectives
Every agency website says "fully screened candidates" and "decades of experience". Neither sentence tells you anything you could check. So this page is a list instead: what we actually look at, which law asks for it, what we will not do at any price, and every contract published in full so you can read it before you sign rather than after.
What actually happens, from your chair
Seven steps. Each one says what you do, what we do, and which document covers it, and every one of those documents is published in full so you can read it before you sign rather than after.
1 Before anything, a conversation about the actual job
You
Half an hour, on the phone or at your site. What the work is, what the shift really is, what the site is like, and who the person would answer to.
Us
We write it down and send it back to you to correct. A brief taken verbally and never confirmed is the commonest reason an agency sends the wrong people and both sides think the other one is at fault.
2 We tell you whether we are the right answer
You
Nothing. This one is on us.
Us
If the role is outside what we place, or an advert would do it cheaper, WE SAY SO AND POINT YOU AT THE ADVERT. Turning work away costs us a fee and keeps the next conversation, and we would rather have the next conversation.
3 Finding people, honestly described
You
Nothing yet.
Us
The board, the people who have asked us to keep their CV, and the trades we know. WE ARE NOT GOING TO TELL YOU WE HAVE AN EIGHTEEN YEAR NETWORK OF PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT LOOKING. That is what an established agency says and it is usually true for them. Ours is being built, and you will get told which of those three found the person you hire.
4 Checking, with the date and the name of who checked
You
Tell us anything the role legally requires, in writing.
Us
Seven checks, each recorded with when it was done and by whom, not a tick in a box saying fully screened. Right to work, licence and categories against the DVLA record rather than a photocopy, tickets and their expiry dates, references where the role needs them.
5 A shortlist with the reasoning, and the ones we rejected
You
Read three or four, not thirty.
Us
Each one with why we think they fit, in a sentence you can disagree with. AND WE TELL YOU WHO WE TURNED DOWN AND WHY. An agency that only shows you its successes is an agency you cannot calibrate.
6 Offer, paperwork, and the first shift
You
Decide. We do not chase you and we do not pretend somebody else is about to take them unless it is true.
Us
Key information document to the worker before terms are agreed, which is the law and which most agencies still miss. Assignment details in writing before they travel.
7 Afterwards, which is where most agencies stop
You
Tell us if it is not working, early.
Us
We ring the worker in the first week and we ring you in the second. If somebody leaves inside the rebate period, the rebate is in the contract you already read, and the four things it does not cover are in there too rather than appearing in an email afterwards.
What we actually place
Five things, and that is the whole list. The job board carries forty two sectors; the agency does not. They are different businesses, and a one man agency that says it places anything is saying it places nothing in particular.
This is the work he has done himself or hired for. If you need somebody outside it, say so and we will tell you honestly whether we can help. Most of the time the answer will be to advertise it instead, which costs a fraction of what an agency charges and is often the right answer anyway.
HGV Class 1 (C+E)
Tramping, trunking, day work and night trunking. Curtainsider, box, fridge, double deck.
The trade he drives in himself, which is why the assignment details on ours say what the shift really finishes at rather than what it is booked to.
HGV Class 2 (C)
Multi drop, store delivery, rigid work and municipal.
Including new passes. Somebody with a clean licence and no commercial hours is not a problem to be worked around, and we will say so to a client rather than quietly filter them out.
7.5 tonne and van
Multi drop, courier and trade counter delivery.
The category most often advertised badly, because the drops per day and the hand ball are what decide whether the job is any good and neither usually appears in the advert.
Forklift
Counterbalance, reach, VNA and bendi, with the ticket and the expiry date checked rather than taken on trust.
An out of date ticket is the commonest reason a placement falls over on the first morning.
Warehouse and yard
Picking, packing, goods in, loading, shunting and yard marshal.
Chilled and ambient. We ask a client what the temperature is before we send anybody, because the advert almost never says.
And where
Birmingham · Coventry · Wolverhampton · Walsall · Dudley · Tamworth. Close enough to drive to the site and meet whoever will be managing the person, which is the part that does not scale and is the reason the list is short.
