You might be asking yourself what is the Fair Work Agency and exactly what will it do?

To date, we have been caught up with the material changes of the Employment Rights Act 2025 like changes to SSP, changes to paternity leave entitlement and so on. We’ve even been thinking about to 2027 changes around unfair dismissal rights.

But, what we haven’t been focusing on is the introduction of the Fair Work Agency (FWA cos goodness knows we need another acronym, don’t we?!).

The FWA launches on 7th April 2026. So what exactly is it, what will it do, what do we need to know?

Most employment rights are currently enforced by individual employees and ex-employees lodging a complaint to an Employment Tribunal. Some other rights are enforced by the Government but the situation is both fragmented and complicated.

The FWA will bring together existing state enforcement functions and, over time, take on enforcement of a wider range of employment rights.

This will be a single place where workers and employers can turn for help. It will improve efficiency by ensuring there is one leadership team to oversee work in line with a unified strategy.

The FWA will aim to resolve issues by supporting employers that want to comply with the law.

But it will also have strong powers to investigate and take action against businesses that flout the law, to level the playing field for compliant businesses.

What’s in the Fair Work Agency remit?

The FWA will enforce key employment rights including, but not limited to, National Minimum Wage, Statutory Sick Pay, holiday pay and modern slavery regulations.

The agency will have strong investigative powers which will include the ability to carry out workplace inspections and initiate legal proceedings on behalf of workers.

They will be able to impose penalties such as requiring employers to pay back arrears within 20 days. Fines could potentially reach 200% of the amount owed. 

What’s the goal?

The goal is for the FWA to become a “one-stop shop” for enforcing worker rights, replacing the multiple existing bodies we already know about. They will also focus on supporting employers with compliance alongside taking action against those who breach employment law. 

What do I need to worry about?

Not a lot, in truth because you’ll already be complying with these key areas of employment rights. It’s important to remember that the FWA is being introduced to deal with non-compliant employers, the ones who give the rest of us a bad name.

Sanctions like fines and legal proceedings will be a last resort and will be applied to those employers who continually flout the rules AND ignore attempts to resolve issues. And let’s face it, you’re not among those employers because you’re either working with Keeping HR Simple or you’re an inhouse HR person yourself who simply wouldn’t sleep at night if you thought you were doing something wrong.

That’s the difference isn’t it. Those of us with a conscience would be heartbroken to think we’d inadvertently breached anything relating to our teams. Other businesses, the ones the FWA will be interested in, need to be brought into line to make it fairer for all of us.

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