Employer terms of business

These terms are the agreement between your business and OpenStaff when you use OpenStaff to recruit. In short: OpenStaff is for hospitality businesses hiring in Great Britain. We match candidates to your jobs automatically, and we do not vet, check or verify any candidate. Every advert must be lawful, genuine and accurate. You may use a candidate's information only to fill the vacancy in question. A person must look at each candidate before you decide, and you must not reject anyone on a score alone. Right-to-work checks are yours to do. You must never charge a candidate. Candidates have their own terms of use.

Who we are

OpenStaff is run by OpenStaff Ltd, a private limited company registered in England and Wales.

Company number: 17474082
Registered office: 128 City Road, London, United Kingdom, EC1V 2NX
Email: contact@openstaff.co.uk

In these terms "OpenStaff", "we" and "us" mean OpenStaff Ltd. "You" means the business named on the employer account.

How these terms work

Who accepts them. The person who creates the employer account accepts these terms for the business, and confirms that they have the authority to do so. We keep a record of which version was accepted, and when.
What they include. These terms include our rules for using OpenStaff and our job-posting rules, set out below.
No other terms. No other terms apply to your use of OpenStaff, including any terms of your own.
Privacy. Our privacy notice explains how we use personal information about you and the people in your business. It is not part of this agreement.
Keeping a copy. You can read these terms on this page at any time, and save or print them from your browser. You can ask us for a copy of any earlier version that you accepted.

Who can have an employer account

Businesses only. You must be acting for a business. OpenStaff is not for people hiring for their own household.
Hospitality venues in Great Britain. Your business must run a hospitality venue, such as a restaurant, café, bar, pub, hotel or catering business. Each job must be at a venue in Great Britain. OpenStaff does not yet operate in Northern Ireland.
Your own vacancies. You must be the business that will employ or engage the person you hire. You may not post jobs for another business.
One account. Each business has one employer account. If you have more than one site, add each one as a branch.
The people who use it. Anyone who uses the account must be authorised by you. You are responsible for everything that is done through it. Keep the sign-in details secure, and tell us straight away at contact@openstaff.co.uk if you think someone has used the account without permission.

Your business details and our checks

When you sign up we ask for:

the name and the legal name of the business, its legal form and, if it is a company, its company number;
the type of venue;
its address, a contact email address and a phone number;
the name and email address of the person who holds the account.

You must give accurate details and keep them up to date. Tell us if the business changes its name or its owner, or stops trading.

Our checks. We check these details before any candidate's profile is shown to you. We may check public registers, such as Companies House and the UK sanctions list, and we may ask you for evidence. We finish these checks before we take any payment from you. We may repeat our checks at any time. Until they are complete you will not be shown any candidate, and we may hold back your adverts.

No badge. Our checks are for our own purposes. Passing them does not mean that OpenStaff approves of your business or vouches for it, and you must not say that it does.

What candidates see about you. Candidates see the name and legal name of the business, its logo, address, city and size, the name, photo, address and city of the branch, and whatever you put in the advert, including its contact field. Messages you send appear under the name of the business or branch. Candidates never see the account holder's own name, username or account email address. Logos are stored at web addresses that anyone who has the link can open. An advert we have taken down shows candidates who had saved, applied to or been matched with it only its title, the business and the dates.

What OpenStaff does, and what it does not do

Automated matching. Our system works out how well each candidate fits each of your open jobs, and shows you the candidates who score 40 or more out of 100, and any pair a person at OpenStaff has made a match. It uses AI.
No vetting. We do not vet candidates. We do not check anyone's work history, qualifications, references, criminal record or health. Profiles are written by candidates, and we do not promise that they are accurate or complete.
A match is not a reference. A match, a score or an explanation is an automated estimate of how well a profile fits a job. It says nothing about a person's character, honesty or right to work.
No guarantee. We do not promise that you will get matches or applications, how many, how quickly, or that you will fill a vacancy.
Your decisions. You decide whom to invite, interview, try out and hire, and on what terms. Those decisions, and your duties as an employer, are your responsibility.
We are not part of your hiring. We are not part of any contract between you and a candidate. We do not employ, supply or pay candidates.
Candidates control their accounts. A candidate can hide their profile from matched employers, block your business or close their account at any time, and can withdraw an application until you mark it as hired or rejected. When they do, you may no longer be able to see them on OpenStaff. A candidate who blocks your business can no longer be messaged or invited by you, and you no longer see their email address or phone number; you still see any application they have made to you. When a candidate's account is erased after they close it, we tell you if our records show we sent you their information, unless the law stops us. A candidate who lists your business as their current employer is never shown to you through a match; if they apply to one of your jobs, you see that application and their profile.
How contact works. You can invite a candidate who matches your job. You can message a candidate only after you have invited them or they have applied for that job. A candidate's email address and phone number are shown to you only after they apply, or after they reply to one of your messages, and only while you can open their profile.