What "fully screened" means here
Seven checks. Not a claim, a list. Each one says how it is done, why it matters and which law asks for it, and each one is recorded with the date and the name of whoever did it.
| What we check | How | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Right to work in the UK Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 |
The original document seen, or a share code checked against the Home Office online service. A copy is kept with the date and the name of whoever looked at it. | A civil penalty for one illegal worker is up to £60,000. The check is only a defence if it was done BEFORE the first shift and recorded properly. |
| Identity Regulation 19, Conduct Regulations 2003 |
Photographic identity checked against the person in front of us, not a photograph emailed in. | Every other check on this list is worthless if the name on it belongs to somebody else. |
| Licence and entitlement Regulation 19, Conduct Regulations 2003 |
Driving licence checked with DVLA using the driver's own share code, categories and endorsements recorded, and the expiry of the Driver CPC and the tachograph card diarised. | Categories lapse quietly. A driver can be entirely honest and still be uninsured because a CPC ran out five weeks ago. |
| Tickets and qualifications for the job Regulation 19, Conduct Regulations 2003 |
The actual card seen and the number recorded: ADR, CPCS, CSCS, IPAF, ALLMI, forklift by category, first aid, and any card checked against the issuing scheme where the scheme allows it. | A counterbalance ticket does not cover a Flexi truck and a CSCS card is not a plant ticket. Sending the wrong ticket to a site wastes the worker's day and the client's money. |
| References Regulation 19, Conduct Regulations 2003 |
Taken from the employer, not from a mobile number written on the application, and taken before the assignment rather than after. | A reference chased afterwards is a formality. Taken first, it is the only part of the process that occasionally stops something. |
| Anything the role is legally required to have Police Act 1997 and the DBS eligibility rules |
A DBS at the right level where the role is eligible, a medical where the licence needs one, a professional registration number where the profession has a register. | Eligibility is decided by the ROLE, not by what a client would like. We will not run a check the role is not entitled to. |
| The right to be paid properly National Minimum Wage Act 1998, Working Time Regulations 1998 |
The rate checked against the National Minimum Wage for the worker's age before the assignment is confirmed, and holiday pay accrued and shown separately on the payslip. | Rolled up holiday pay hidden inside an hourly rate is where most agency disputes start. |
What we will not do
Published here rather than discovered later. A client who finds out afterwards is a worse outcome for us than a client who never asked.
We never place anybody through an umbrella company
PAYE, or a limited company for a driver who genuinely runs one. Never an umbrella. An umbrella takes a margin out of the worker's pay for administration the agency should be doing, and since April 2026 the agency or the client carries joint and several liability for PAYE the umbrella fails to account for. It is a worse deal for the worker and a worse risk for the client.
We hold no gangmaster's licence, so no food, farming or shellfish work
Supplying workers into agriculture, horticulture, food processing or packaging without a gangmaster's licence is a CRIMINAL OFFENCE, not a fine. The licence comes from the FAIR WORK AGENCY, which took the scheme over from the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority on 7 April 2026. Until the licence is granted we will turn that work away, including sandwich and prepared food factories.
We hold no SIA licence, so no supply of security operatives
Supplying licensable security staff under contract needs the right SIA licence held by whoever manages them. Until that is resolved we do not take that work.
We do not sell access to a candidate database
There is no searchable pool of people here for anybody to buy. A CV comes to us for a named role and goes to that client.
We do not charge a worker a fee, ever
Not for finding work, not for a service, not for a course as a condition of work. Charging a work seeker a fee for finding them employment is prohibited outright.
How you can engage us, in the trade's own words
There are about ninety named ways to engage a recruitment agency and we do four of them. The test for every line above is not whether we could manage it once on a good week: it is whether we could still do it on the worst week of the year, with one person and a lorry to drive. Anything that fails that test is marked no or not yet, and the day one of them changes it will change here first, with a date.
| Model | Us | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Job advertising | yes | The main product and the one that pays for the rest. You write the advert or we draft it, it goes on the board, and the applications arrive at your own address with the CV attached. Published prices, no percentage of anybody's salary. |
| Temporary staffing, PAYE | yes | Driving and warehouse, West Midlands. We are the employer for pay purposes and we run the payroll. Never through an umbrella, which is a decision and not an oversight. |
| Temp to perm | yes | With the extended hire period offered as an alternative to the transfer fee, because regulation 10 of the Conduct Regulations requires the choice and terms that do not offer it are unenforceable. Clause 5 of the terms of business sets out both clocks and the 42 day reset. |
| Permanent introductions | yes | A published percentage, a rebate scale that falls as the weeks pass, and the conditions written down before anybody needs them rather than argued about afterwards. |
| Retained and exclusive search | not yet | An engagement paid partly up front is a promise to deliver against a deadline. We will take one when there is a bench to deliver it from, and not before. |
| RPO, in any of its shapes | no | Full, partial, project, embedded, hybrid, recruiter on demand. All of them mean taking over part of somebody else's hiring function, which needs a team on the days when one person is ill. There is one person here. |
| MSP, master vendor, neutral vendor | no | Managing other agencies on a client's behalf. A business that has not yet supplied its first worker is not the right one to be auditing anybody else's supply. |
| Employer of record and payrolling | no | Paying or employing workers that somebody else sourced. It is a different business with a different risk, and the April 2026 joint and several liability rules on unpaid PAYE in a labour supply chain are exactly why we are not casually stepping into the middle of one. |
| Candidate database access | never | Selling a client the ability to search a pool of CVs. This one is not a capacity question and it will not change with size. People who leave a CV here did so for a named purpose and it is not for sale, at any price, to anybody. |
| International, offshore and global staffing | no | We publish UK vacancies only, and the location screen refuses an advert that is unmistakably somewhere else. That is a choice about where we can actually check anything. |
| Executive search | no | Different trade, different network, and nobody hires a board director through a warehouse specialist. |
| Volume campaigns and site launches | not yet | Staffing a new warehouse from zero is the work we would most like to do and the work that most punishes a thin bench. When we can put the numbers on this page, we will. |
Every contract, before you sign it
We have not found a single UK agency site that publishes its terms of business, and none that publishes the key information document the law requires it to give a temporary worker. Reading a contract after you have agreed to it is not reading the contract. Ours are all here.
