We’ve read in the Practical Law Business Crime and investigations the case of a restaurant owner who has been disqualified from acting as director following his employment of two irregular workers in breach of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006.
The case is as follows: “The director ran a restaurant and in January 2015, Home Office Immigration Enforcement Officer visited the place and found that he had two workers that weren’t eligible to work in the UK. After that, on July 2015 the company went into liquidation owing its creditors more than £30,000 of which £20,000 was the fine he received for employing these two irregular workers. The director signed a disqualification undertaking banning him from being a director of a company or from being involved in the promotion, formation, or management of a company for six years from September 2016”.
The issue with this, is that now employing people without the right to work in the UK is a criminal offence in England and Wales and the employer can face penalties of up to £20,000 and 5 years of prison.
But not only can a person be penalised if hiring someone that they know didn’t have the right to wirj, but if that person also didn’t know it and didn’t carry the correct checks.
Employees’ check
You must ask your employee to provide you with certain information to be able to carry out the checks to see if that person is eligible to work in the UK. You also must always ask for the permission of your potential employee to make the check.
The documents you need from you employee is as follows:
- Full name
- Date of birth
- Nationality
- Job title
- Hours worked per week
- Home address
- Home office reference number or case ID / passport
And then you can carry out the checks on line.
For more information, the Government has issued “An employer’s guide to right to work checks”.
If you still have doubts, our expert solicitors can advise you on the best records that you must keep and the checks to be made on workers. Call us now for further advice.