The rules for using OpenStaff

These rules apply to everyone who uses OpenStaff: candidates, employers and anyone who sends us a report or a form.

Do not post or send anything that:

is illegal, or helps anyone to commit a crime;
is a scam or a fraud. That includes fake jobs, asking for money or bank details, and "jobs" that involve receiving or passing on money or parcels for someone else;
offers or arranges sexual services, or hides trafficking, forced work or any other exploitation;
threatens, harasses, bullies or abuses anyone, or is sexual, violent or hateful;
treats anyone worse because of their age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation;
is any image of a child;
pretends to be someone else, or misleads people about who you are or who you work for;
is false or misleading;
includes another person's private details without their agreement;
uses someone else's writing, photo, logo or trade mark without the right to;
is advertising, or has nothing to do with hospitality recruitment.

Do not:

copy, scrape or collect information from OpenStaff with automated tools;
sell, share or publish other users' details, or use them to build a contact list;
open more than one account, use someone else's account or let anyone outside your business use yours;
open a new account to get round a suspension or a block;
try to get into accounts or data that are not yours, test or attack our systems, upload harmful code or overload the service. If you find a security problem, please tell us at security@openstaff.co.uk;
let anyone under 18 use your account.

Job adverts

Your confirmation. Each time you post, reopen or change a job, we ask you to confirm that the advert is lawful, genuine and accurate. We rely on that confirmation, and we keep a record of it with a copy of the advert as you confirmed it.

Lawful. It follows the job-posting rules in these terms and the law, including the Equality Act 2010 and the law on the minimum wage.
Genuine. It is for a real vacancy, at your own venue in Great Britain, that is open now and that you intend to fill. It is not there to collect people's details or to promote something else, and you must not use it to sell training or anything else, or to promote a business opportunity.
Accurate. It gives the real job title and describes the real job: the work, the place, the pay, the hours and the type of contract.

If you knowingly or recklessly confirm that an advert does not break the Equality Act 2010 when it does, you may commit a criminal offence under that Act.

Keeping adverts current. Each advert runs for 30 days and then closes automatically. If we have not finished checking your business when you post an advert, its 30 days start when we have. Once we charge for posts (see "Fees and payment"), you can save an advert before we have checked your business, and publish it, and pay for it, once we have: its 30 days start when your payment reaches us. You can reopen an advert from its page: if you reopen it before its end date, it runs until that date; otherwise a new 30 days starts. Time when we have taken an advert down does not count towards its 30 days. Time while your account is closed, and while we check your business again after you change its legal form or company number, does count. Close an advert as soon as the job is filled or withdrawn. Post one advert for each vacancy, and reopen an advert only if the job is still open. We limit how many adverts a business can have open at one time.

Checks on adverts. Before an advert is published, and each time you change or reopen it, it is checked automatically for certain words and phrases that our rules do not allow, and its pay is checked against the minimum wage. An advert that fails the check is not published until you change it. For some wording, the check asks you to confirm that it is right for the job before the advert is published. The check is a fixed list of words and phrases: it can miss problems, and it can stop wording that is fine. We may also hold back or take down an advert that breaks our rules or that someone has reported. We tell you why, and you can appeal. See "Complaints, reports and appeals" below.

Who sees your adverts. Adverts are shown to signed-in users of OpenStaff. They are not on the public web. Parts of each advert are sent to the AI models that do the matching.

People you name. If you put a person's name or contact details in an advert or a branch record, use business contact details, make sure the person knows, and tell them where to find our privacy notice.

Links in an advert. Do not link to a site that asks candidates for payment or bank details.

Your content. You keep ownership of your adverts, your business name and your logo. You give us permission to store them, copy them, show them to candidates on OpenStaff and in the emails we send candidates about your messages, and process them for matching. You confirm that you have the right to use everything you upload.

No paid ranking. You cannot pay to change match scores or the order in which candidates see jobs. If we ever offer paid promotion, promoted adverts will be clearly labelled.

Wording that is not allowed in an advert, and what to write instead

An advert must not shut people out, or put them off, because of who they are. These are the most common problems.

Do not write	Why not	Write instead
"British passport holders only", "UK citizens only", "must be British"	It shuts people out because of their nationality	"You must have the right to work in the UK."
"Native English speaker", "English as a first language"	It shuts people out because of where they are from	The level of English the job needs, such as "fluent spoken English" or "able to take orders and talk to customers in English"
"Waitress", "barmaid", "barman", "handyman"	It suggests that the job is for one sex	"Waiting staff", "bartender", "maintenance person"
"Young", "youthful team", "mature", "recent graduate"	It shuts people out because of their age	The skills and experience the job needs. Candidates must be 18 or over to use OpenStaff
"Must be physically fit", "must be healthy", "no health problems"	It can shut out disabled people for reasons that have nothing to do with the job	What the job involves, such as "You will be on your feet for most of the shift and will lift crates of up to 20 kg"
"Clean record", "no criminal record", "no convictions"	People do not have to tell you about convictions that are spent	Leave it out
"Non-union", "no union members", "union members only"	Nobody may be refused work because they are, or are not, in a trade union	Leave it out
"Bring your police record", "send us your medical records"	Making someone get their own police or health records and hand them over is a criminal offence	Leave it out
"£50 uniform deposit", "registration fee", "pay for your training before you start", "sponsorship fee"	A candidate must never pay for a job	Leave it out, and never charge a candidate
"Cash in hand"	It suggests pay that is kept off the books	The rate of pay, and that it is paid through payroll
An hourly rate below the minimum wage	It is against the law	At least the minimum wage that applies to the worker
"Unpaid trial week", "three unpaid trial shifts"	A trial that is more than a short test must be paid	"Paid trial shift", or a short skills test that you watch

