The Importance of Right-to-Work Checks

Right-to-Work checks must be carried out on every single employee, regardless of their background or nationality. If you are selective with your checks, based on assumptions, this may amount to race discrimination.

A thorough Right-to-Work check allows you to be sure that all of your Employees are working legally, and if they are found not to be then you will have a statutory excuse to avoid the penalty. If you are found to be employing illegal workers, you can be fined up to £20,000 per illegal worker.

What is a statutory excuse?

A statutory excuse is given where you have conducted a thorough Right-to-Work check and therefore have no reason to believe that you are employing an illegal employee. There are two different statutory excuses: the first kind is obtained through “List A” documents, which prove that a worker has the permanent right to work in the UK. This means that your statutory excuse is valid throughout the whole duration of the worker’s employment. “List B” documents provide workers with the temporary right to work in the UK. For workers that present these documents, you will have to conduct a follow-up check to ensure that they are still able to work in the UK prior to these documents expiring. Examples of list A and List B documents can be found on gov.uk’s Right to Work Checklist.

How do you conduct a Right-to-Work check?

There are three steps you must take:

1. Obtain the original documents from List A or List B from the employee.

2. Check the validity of the documents in the presence of the employee. Make sure that the documents are valid and that you are satisfied that the employee is the rightful holder and that these documents allow them to work in the UK.

3. Make and keep a copy of the documents in a format that can’t be altered (e.g. paper photocopy) and make a record of when the check was made.

Once you have made this check, you should place it in the employee's personnel file, and keep it there throughout the whole duration of their employment, and for two years after their employment has ceased.