I was hired by the company I have been temping at for the past two months to work there permanently. I started working as their employee yesterday.
The temp position was my first job in the UK. The company actually offered me the job as a permanent position after I was there for five days as a temp, but they were required to advertise the position so that anyone could apply for it, and I had to go through the application/interview process. Since they are supposed to fill positions from within the company first, my boss had to prove to HR that I was more qualified than any internal applicants.
I did have to submit my CV and go for an informal interview to get the temp job, so I have a feeling they were considering making the job permanant when they advertised for the temp role. The agency never said anything to me about temp-to-perm, though.