The Fair Work Agency calls itself Britain's new single enforcement body for exploited workers. A year after launch, the officers who enforce the minimum wage still work for someone else.
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
In short. The Fair Work Agency's enforcement policy statement, updated 26 August 2026, says it "brings together enforcement functions previously exercised by multiple bodies into a single organisation" [2]. Its own delivery plan, updated five days earlier, says the officers who enforce the National Minimum Wage are still HM Revenue and Customs staff working "under contract" until "full transfer from April 2027" [4], and that this year's performance measures are simply "those used by founding organisations and NMW in 2025 to 2026" [4], not anything the FWA has defined itself. Three documented mistakes: four stars.
A single organisation, on paper
The Fair Work Agency launched on 7 April 2026 as an Executive Agency of the Department for Business and Trade, created under the Employment Rights Act 2025 [1] [2]. Its enforcement policy statement, last updated 26 August 2026, opens with a clean claim: "FWA brings together enforcement functions previously exercised by multiple bodies into a single organisation" [2]. Its remit, the statement says, spans "employment agency standards, pay-related rights including national minimum wage and national living wage, requirements for a gangmaster's licence and conditions for licences, and protections against serious labour exploitation" [2].
The powers backing that remit are real and substantial. FWA enforcement officers can require attendance for questioning, demand documents, carry out unannounced site visits, and, where authorised, use Police and Criminal Evidence Act powers for suspected serious labour offences under the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004 and the Modern Slavery Act 2015 [2]. Obstructing an officer or providing false documentation are criminal offences under sections 140 and 142 of the Employment Rights Act 2025 [2].
The document that qualifies it
The same paragraph that lists the minimum wage inside FWA's remit also discloses the arrangement behind it: "The Secretary of State has arranged with HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) for its officers to act as FWA enforcement officers for the purposes of enforcing the minimum wage" [2]. The enforcement statement does not say when that arrangement ends.
Its sibling document does. The FWA's own delivery plan for 2026 to 2027 [3], updated 21 August 2026, five days before the enforcement statement's own last update, states plainly under "About the Fair Work Agency": "The FWA has statutory responsibility for NMW enforcement. HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) delivers it under contract before full transfer from April 2027" [4]. The plan's own "Build the organisation" section lists, as a task still to be done, "effectively transferring around 500 colleagues to the FWA" [4]. The TUC's own account of the launch, published the week FWA opened, confirms the same timetable independently: National Minimum Wage enforcement "will be delivered under contract to the FWA by HMRC during 2026/27" and is "expected to be fully integrated within the FWA by 2027" [5].
Minimum wage enforcement is not a minor line in FWA's remit. It is the function that touches the largest number of workers of anything the agency does. A "single organisation" that does not yet employ the people doing its biggest job is a claim that gets ahead of its own facts by a year.
Metrics that do not exist yet
The enforcement statement also sets out five principles of "good regulation": proportionality, accountability, consistency, transparency and targeting [2]. Under "Accountability", it commits: "FWA and its enforcement officers remain accountable for the efficiency, effectiveness and cost of their operations... FWA will publish detailed performance metrics for the previous financial year" [2].
The delivery plan describes what that actually means for year one. Under "Deliver for those who need us", the measure against the ministerial expectation to "maintain at least the level of operational performance" is to "deliver the metrics agreed with BIST, which reflect those used by founding organisations and NMW in 2025 to 2026" [4]: the predecessor bodies' old measures, carried over, not a new FWA-specific yardstick. A genuinely new set of metrics is scheduled for later: the plan commits to "develop and publish our 2027-2030 Enforcement Strategy for April 2027," which "will include refined and more outcome focused corporate metrics for this period" [4]. The TUC's account gives the same date for "the first three-year FWA Strategy" [5]. The accountability principle is real; the numbers that would let a reader check it against are a year away.
Powers ahead of headcount
Concerns about whether the agency can use its wide powers at the scale intended did not wait for a teardown to surface. The Labour Research Department reported that the FWA "will have a budget of £60.1 million for 2026-27, up from the combined budget of £47.4 million for the predecessor bodies last year," and that staff transferring from those bodies give it "about 600 inspectors" [6]. Measured against the International Labour Organization's benchmark of one inspector for every 10,000 workers, the report put the UK's actual ratio at "an estimated 0.26 frontline inspectors per 10,000 workers," with "no plans for an expansion on that scale" [6].
