On 6 April 2022 the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations quietly got bigger. The amendment regulations - PPER 2022 - did not change what employers owe; they changed WHO is owed it. For a sector built on agency drivers, seasonal pickers and casual warehouse labour, that is the whole story.
UK employment law splits “worker” into two limbs under section 230(3) of the Employment Rights Act 1996:
Before 2022, the PPE duties covered only limb (a). PPER 2022 extended the same duties - unchanged in substance - to limb (b). The casual who loads your trailers twice a week now stands in the same PPE position as the person on the payroll.
The base rule from PPER 1992: every employer in Great Britain must ensure suitable PPE is provided to workers who may be exposed to a risk to their health or safety while at work. Around that core:
PPER 2022 gives limb (b) workers their own duties too: use the PPE in accordance with the training and instruction given, and return it to the storage provided. Lost or defective PPE should be reported to the employer. PPE is a two-party system - the vest hanging unworn on the forklift cage is a worker-duty failure as much as a management one.
The obvious catches: agency drivers who need hi-vis and safety boots in your yard; seasonal warehouse staff through peak; owner-drivers working under contract to a single operator, if the relationship fits the limb (b) definition. The honest test is the definition itself - personally performing work for a party that is not a client or customer of a business they run. The genuinely self-employed subcontractor running their own business sits outside; the casual who just turns up and works sits inside.
None of the 2022 changes altered PPE’s place in the hierarchy: it tops off controls, it never replaces them. The risk assessment comes first, engineering and safe systems of work next, and PPE covers what is left. A warehouse issuing gloves against a hazard that better racking would remove has the sequence backwards - and an inspector will say so. The extended duty is about WHO gets the last line, not about moving it up the order.
The 2022 change was easy to miss because it changed a definition rather than a duty. There is also a fairness argument hiding in the compliance one. The agency picker and the payroll picker face identical hazards in the same aisle; a rulebook that armoured one and not the other was always indefensible, and since April 2022 it is also unlawful. Getting limb (b) PPE right is one of the rare compliance jobs that is visibly, immediately the right thing to do.
For any business with a casual workforce, it is worth an afternoon checking the glove box - literally.
The question every transport manager asks: if the PPE is for an agency worker, whose duty is it - yours or the agency’s? The regulations place the duty on every employer to provide PPE to their workers exposed to risk, and the limb (b) extension deliberately sweeps casual relationships into scope. In practice the safe answer is the simple one: whoever’s site and risk assessment it is, make sure the worker has suitable, free PPE before they start - and sort the contractual cost-sharing afterwards. The hazard does not wait for the agencies’ paperwork.