The same rules apply to anything else in an advert that refers to a person's age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.

In very rare cases the law allows a job to be limited to people with a particular characteristic. Our automatic check cannot tell when that applies, so it stops the limits on its list, by nationality, by sex, to an upper age or by disability, in every advert (a minimum age above 18 is asked about instead). If you think it applies to your job, contact us before you post it, and we will tell you how the advert can be worded.

Pay, hours and trial shifts

Base pay. Every advert must state the pay. State the base pay honestly, as an amount for each hour or each year, with the top of a range only if the pay varies. It must be at least the National Minimum Wage or National Living Wage that applies to the worker. From 1 April 2026 that is £12.71 an hour for workers aged 21 or over and £10.85 an hour for workers aged 18 to 20. The rates change on 1 April each year. See the current rates on GOV.UK (opens in a new tab). We do not publish an advert whose pay works out below the rate for workers aged 18 to 20, apprenticeships included, and we ask you to check again any advert below the rate for workers aged 21 or over. A yearly salary needs guaranteed hours each week, so that we can work out the hourly rate from them, over 52 weeks. Do not write pay into the advert's text that differs from the pay you give: our check asks you to confirm any amount of pay it finds there.
Tips. Show tips, service charge and tronc separately from base pay: the job form has a box for saying that the job comes with a share of tips, and no box for an amount. Tips do not count towards the minimum wage, and by law all tips must be passed on to workers without deductions.
Hours. Say honestly what hours are on offer: the guaranteed hours each week, or that the hours vary or the contract is zero-hours. The job form asks for this, and candidates see it on the job's page.
Type of contract. Say whether the job is permanent or temporary. The job form asks for this, and candidates see it on the job's page.
Trial shifts. A trial shift must be paid at least the minimum wage, unless it is a genuine recruitment assessment: short, watched by you, and no longer than you reasonably need to see whether the person can do the job. Government guidance says that a trial lasting more than one day is likely to need paying in all but very exceptional circumstances. See the GOV.UK guidance on unpaid work trials (opens in a new tab). Tell the candidate, before the trial, how long it will be and whether it is paid. When you move a candidate to the Trial stage, we ask you how long the trial will be and whether it is paid. We show the candidate your answer, and we do not accept an unpaid trial of more than 4 hours, or a second unpaid trial for the same candidate and job. Do not use trial shifts to cover busy periods or to get work done for nothing.
No cash-in-hand work. Do not offer pay that is kept off the books.

Never charge a candidate

You must never ask a candidate to pay you, or anyone else, for anything connected with getting the job. That includes a fee to apply, to be interviewed, to do a trial or to start work, the cost of training or a uniform, a deposit, a "registration" or "admin" fee, and any charge for visa sponsorship or for anything connected with it.

You must not pass on to a candidate, or take from their pay, any fee that you pay to OpenStaff.

Using candidate information

When OpenStaff shows you a candidate's details, we are sharing personal information with you. This section sets the rules for it. It covers everything you see or receive about a candidate through OpenStaff: profiles, photos, applications, cover letters, contact details, messages, scores and explanations.

Who is responsible for what. OpenStaff is the controller of the information it holds and of the matching. When you receive a candidate's information, you become a separate controller of it in your own right. You decide how to use it in your recruitment, within the limits below, and you are responsible under data protection law for what you do with it.

What you may use it for. Only to decide whether to invite, interview, try out or hire that candidate for the vacancy they matched or applied for. If you want to consider them for a different job, post that job on OpenStaff or ask the candidate.

What you must not do.

Do not share it with anyone outside your business, and do not use it for another business.
Do not export it, copy it in bulk, scrape it or collect it with automated tools, and do not build your own database of candidates from it.
Do not use it for marketing of any kind.
Do not contact a candidate outside OpenStaff unless OpenStaff has shown you their contact details, and then only about the vacancy.
Do not use it to train or test any AI system or other automated tool.

Keep it secure. Let only the people in your business who need it for that recruitment decision see it. Protect it against loss, and against anyone who should not see it. If you learn that a candidate's information from OpenStaff has been lost, stolen or seen by someone who should not have seen it, tell us at privacy@openstaff.co.uk without delay.

