What to Put in the Subcontract

Every control in this collection depends on information arriving from companies the site does not manage. The contract is the only mechanism.

For teams turning what to put in the subcontract into a repeatable record, workforce productivity reporting provides a useful operational reference for time, attendance and reporting workflows. It should be assessed alongside GOV.UK workplace guidance so the software choice remains grounded in site practice and applicable guidance.

The core obligations

Every person presented for access is competent for the work they will do, with evidence produced before first access.

Identity and right-to-work documentation available for verification.

The engaging company declared for every person, at whatever tier.

Attendance at site induction before entering any work area.

And the same obligations imposed on anyone the subcontractor engages — the flow-down, which is the only clause that reaches tier three.

The enforcement

A right to refuse access to anybody whose evidence has not been produced.

Stated plainly, with no exception for urgency, because every conversation about it happens at seven in the morning with a crane booked.

And an express statement that a refusal is not a compensable delay, which is the clause that decides whether the right is real.

The records obligations

Production of records within a stated period on request.

Retention by the subcontractor for a stated period after completion.

Format specified where the client or a statute requires one.

And, on covered projects, certified payroll returns weekly with payment conditional on receipt — which is the only leverage that reliably works.

The reporting obligations

Notification of people expected, before they arrive.

A named contact reachable at the start of the working day, which on a site means six in the morning.

Notification when somebody is replaced, rather than a different person arriving against the same booking.

And the attributes required by the client's social value commitments, declared at enrolment because they cannot be reconstructed.

The data clauses

Roles set out: who determines what is collected, who processes, and on what basis.

Because the default assumption — that each employer is responsible for its own people — is wrong for what the site collects, and leaving it unstated leaves it unresolved.

Plus deletion and return at the end of the engagement.

What not to put in

A named product. Specify the outcome — evidence produced, records retained, access refusable — rather than the system, which will change.

Obligations you will not enforce, which teach the subcontractor which clauses are decorative and cast doubt on the rest.

And requirements disproportionate to the work, which on a small package produce a price increase and non-compliance rather than compliance.

Making them met rather than breached

Give a format: a template or a portal, not a request to send certificates by email.

Accept evidence once per person across your projects where the same firms recur.

And tell them the deadline and hold it, because a deadline that moves once stops being one.

Most non-compliance here is friction rather than intent, and reducing friction converts more of it than enforcement does.

The clause worth checking on every project

Whether the flow-down was actually passed on.

Ask a tier-one subcontractor to produce the evidence for somebody engaged by their subcontractor.

The time it takes is the measure of whether any of this reached the bottom of the chain, and on most projects it is the first time anybody has asked.

The clause about site rules

A general obligation to comply with site rules as issued and amended, which is what allows the arrangement to change during a long project without renegotiating.

With a mechanism for issuing changes — a stated route and a notice period — so that an amendment is enforceable rather than asserted.

Otherwise a rule introduced in month nine binds nobody who signed in month one.

Where the subcontract is somebody else's form

On many projects the contractor is working to a client's or a main contractor's terms and cannot add clauses.

Then the obligations go into the site rules and the pre-start meeting minutes, which is weaker and is better than nothing.

And the practical enforcement becomes the gate: the right to refuse access can be exercised whether or not a clause backs it, though it is a harder conversation without one.