The Fair Work Agency Has Launched: What Increased Enforcement Means for You

A new government body now has real power to inspect your business, demand your records, and fine you for getting employment rights wrong. The Fair Work Agency launched on 7 April 2026, and if you’ve never dealt with a workplace inspection before, this is the change most likely to bring one to your door.

This guide explains what the Fair Work Agency actually is, in plain English, with no assumed knowledge.

A quick explainer of the terms you’ll see

Fair Work Agency (FWA) — a new UK government body responsible for enforcing employment rights, created under the Employment Rights Act 2025.
National Minimum Wage (NMW) — the legal minimum hourly rate employers must pay most workers.
Civil penalty — a financial fine issued by a regulator, separate from a criminal prosecution or an Employment Tribunal claim.
Employment Rights Act 2025 — the new UK law behind this and several other changes we’ve covered in previous articles. It became law on 18 December 2025, with individual provisions commencing on different dates.

What is the Fair Work Agency?

Before April 2026, enforcement of workplace rights in the UK was split across several separate bodies — each responsible for a different piece of the puzzle, with limited coordination between them. The Fair Work Agency exists to fix that. It’s a single body, sponsored by the Department for Business and Trade, that brings together:

HMRC’s National Minimum Wage enforcement team
The Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate (EASI), which oversaw recruitment agency conduct
The Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA), which tackled serious labour exploitation

The idea is a single point of contact and a joined-up enforcement approach, rather than an employer potentially facing separate investigations from separate bodies over related issues.

What powers does it actually have?

This is the part worth reading carefully, because the powers are broad and are being introduced in stages:

Workplace inspections — the FWA can inspect a workplace and require employers to produce relevant documents and records.
Civil penalties — it can issue fines where underpayment (of wages, or other statutory entitlements) is found. Penalties can be significant — some guidance cites figures of up to 200% of the amount underpaid.
Legal action on a worker’s behalf — the FWA can bring certain civil proceedings for workers, rather than requiring the individual to pursue a claim themselves.
Proactive investigation — crucially, the FWA doesn’t need to wait for a complaint. It can proactively initiate investigations into suspected breaches, shifting the model from complaint-driven to more actively regulatory.
Naming non-compliant employers — some reporting suggests the FWA can publicly name employers found to be non-compliant, adding a reputational dimension to enforcement.

What it currently covers — and what’s coming later

This is an important nuance: the FWA didn’t launch with every power switched on at once. At launch, it absorbed the existing functions of the three bodies above — meaning National Minimum Wage enforcement, employment agency standards, and labour exploitation protections were live from day one.

Holiday pay and Statutory Sick Pay enforcement functions are being added at later stages, alongside the power to expand the FWA’s remit further through future regulations. National Minimum Wage enforcement itself is also set to formally transfer across from HMRC by April 2027. In short: April 2026 was the beginning of this body’s reach, not the finished picture. Employers should expect its remit to keep growing.

Why this matters, even if you’ve never had an inspection before

The shift from complaint-driven to proactive enforcement is the real headline here. Previously, many employers only came into contact with enforcement bodies because a specific worker raised a specific complaint. Now, the FWA can choose to investigate based on its own intelligence and targeting — meaning a business with genuinely no complaints against it can still be selected for scrutiny.

Combined with other 2026 changes we’ve covered — day-one Statutory Sick Pay, extended record-keeping requirements for holiday pay, and longer Employment Tribunal time limits — the overall direction is clear: government expects employers to have clean, accurate, and well-documented pay and absence practices, and now has a body actively resourced to check.

What employers should do now

Get your core records in good order. Payroll records, payslips, working time and overtime records, holiday pay calculations, and SSP and absence logs are all specifically flagged as records the FWA will expect to see.
Check your National Minimum Wage compliance now, particularly for lower-paid, part-time, or casual roles where errors are more common — this is the area with enforcement powers live and active already.
Get ahead of holiday pay accuracy. With the new record-keeping duty already in force and FWA enforcement of holiday pay set to follow, this is a good moment to check your calculation methods are correct, especially for irregular-hours or variable-pay workers.
Review your SSP processes in light of the day-one changes we covered in our previous article — this is exactly the kind of area the FWA is expected to scrutinise as its remit expands.
Don’t assume “no complaints” means “no risk.” Proactive investigation means a clean complaint history is no longer a reliable indicator of enforcement risk.
Treat any FWA contact seriously and promptly, and don’t attempt to navigate an inspection or information request without HR or legal support.

How Cheviot HR can help

The safest position under a proactive enforcement model is to already be compliant before anyone comes looking. We can review your pay, holiday and absence practices against current requirements, help you build the record-keeping habits the Fair Work Agency will expect to see, and support you if you do receive an inspection or information request.

Get in touch at heidi@cheviothr.co.uk or visit https://cheviothr.co.uk to talk through what this means for your business.