Who is responsible for ‘redundancy payment’ in a situation whereby an agency has a candidate placed with a client for 2+ years continuously and the individual is paid by the agency and bills the client for the associated costs?

There are a number of issues to be addressed here. The main issue is whether the agency worker is an ‘employee’ and so entitled to a redundancy payment. If an employee, who is his /her employer? An ‘employee’ is defined at Article 3 of the Employment Rights (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 as an individual who has entered into, or works under, a contract of employment. Agency workers are usually considered to be ‘workers’ and not ‘employees’.

However, the agency worker may have a permanent contract of employment with the agency, which will be the case if you have engaged the agency under the Swedish Derogation.

You should look at your terms of engagement with the agency in the first instance.