Delete it when you no longer need it. If you copy a candidate's information out of OpenStaff, for example into your own notes or files, delete it once the vacancy is filled or closed and you no longer need it. If we tell you that a candidate has closed their account, asked for their information to be erased or corrected it, delete or correct your own copies too. You may keep what the law requires you to keep, and what you need to deal with a legal claim. If you hire the candidate, what you hold becomes part of your own staff records, and you are responsible for it.

Help with candidates' rights. Candidates have legal rights over their information, including the right to see it, correct it, have it erased and object to how it is used. If a candidate asks you to use one of those rights, deal with the request yourself for the information you hold. If the request is about what OpenStaff holds, pass it to privacy@openstaff.co.uk without delay. If we ask for your help with a request or a complaint, give it promptly.

Tell candidates how you use their information. You must have your own privacy information for job applicants. Give it to each candidate whose information you use, at the latest when you first contact them, and in any case within one month of first receiving their information.

Your private notes. Notes that you write about a candidate are not shown to the candidate in OpenStaff, but authorised OpenStaff staff can read them, and each time they do we record who did it and why. When a candidate's account is erased, we delete your notes about them from OpenStaff. A candidate may still have a legal right to a copy, so write only what is relevant, fair and accurate. Do not record anything about a candidate's health, disability, race, religion or any other protected characteristic.

Our record. We keep a record of which candidates' profiles and contact details have been sent to your account. We may tell a candidate which employers have been sent their information.

If you break this section. We may suspend your account at once. We may also tell the candidates affected and the Information Commission (ICO).

Scores and "Why this matched"

Scores, the Strong, Good and Possible labels and the "Why this matched" explanations are produced automatically, using AI. Each explanation says whether AI wrote it (explanations stored before we began recording this say neither), and "See why" (the information icon next to a candidate's score) shows the main factors behind a score, where we have a record of how it was worked out. Nobody at OpenStaff checks them before you see them, and they can be wrong.
They are recommendations, to help you decide whom to look at first. They are not an assessment of a person, and they are not a decision.
A person in your business must look at a candidate's profile, and at their application if there is one, before you shortlist or reject them.
You must not reject a candidate on a score or a label alone, and you must not use any rule or tool that does.
An application with no score means only that our system did not match that candidate to that job. Treat it like any other application.
Hiring decisions are yours. Do not tell a candidate that OpenStaff, or its matching, made one.
A person at OpenStaff can change a match after looking at it: make a pair a match (its score can then be below 40), remove one, work out again the score of an applicant, or of a candidate you invited whose score the recommender no longer works out, or replace an explanation with the standard one from our formula. You see the change. We do not tell you why it was made.
If an explanation looks wrong, or mentions something it should not, open "See why" for it and choose "Report this explanation". A person at OpenStaff will look at it and email you what we decided.
If you use an automated tool of your own to sort or reject applicants, you are responsible for it and for meeting the law on automated decisions.

Right-to-work checks

It is your job. You are responsible for checking that every person you employ or engage has the right to work in the UK. That means everyone, British and Irish citizens included. Checking only some people, because of how they look or sound or where you think they are from, is discrimination.
Before the first shift. Do the check before the person's first shift. That includes a trial shift.
In OpenStaff. When you move a candidate to Trial or Hired, we remind you to do the check. The reminder is not a check, and nothing about it is stored.
How. Follow the Home Office's instructions: Checking a job applicant's right to work (opens in a new tab) and the employer's guide to right to work checks (opens in a new tab).
Limits on work. Some people may work only for a limited time, or for a limited number of hours. Students are one example. The guide explains the extra evidence you need to keep, such as term dates, and when to repeat a check.
If you get it wrong. If you employ someone who is not allowed to do the work, and you have not done a correct check, you can be given a civil penalty for each worker. It can also lead to a review of your premises licence, and to losing it.

Treating candidates fairly and lawfully

You must treat candidates fairly and within the law at every step: in adverts, when you choose whom to invite, in messages, at interview, at a trial and when you decide.

No discrimination. Do not treat anyone worse because of their age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, race (which includes colour, nationality and ethnic or national origin), religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation. Do not use a candidate's name or photo to guess any of these.
Do not ask us to discriminate. We will not filter, hide, sort or prefer candidates by any of those characteristics, or by anything that stands in for one. If you ask us to, we refuse, we record the request, and we may warn you or suspend your account.
Health and disability. Before you offer someone a job, do not ask about their health, their sickness record or a disability. That applies in an advert, in a message, at an interview and at a trial. The law allows a small number of exceptions. The main ones are asking whether a candidate needs an adjustment for the interview or trial, and asking whether they can do something that is an essential part of the job, taking account of adjustments. If you are not sure that a question is allowed, do not ask it.
Adjustments. Make reasonable adjustments for disabled candidates at an interview and at a trial.
Criminal records. Do not require a "clean record". A candidate does not have to tell you about a conviction that is spent, and you must not refuse them because of one.
Police and health records. Never require a candidate to get a copy of their own police or health records and hand it to you. That is a criminal offence. If a criminal record check is genuinely needed for a role, use the official disclosure service.
Trade unions. Do not ask whether a candidate is, or has been, a member of a trade union. Do not prefer or refuse anyone because of it, and never make or use a list of union members.
No harassment. Do not harass, threaten or abuse a candidate, and do not send sexual or offensive messages.

