Under the Immigration and Nationality Act 2006 – Employers are responsible for checking immigration status / right to work in the UK for all of its employees.
If you employ a person who doesn’t have the right to work in the UK then you could face up to a £20,000 fine PER-WORKER, we have first hand experience of this with our client’s – it is enforced!
To avoid any such penalty an Employer must carry out quite substantial first hand checks of documentation prior to employment and sometimes during employment too – there are specific government lists of acceptable documentation supporting a right to work, but checking systems and records need to be both implemented and maintained by Employers.
Follow up checks are required too, whilst they remain in your employ.
Where an employer is in doubt over the right to work and considers dismissing an employee it must act carefully – the dismissal could still be unfair in certain circumstances.
We deal with these cases in the team – if you need to set up right to work checking processes or you have a current issue – please call the team any time.