- Key information document, PAYE version 2.0 · given to the worker before terms are agreed · Regulation 13A, Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003
- Terms of engagement, temporary worker version 2.0 · signed by the worker before the first assignment · Regulation 14, Conduct Regulations 2003
- Terms of business with the client version 3.3 · signed by the client before the first cv · Regulations 10, 12, 17 and 18, Conduct Regulations 2003; Agency Workers Regulations 2010; Equality Act 2010 section 40A
- Assignment confirmation version 1.0 · given to the worker before every assignment · Regulation 18, Conduct Regulations 2003
- Weekly timesheet, driving version 1.0 · filled in weekly, signed by the client · Regulation 12, Conduct Regulations 2003; Road Transport (Working Time) Regulations 2005
- Holiday: how it builds up, how it is paid, how to book it version 1.1 · given to every temporary worker · Working Time Regulations 1998; Employment Rights Act 1996 sections 221 to 224
- Appropriate policy document: health and criminal record data version 1.0 · signed before the first medical or dbs result is held · Data Protection Act 2018, Schedule 1 Part 4 paragraph 39; UK GDPR Articles 9 and 10
- Candidate registration and consent version 1.0 · completed with every candidate before the first assignment · Regulations 14, 19, 21 and 22, Conduct Regulations 2003; UK GDPR Articles 6, 9 and 13
- Reference request version 1.0 · sent only after the candidate has agreed, in writing · Regulations 19 and 22, Conduct Regulations 2003
- Mobile worker declaration: work you do for anybody else version 1.0 · signed by every driver, and again each reference period · Road Transport (Working Time) Regulations 2005, regulations 4, 7, 9 and 11
- Sickness self certification version 1.0 · filled in by the worker, first seven days · Statutory Sick Pay (Medical Evidence) Regulations 1985; Employment Rights Act 2025 sections 10 and 11
- Driver infringements, and how we handle them version 1.0 · given to every driver, and to every client · Road Transport (Working Time) Regulations 2005; drivers' hours rules; Article 15 UK GDPR
- Legitimate interests assessment version 2.0 · kept on file, produced if the ico asks · Article 6(1)(f), UK GDPR
- Worker handbook version 0.9 draft · given to every worker when they register · Conduct Regulations 2003, Working Time Regulations 1998, Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, Equality Act 2010
What happens if the hire does not work out
Agency sites talk about "dedicated support" and "we support your candidate for the first few weeks". That is a feeling, not a term. Here is the actual number, taken straight from our terms of business rather than from a sales page, because a rebate scale is the one thing on an agency website that can be checked against the invoice.
| If they leave in | We refund |
|---|---|
| Weeks 1 to 2 | 75 per cent |
| Weeks 3 to 4 | 50 per cent |
| Weeks 5 to 8 | 25 per cent |
Tell us in writing within seven days of them going. It does not apply where the person left because of redundancy, because the client changed the job, because the client breached the contract, or because the client did not pay them what was agreed. Those four are the client's doing, not the candidate's, and a rebate that covered them would be us paying for somebody else's decision. You can take it as a credit against the next placement instead of a refund. Clause 6.4, in full
Where we work
A short list on purpose: the places somebody can genuinely reach in a morning. A page for every town in the country would be written for a search engine rather than for you.
Birmingham Coventry Wolverhampton Walsall Dudley Tamworth
When you can actually reach us
Most agencies publish half past eight to five, Monday to Friday. That is exactly the window a driver, a fitter or a warehouse operative cannot use, because they are at work. Tell us when suits and we ring you then, including early, late and Saturday.
Who you are actually talking to
Agency team pages are written in adjectives. Passionate, innovative, forward thinking, a rare and exceptional subject matter expert. Read four of them and count the things a client could actually test in conversation: usually none.