GOV.UK has a short guide: Preventing discrimination in recruitment (opens in a new tab).

Messages and invitations

Use messages only for the vacancy: the application, and arranging an interview, a trial or a start date.
Be polite.
Do not use them for marketing, or to offer anything else.
Never ask a candidate for money. Do not ask a candidate to send bank details, identity documents or right-to-work share codes through OpenStaff. Collect those directly, once you are making an offer.
When you invite a candidate, or move an application to a new stage, OpenStaff sends the candidate a short automatic message in the name of your business or branch, and may email them. A private note that you add to a stage change is never included. If the candidate has blocked your business, no automatic message is sent, and you cannot message them.
Candidates can turn off message emails, block your business and report a message to us.

When our staff can read messages. Messages are between you and the candidate. We do not monitor them. A small number of authorised OpenStaff staff can open a conversation, and only for one of these reasons:

to run the service, for example to fix a fault that you have reported;
to deal with a request, a report or a complaint;
to keep people safe, where we have a specific reason to suspect serious harm or a serious breach of our rules.

Each time a member of staff opens messages in our admin tool, we record who did it and why. The engineers who run our servers do not read messages except to fix a fault; access to our servers and database is limited to named engineers, and their sessions on our servers are recorded. By using messages on OpenStaff, you agree that we can read them in these situations. Candidates agree to the same thing in their terms.

Keeping people safe

OpenStaff carries content that one user writes and another sees: job adverts, profiles, photos and messages. This section explains how illegal content is dealt with, as the Online Safety Act 2023 requires. It protects you and the people in your business as well as candidates.

How to report something. Use the Report button beside a profile or a message, use our report form, or email contact@openstaff.co.uk. The section "Complaints, reports and appeals" below says what to tell us and what happens next. If someone is in immediate danger, call 999.

What we do about illegal content. A person at OpenStaff looks at every report. When we learn that content is illegal, from a report or in any other way, we take it down quickly. Depending on what we find, we may also warn, suspend or close the account that posted it. If you gave us a way to reply, we tell you what we decided.

Terrorism content. We take it down, we suspend or close the account that posted it, and we may report it to the police.
Child sexual abuse content. OpenStaff is for adults only, and we do not allow any image of a child. If we find content of this kind, we stop anyone seeing it, keep the evidence securely, report it to the National Crime Agency as the law requires and close the account.
Other serious illegal content. On a recruitment service the main risks are fake job adverts and other fraud, adverts that hide trafficking, forced work or sexual exploitation, and harassment and threats in messages. We take the content down. Where other users are at risk, we suspend the account while we look into it, and when we suspend an employer all of its adverts come down together. We may also tell the police, the Fair Work Agency or another authority.

How we keep illegal content off OpenStaff. Employers must pass our checks before they can see any candidate. Adverts are shown only to signed-in users, and a candidate's profile only to employers whose jobs they match or apply for. Neither is on the public web. An employer can message a candidate only after an invitation or an application, and candidates cannot message first. Messages are text only, and a photo can appear only as a candidate's profile photo or as the logo of a business or branch. We limit how often jobs, invitations and messages can be sent. Every advert must follow our job-posting rules, and the employer must confirm that it is lawful.

Technology. We do not use automated tools to look for illegal content in messages, profiles or photos. Job adverts are checked automatically, before they are published and each time they are changed or reopened, by software that compares the advert's words with a fixed list of words and phrases that our job-posting rules do not allow, and its pay with the minimum wage. The software does not use artificial intelligence and does not learn. If an advert contains wording our rules never allow, it is not published until it is changed; for other wording on the list, the employer must confirm that it is right for the job. A decision to take content down, or to act against an account, is always made by a person.

Privacy and free expression. When we decide what to do about a report, we take account of users' privacy and of their right to express themselves within the law. We take content down only when we have reason to think that it is illegal or that it breaks our rules.

Complaints and appeals. You can complain if you think content on OpenStaff is illegal, if we took down your content or restricted your account, or if you think we are not doing what this section says. The section "Complaints, reports and appeals" below explains how to complain and how to appeal.

Fees and payment

Candidates never pay to use OpenStaff.

What you pay for. We charge for each job post. A post puts one advert on OpenStaff for 30 days, as "Keeping adverts current" explains. Reopening an advert after its 30 days have ended is a new post. Changing an advert, closing it, and reopening it before its 30 days have ended cost nothing more, and nor do matches, invitations, messages or applications. We never charge for a hire. A post does not change match scores or the order in which candidates see jobs, and it does not guarantee any match, application or hire.