The criticism came from the FWA's own natural allies, not opponents of the reform. Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said the government "needs to urgently ensure that the FWA focuses its attention on bringing rogue bosses to heel rather than seeking ways to allow dodgy companies to continue bad behaviour" [6]. The TUC, while welcoming the agency, said that "if the Fair Work Agency is to deliver... it will need additional funding, given that current state enforcement bodies are significantly under-resourced" [6]. The Institute of Employment Rights went further: co-author David Whyte wrote that "the history of workplace regulation in this country is one of weak enforcement, chronic underfunding and deference to big business. The FWA must be given the powers and resources it needs, or it risks becoming just another toothless regulator" [6].
The claims, tested
| The claim | What the record shows | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| "FWA brings together enforcement functions previously exercised by multiple bodies into a single organisation" [2] | The FWA's own delivery plan says minimum wage enforcement, part of that same remit, is "delivered under contract" by HMRC "before full transfer from April 2027" [4] | True of the legal remit, not yet true of the workforce doing the work |
| "FWA will publish detailed performance metrics for the previous financial year" [2] | Year-one metrics are the unchanged predecessor-body measures; new outcome metrics wait for the 2027-2030 strategy [4] | The commitment exists; the yardstick it depends on does not, yet |
| The statement sets out proportionate, targeted, risk-based enforcement backed by unannounced inspections and PACE powers [2] | Reported staffing (about 600 inspectors) sits far below the ILO's one-per-10,000-workers benchmark, on the Labour Research Department's own account [6] | The powers are real; independent commentary questions whether current headcount can use them at scale |
The mistakes, counted
A "single organisation" claim that outruns its own staffing plan (1). The enforcement statement's headline description, that FWA already "brings together enforcement functions previously exercised by multiple bodies into a single organisation" [2], sits alongside its own admission, two sentences later, that minimum wage officers are HMRC staff under arrangement, not FWA employees [2]. The delivery plan dates the actual merger to April 2027 [4], a year after the statement describing the single organisation was last updated.
A published accountability commitment with no metric behind it yet (2). The promise to "publish detailed performance metrics for the previous financial year" [2] is measured, this year, against metrics the delivery plan admits are simply "those used by founding organisations and NMW in 2025 to 2026" [4]: not a new standard, a recycled one, with the genuine article deferred to April 2027.
Wide new powers, with independent commentary questioning the resourcing to use them (3). The enforcement statement sets out unannounced inspections, PACE powers and criminal prosecution routes without reference to headcount [2]. The Labour Research Department's reporting, drawing on the ILO's own inspector benchmark, put the UK's actual ratio at roughly a fortieth of the recommended level, and quoted the TUC, Unite and the Institute of Employment Rights all separately raising the same resourcing concern [6].
Credit where due
None of this is concealment. The enforcement statement discloses the HMRC arrangement in the same breath as the single-organisation claim, rather than burying it [2]; the delivery plan is unusually candid about what year one actually is, calling it "a foundational year" and admitting that "building any new organisation, especially from very different founding bodies, is bound to have its challenges and bumps in the road" [4]. Both documents give exact, checkable dates, April 2027, for the transfer and the new strategy, rather than vague future promises. And the underlying reform is not cosmetic: the FWA gained real new criminal powers on day one, including under the Fraud Act 2006, and the delivery plan commits to working out "how these and other new powers can be used most effectively" rather than leaving them unused [4].
Verdict
Four stars, from three documented mistakes. The Fair Work Agency's enforcement policy statement is not wrong about its legal remit or its powers; both are real, and both documents disclose the HMRC arrangement rather than hide it. What the statement's own framing gets ahead of is time: it describes a single organisation and a working accountability regime a year before either is actually in place, on its own delivery plan's own dates. A new enforcement body built from three old ones was always going to take time to become what its founding document already calls it.
Sources
- Fair Work Agency: enforcement policy statement, Department for Business and Trade and Fair Work Agency, published 7 April 2026, updated 26 August 2026.
- Fair Work Agency enforcement statement, Department for Business and Trade and Fair Work Agency, updated 26 August 2026.
- Fair Work Agency delivery plan for 2026 to 2027, Fair Work Agency, updated 21 August 2026.
- Fair Work Agency delivery plan 2026 to 2027, Fair Work Agency, updated 21 August 2026.
- The new Fair Work Agency - latest developments and union priorities, TUC, Matt Creagh, published 17 April 2026.
- Meet the Fair Work Agency, Labour Research Department, published 12 May 2026.