So here is the opposite. No adjectives, only tickets sat and jobs done, including the ones that have run out, because a lapsed ticket described honestly is worth more than a current one implied. This is one person, Grigore Octavian Pupazan, and he still drives for a living while this is built.
| What he holds | State | What that means when you ring |
|---|---|---|
| HGV Class 1, category C+E | Current | He has driven the artic. When you say the trailer would not release or the drop is a nightmare to reverse into, that lands. |
| Driver CPC, goods AND passengers | Current | Two separate CPCs, not one. He knows the passenger one does not come with the goods one, which is where a lot of bus and coach applications fall over. |
| UK digital tachograph card | Current | Drivers' hours, WTD and infringements are not something he has read about. He has been on the wrong end of an analysis report. |
| Forklift: counterbalance, reach, VNA, narrow aisle, Flexi and LLOP | Sat all five in 2018, refresher due | This is why the board treats them as five tickets and five rates instead of one job called forklift. Send the wrong ticket to a warehouse and the shift is wasted. |
| Warehouse floor, LLOP and VNA | Two and a half months during the pandemic | He has picked at height on a VNA. He is not guessing at what the job asks of somebody. |
| Bus driver, Birmingham | Three months, Perry Barr garage | Passenger work, a depot rota and an enhanced DBS, from the inside rather than from a job description. |
| Dangerous Goods Safety Adviser, the ADR 1.8.3 role | Qualified in Romania. Ran five years, NOT RENEWED, so the site claims it nowhere | Not a driver ticket. This is the professional appointment every company carrying dangerous goods must have, and he sat it himself rather than pay somebody else to hold it. It is taken OPEN BOOK, with two volumes of about 650 pages each in front of you and two hours to answer case studies, which is harder than a closed exam rather than easier: there is no time to look anything up, so either you know where it is or you do not finish. He gave it six months of study. THE RECOGNITION QUESTION IS CLOSED, and we said we would publish the answer either way, so here it is: the certificate ran five years and was not renewed, because after Brexit the cost did not justify what the work paid. An expired certificate is not recognised anywhere, including the country that issued it, so there was nothing to ask the Department for Transport. The knowledge is real and stays. The paper is not, and this business does not claim paper it does not hold. If the work ever calls for it the route here is the SQA examination, sat by module. |
| The full set of dangerous goods and abnormal load qualifications | Romanian, translated and notarised | Originals plus legalised translations, producible to anybody who asks. They were not collected as a hobby. Every one of them was sat for a reason and paid for out of his own pocket. |
| Train driver course, Oxford | Completed | Rail is on the board as a sector. He has at least sat in the room and knows what the route into it actually looks like. |
| ADR, dangerous goods | HELD, DELIBERATELY LAPSED | And the reason is the most useful thing on this page. He let it go not because the renewal was dear but because the pay difference between an ADR driver and an ordinary one was almost nothing. That is why this site now warns an employer when the money will not fill the role. |
| SIA door supervisor | Nine years, lapsed | Named here because it lapsed. We would rather tell you what has run out than let you assume it has not. |
| Bricklaying, two week UK course | Completed | Enough to talk to a site about a trowel trade without pretending to be a bricklayer. |
| General manager, over 500 staff | From age 31 | He has been the person who has to fill the shift, sign the invoice and explain the overspend. That is the client's side of this conversation. |
Nobody here has to be told what a Moffett is, why a Flexi is not a counterbalance, or what tramping does to a week. That is the only advantage a one person agency has over a large one, and it is a real one.
Out of hours, honestly
There is no 24 hour call centre here, and there is no point pretending there is. You would find out at four in the morning.
We read an agency site that advertises a dedicated 24 hour out of hours administrator on its team page, while its footer and its contact page both publish Monday to Friday, half past eight to five. Both cannot be true, and the client reading the footer never finds out which. For temporary work in logistics this is not a detail, it is the entire service: a driver rings at four in the morning and somebody has to fill that shift before six.
What actually happens at 4am
The out of hours number reaches the director's own mobile, not a desk that is closed. If a worker calls in sick before a shift, you get told immediately, whether or not we can cover it.
We do not accept a booking we cannot cover
The commonest damage an agency does is taking the shift, going quiet, and leaving the client to find out at six that nobody is coming. If we cannot fill it we say so while you still have time to ring somebody else.
Told before you rely on it
Any limit on cover for a weekend or a bank holiday is put in writing when the booking is confirmed, in the assignment details, rather than discovered on the day.
Growing into it honestly
Proper round the clock cover needs more than one person and it will come when the work supports it. Until it does, this page says one person, because that is what it is.