The Home Office has stated that from 1 October 2022, the adjusted manual right to work check process will end. UK employers have been able to use this since 30 March 2020 to deal with difficulties in handling original documents that arose due to the pandemic.
The Home Office originally intended to end adjusted manual checks after 16 May 2021. The end date has since been deferred four times. The most recent deferral happened on 22 February 2022, setting the end date of 30 September 2022.
At the time of the most recent deferral, the Home Office stated an intention to give employers time to establish commercial relationships with identity service providers (IDSPs) for the purpose of completing digital checks on valid British and Irish passports (including Irish passport cards), or to put measures in place to enable “face to face” document checks if they do not wish to use an IDSP.
Employers are recommended to:
- provide staff responsible for right to work checks with refreshed training, including a reminder that since 6 April 2022, holders of biometric residence permits, biometric residence cards and frontier worker permits must have their right to work checked using the Home Office’s online system;
- ensure that there is a process in place to handle original documents for manual right to work checks, including for receipt, review, storage and return as applicable;
- determine a policy on whether the visual check of the person presenting themselves for work will be carried out in person, via live video call or a combination, and put appropriate resources and recordkeeping in place to do this; and
- Ensure that from 1 October 2022, endorsements on copies of manually checked original documents are changed to reflect that the original document has been sighted.
This provides summary information and comment on the subject areas covered. Where employment tribunal and appellate court cases are reported, the information does not set out all of the facts, the legal arguments presented and the judgments made in every aspect of the case. Employment law is subject to constant change either by statute or by interpretation by the courts. While every care has been taken in compiling this information, we cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions. Specialist legal advice must be taken on any legal issues that may arise before embarking upon any formal course of action.