Prices. Your business's first 10 posts cost £47 each. Every post after that costs £147. Prices are in pounds sterling. A post takes one of your first 10 places as soon as you start paying for it. The place comes back if you cancel the payment, if the payment page closes before you pay, or if we refund the post in full. Before you pay, the job form shows the price of the post, whether VAT is included and how many of your first 10 posts are left.

Paying. You pay when you publish an advert, in full and before it goes live, on a secure page run by our payment provider, Stripe. You pay by card. We never see or keep your card details, and we add no fee for paying by card. We take payment only once we have checked your business details. Your advert goes live, and its 30 days start, when your payment reaches us. We email you a receipt, and your payments and receipts are under Billing in your account. Nothing is ever invoiced to you for later payment.

Before we start charging. We will tell you by email at least 30 days before we start charging for posts. Posts published before that date are not charged. If one of them never started its 30 days, because you closed it while we were still checking your business, publishing it again after that date is a new post and is charged.

Refunds. Unless the law stops us, we refund a post in full if it could not go live after you paid for it (for example because the advert or your account changed while you were paying), if you paid twice for the same post, or if a fault on our side stopped it running. A refund goes back to the card you paid with. If we end this agreement when you have not broken it, or stop showing your adverts for a reason that is not your fault (for example because the law requires it), we refund each paid post in proportion to the days it had left. If we check your business again on our own initiative, your adverts are not shown to candidates until we finish, and we refund each paid post in proportion to the days it was not shown. If your business no longer passes our checks, we decide case by case whether to refund the days left, and tell you what we decided. We do not refund a post because you closed the advert or your account before its 30 days ended, or because we took the advert down or suspended your account because it broke these terms, including the rules for using OpenStaff and the job-posting rules above. If we take an advert down by mistake, we put it back and add the time it was down to its 30 days.

If a payment is reversed. If your bank reverses a payment for a post, we may take the advert down.

Price changes. A new price applies only to posts you pay for after it takes effect.

Suspending or ending your account

What we may do. If we have good reason, we may take down or hide an advert or other content you posted, warn you, suspend your account and all of its adverts, or close your account. While your account is suspended, you are no longer shown candidates.

When. We may do this if:

you break these terms, including the rules for using OpenStaff and the job-posting rules above;
your business does not pass our checks, or its details are no longer accurate;
we receive a credible report of discrimination, exploitation, fraud, harassment or misuse of candidates' information, while we look into it;
the law, a court or a regulator requires it;
it is needed to protect candidates.

How. We act in proportion to what has happened. Where it is reasonable, we warn you first and give you the chance to put things right. We act without warning where candidates may be at risk, where the law requires it or where the breach is serious. We tell you by email what we have done and why, unless the law stops us or telling you would put someone at risk. We keep a record of the reason. You can appeal: see "Complaints, reports and appeals" below. If we got it wrong, we put it right.

Fair treatment. We will not refuse, limit, suspend or close an account because of a protected characteristic of anyone in your business, or because you have made a complaint in good faith.

Reports to authorities. Where we believe that a crime has been committed or that someone is at risk, we may tell the police, the Fair Work Agency or another authority.

Your right to leave. You can close your account in your settings at any time, and download a copy of your account's information there first. It takes effect straight away: your adverts are closed, and you can no longer see candidates on OpenStaff. Candidates who applied to your adverts see that your business is no longer on OpenStaff, and can no longer message you there. For 30 days you can reopen your account by signing in; your adverts stay closed until you reopen them, and their 30 days keep running. Closing your account refunds no post you have paid for. After 30 days we erase your account, as our privacy notice explains.

Our right to end the agreement. We may also end this agreement for any other reason by giving you notice by email.

After the agreement ends. The sections on using candidate information, treating candidates fairly, what each of us is responsible for, and law and courts still apply. Delete any candidate information that you no longer have a lawful reason to keep. If we tell you that a candidate's information has been erased after your account is closed, that notice still applies to you.

Complaints, reports and appeals

This section explains how to complain to OpenStaff, how to report something you have seen on OpenStaff, and what we do next. You do not need an account to use any of it, and it is free. If someone is in immediate danger, call 999 first.

Where to go.

