Completing a Right to Work Declaration
When completing a Right to Work Declaration, it is important to keep a few things in mind. Here are some of the most commonly made mistakes when it comes to completing the Right to Work declaration:
1. Discrimination
Many employers are not aware of the requirement to check that their employees are legally allowed to work in the UK. Moreover, these checks are required for all employees! You cannot only perform Right to Work checks on a handful of applicants as this is deemed as discrimination. A Right to Work check must be part of the screening process for all applicants, no matter their origin.
2. Completing Right to Work checks after hiring the candidate
It is an exciting prospect when you think you have found a great candidate that will fit into your team! Sometimes, you may want to snap them up quickly and offer them the role without doing the required checks. By allowing someone to start working at your company without completing a Right to Work check means that you could already be employing someone illegally.
If you are found to be employing someone illegally and have not carried out a Right to Work check, then you have zero statutory excuse as an employer’s defence and you could face a £20,000 fine. Therefore, it is recommended that you complete these checks at the interview stage.
3. Accepting photocopies or scans of documents during manual Right to Work checks
When completing a manual Right to Work check, you must only review the original copies of identification. The person checking the documents will not be able to accept a photocopy or scan and is required to see the original document (either a passport or birth certificate with accompanying,valid national insurance documentation). You must check the documents carefully in the presence of the candidate in question.
Things to look out for:
- Photographs and dates of birth are consistent across documents and with the person’s appearance in order to detect impersonation.
- Expiry dates for permission to be in the UK have not passed.
- The documents are genuine, have not been tampered with and belong to the holder.
4. Making hard copies
The old process of completing Right to Work documents required you to make hard copies of all documents into a format that couldn't be altered. However, due to GPG45 changes in Digital Identity, you no longer need to make hard copies as this is now all digital! It is also good to note that Biometric Residency Permits are no longer acceptable Right to Work documents.