Audit and Compliance Services

The Home Office code of practice on preventing illegal working applies to all employers in the UK.

The code of practise sets businesses a responsibility to prevent illegal working by ensuring that their employees have a right to work in their respective organisations.

The scheme further sets out the penalties for illegal working and additionally the restrictions on sponsoring non-EEA nationals to work in the UK.

Ensuring your Business is Compliant

To avoid hefty penalties for both yourself and your business you must be fully compliant with UK immigration and employment law.

Our immigration solicitors support businesses like yours by providing training programs, audits and compliance services. Find out more what we can do for you by getting in touch today.

Our Compliance Training

At AWH Solicitors we work to improve the recruitment processes of our clients who are looking to attract talent from overseas. We prepare your human resource processes and department and provide training to keep you fully informed of the Home Office guidelines.

Our immigration audit services are tailored to meet your needs and assist you in avoiding potential civil penalties. Our training and guidance will help you ensure that you are in full compliance with all immigration requirements.

We will ensure that all aspects of compliance are considered to suit your business needs, including:

• Document checking systems:

Which documents are acceptable, the validity of these documents which are subject to immigration control, certifications,appropriate storage and diary management of key dates such as expiry dates and renewals.

• Following the codes of practice in line with your business needs for the prevention of illegal working in practice and to avoid unlawful discrimination
• Sponsorship requirements in line with the minimum skills set, salary expectations and advertising for those low level skilled jobs for opportunity to UK and settled workers
• Students and Tier 4 workers who are restricted to working hours-checking systems of limitation on the hours of work
• In respect of the business and employees with temporary leave the business has a duty to report to the Home Office events relating to the migrants employment and personal circumstances
• Ongoing follow up checks in line with the UK Visa and Immigration specifications

Contents of our Training

We provide training to cover compliance issues in accordance to the immigration rules to suit your organisations’ requirements.  Our in-house training includes:

• A clear overview of immigration legislation for employers
• Documenting your right to work activities and records of employment
• Monitoring of your non – EEA workers
• Your general responsibilities as an employer recruiting foreign nationals
• What to do if faced with a civil penalty notice

We want to ensure that our training prepares you for consideration prior to and post recruitment and to ensure that your operational practices are fully compliant with all regulations.

Failure to Check an Employees’ Right to Work

If you are found guilty of employing someone who did not have the right to work in the UK where you could have reasonably believed they did not have this right you could be jailed for up to five years and in addition pay an unlimited fine.

This would include cases where you had a reason to believe that your employee did not have permission to enter or remain in the UK, that your employee’s visa has expired, that your employee is restricted from doing the job you have employed them in with the immigration status that employee holds or where they showed you paperwork that could reasonably be believed was falsified.

As an employer you are responsible for carrying out right to work checks, as failing to do so will also be penalised. Failure to check the right to work can cost you a fine of up to £20,000 for each illegal worker in your business.