What it is about	How to reach us	What to expect
A complaint about OpenStaff, or about how we treated you	contact@openstaff.co.uk	A reply as quickly as we can
A payment, a receipt or a refund for a job post	contact@openstaff.co.uk	A reply as quickly as we can
How we have used your personal information	privacy@openstaff.co.uk	We acknowledge it within 30 days
A job advert, profile, photo or message that you think is illegal or harmful	The Report button, our report form, or contact@openstaff.co.uk	A person looks at every report. Illegal content is taken down quickly
A defamation, copyright or trade mark notice	Our legal notice form, contact@openstaff.co.uk, or by post	The steps set out below
Your own content was taken down, or your account was restricted	Reply to the email we sent you, our appeal form, or contact@openstaff.co.uk	A person looks at the decision again
Discrimination	contact@openstaff.co.uk if it is about us, contact@openstaff.co.uk if it is about an employer	A reply as quickly as we can
An explanation beside a candidate that looks wrong, or mentions something it should not	"See why", then "Report this explanation"	A person at OpenStaff looks at it and emails you what we decided
A security problem with our website	security@openstaff.co.uk	A reply as quickly as we can
A job or an employer that worries you	See Worried about a job or an employer?	What we will do, and who else can help

You can also write to OpenStaff Ltd, 128 City Road, London, United Kingdom, EC1V 2NX.

If you need to complain or make a report in a different way because of a disability, tell us and we will arrange it. See our accessibility statement.

Complaining about OpenStaff. Use this if you are unhappy with our service, or with how we treated you.

Email contact@openstaff.co.uk or write to us.
Tell us who you are and how to reply, what happened and when, and what you would like us to do.

What we do:

We tell you that we have received your complaint.
A person looks into it.
We reply as quickly as we can, with our decision and the reasons for it.
If you are not happy with the reply, tell us, and we look at it again.

Complaining about how we use your personal information. If you think we have broken data protection law, for example by using your information unfairly, keeping it too long or not answering a request properly, follow the steps under "How to complain" in our privacy notice.

Reporting content that you think is illegal or harmful. Anyone can report a job advert, a business, a profile, a photo or a message on OpenStaff. You do not need an account: if you are not signed in, use our report form or email contact@openstaff.co.uk.

What to tell us:

What the content is and where you saw it. For example, the job title and the name of the business, or the name on the profile.
Why you think it is illegal or harmful.
How we can reach you, if you want to know the outcome. You can make a report without giving your name.

What we do:

A person at OpenStaff looks at every report.
If the content is illegal, we take it down quickly. If it breaks our rules, we deal with it as these terms say.
Where other users may be at risk, we can suspend the account while we look into it.
If you gave us a way to reach you, we tell you what we decided.
We tell the user who posted the content what we did and why, and they can appeal. We do not tell them who made the report, unless you agree or the law requires it.
We keep a record of the report, of what we decided and of when we acted.

When we take a photo down, it can no longer be opened, even by someone who has the old link.

If you disagree with what we decided about your report, tell us, and we look at it again.

Defamation notices. If you believe that something a user has posted on OpenStaff is defamatory of you, you can send us a notice of complaint. The steps below are the ones set by the law of England and Wales.

What your notice must contain.

your name, and an email address where we can reach you;
the statement you are complaining about, and where on OpenStaff it appears;
why the statement is defamatory of you;
the meaning that you believe the statement has;
which parts of it you believe are factually wrong, or are opinions that are not supported by fact;
confirmation that you do not have enough information about the person who posted it to bring legal proceedings against them yourself;
whether you agree to us giving your name and email address to the person who posted it.

Use our legal notice form, send it to contact@openstaff.co.uk, or send it by post to OpenStaff Ltd, 128 City Road, London, United Kingdom, EC1V 2NX.

What happens next. If your notice leaves out something listed above, we tell you within 48 hours of receiving it what is missing and what the law requires. If you tell us that you can identify the person who posted it, the steps below do not apply: we look at your notice as a report of unlawful content, and take the statement down if it is unlawful.

Within 48 hours of receiving your notice, we send a copy to the person who posted the statement, and we tell you that we have done so. If you have not agreed to us sharing your name and email address, we remove them first.
If we have no way of contacting that person, we take the statement down within 48 hours of receiving your notice instead, and we tell you that we have done so.
The person who posted it has until the end of the fifth day after we contact them to reply.
If they do not reply in time, we take the statement down within 48 hours of that deadline. If their reply leaves out what the law requires, or they agree that the statement should come down, we take it down within 48 hours of receiving their reply. Either way, we tell you when we have done so.
If they reply that they want the statement to stay up, and give us their full name and postal address, we tell you within 48 hours of receiving their reply that it has not been taken down. We give you their name and address only if they agree, or if a court orders us to.

Saturdays, Sundays, Good Friday, Christmas Day and bank holidays in England and Wales do not count towards any of the 48-hour periods. We keep a record of each step and of when we took it.

We may also take a statement down straight away, without these steps, if it breaks our own rules.

Copyright and trade mark notices. If you believe that content on OpenStaff uses your copyright work or your trade mark without permission, for example a photo, a logo or a piece of writing, send us a notice.

What your notice should contain.

your full name and address, and an email address where we can reach you;
what you own: the work or the trade mark, and whether you are the owner or are acting for the owner;
exactly where the content is on OpenStaff;
why you believe that using it there is unlawful;
a statement that what you have told us is accurate.

Use our legal notice form, send it to contact@openstaff.co.uk, or send it by post to OpenStaff Ltd, 128 City Road, London, United Kingdom, EC1V 2NX.

