GOV.UK says you must check that a job applicant is allowed to work for you in the UK before you employ them. The employer's guide says that, to establish a statutory excuse, you must do one of the checks before the employee commences employment. Three routes follow: a manual document check, a digital verification service check for British and Irish citizens who hold a valid passport, and a Home Office online check. Only a code beginning with W evidences right to work, and you still run the check yourself, using the applicant's date of birth. British and Irish citizens cannot get an online share code to prove their right to work; check their original documents, for example a passport or passport card, or use an identity service provider instead. Check that the documents are valid with the applicant present, record the date you made the check, and keep the copies securely.

What the film covers

The check has a deadline, and it is not the first shift
What the exposure actually is
The failure a careers page commits more easily
What the page may ask, and when
Wording the page can carry
What happens to what the page collects
The guidance under all this is moving
Where the wording has to live

Read the full articleWhere the right to work check belongs on a restaurant careers pageA jobs form that collects a CV and a phone number and nothing else pushes the right to work check past the first shift. The defence against a civil penalty exists only where a prescribed check was completed before employment began. The careers page on an independent restaurant's website is usually a heading, a warm line about the team, and a form asking for a name, a phone number and a CV. Nothing on it mentions the right to work, so the check gets postponed (to the interview, to the offer, to whenever somebody remembers) and in a kitchen that has just lost a chef de partie on a Thursday, that arrives after the first shift has been worked. The defence against a civil penalty for employing an illegal worker exists only where a prescribed check was completed before employment began, so a late check is no defence at all, however genuine the documents turn out to be. The penalty is calculated per worker, the business's details can be published, and the published sanction list reaches the alcohol licence.

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