What happens next. A person looks at your notice. If the content appears to break your rights, we take it down quickly, and we tell the user who posted it what we did and why. That user can appeal. We may suspend or close the account of someone who keeps posting content that breaks other people's rights. We keep a record of when your notice arrived and when the content came down.

If we took down your content or restricted your account. If we take down something you posted, or warn you, or suspend or close your account, we email you to say what we did and why, unless the law stops us or telling you would put someone at risk. If you think we got it wrong, you can appeal.

Reply to that email, use our appeal form, or email contact@openstaff.co.uk.
Tell us why you think the decision was wrong, and send anything you want us to take into account.
A person looks at the decision again. Where we can, it is someone who did not make it.
We tell you the outcome and the reasons for it.
If your appeal succeeds, we put your content or your account back as it was, except that if we closed your employer account, your adverts stay closed until you reopen them. A photo we deleted cannot be put back, so we tell you that you can add it again. We erase a closed account 30 days after we close it, so appeal within that time, and give us the account reference and the appeal code from the email we sent you; once we have received your appeal, we do not erase the account while we decide it.

You can use the same route if you think that:

an automatic check stopped your job advert when it should not have;
we are not doing what these terms say about illegal content, reports or complaints;
we have not respected your privacy, or your right to express yourself within the law.

Complaining about discrimination. Tell us at contact@openstaff.co.uk if you think we have treated you, or anyone in your business, unfairly because of their age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation. That includes how we dealt with your account, and anything about OpenStaff that did not work for someone in your business as a disabled person. We look into it, reply with our reasons, and put things right where we got them wrong.

If a candidate thinks you have discriminated against them, in an advert, in a message, at an interview or in a decision, they can report it to us. We can take an advert down and warn or suspend you. We cannot decide a legal claim between you and a candidate, and we cannot award compensation.

Getting advice. The Equality Advisory Support Service (EASS) (opens in a new tab) gives information and advice about discrimination. It is separate from OpenStaff.

Time limits. Legal claims about discrimination have strict time limits, which start from the date of the act you are complaining about. Complaining to us does not extend them.

If you are still concerned about online safety. Ofcom is the regulator for online safety. If you have reported something to us and you are still concerned about how OpenStaff deals with illegal content, reports or complaints, you can tell Ofcom (opens in a new tab). Ofcom does not respond to or investigate individual complaints. It uses what people tell it to decide whether a service is doing enough to protect its users.

What we keep. We keep a record of each complaint, report and notice: what it was about, when it arrived, what we decided and when we acted. Our privacy notice explains how we use personal information, including what you send us in a complaint, a report or a notice.

What each of us is responsible for

What neither of us limits. Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that the law does not allow to be excluded or limited.

Our service. We provide OpenStaff with reasonable care and skill. We do not promise that it will always be available or free of errors.

What we are not liable for. Apart from the cases in the first paragraph of this section, we are not liable to you for:

your hiring decisions, or anything that a candidate does or fails to do;
anything in a candidate's profile or application that is inaccurate or incomplete;
loss of profit, revenue, business or goodwill, or any indirect loss;
loss caused by events outside our reasonable control.

What you are responsible for. You are responsible for your adverts, for how you use candidates' information and for your hiring decisions. If a candidate, a regulator or anyone else brings a claim or takes action against us because you broke the sections of these terms on job adverts, candidate information, right-to-work checks or fair treatment, you must pay the losses and reasonable costs that we suffer as a result.

Changes to OpenStaff and to these terms

We may change OpenStaff, these terms and our prices. We tell you by email before a change takes effect, explain what is changing and why, and ask you to accept the new version. If you do not accept it, you can close your account before the change takes effect. We may make a change without notice where the law requires it to be made straight away, or where there is an urgent risk to safety or security.

General

These terms are the whole agreement between us about OpenStaff. Neither of us has relied on anything said or written that is not in them. This does not limit liability for fraud.
You may not transfer this agreement or your account to anyone else without our written agreement. We may transfer this agreement to another organisation that takes over OpenStaff, and we will tell you if we do.
Only you and we can enforce this agreement.
If a court decides that part of these terms cannot be enforced, the rest still applies.
If either of us does not enforce a right straight away, it can still do so later.

Law and courts

These terms, and any dispute or claim arising out of them, are governed by the law of England and Wales. Only the courts of England and Wales can decide any such dispute or claim.

Notices, complaints and contact

We send notices to the email address on your account. Keep it up to date.
Send notices to us at contact@openstaff.co.uk, or by post to OpenStaff Ltd, 128 City Road, London, United Kingdom, EC1V 2NX. A formal legal notice must be sent by post.
The section "Complaints, reports and appeals" above explains how to complain, how to report content and how to appeal.
Questions about personal information: privacy@openstaff.co.uk
Reporting a profile, a message or another business: our report form or contact@openstaff.co.uk