The Home Office has announced that Employers will be able to continue to carry out Right to Work checks through their Adjusted Right to Work checks scheme until the 30th of September 2022 (date inclusive). This scheme was previously said to end on the 5th of April 2022.
The Adjusted Right to Work checking scheme was developed and deployed during the COVID19 Pandemic and involved employers being able to carry out Right to Work checks by simply receiving a scan or a photo of a worker’s ID along with them holding a video call with the worker in question. This negated face-to-face meetings with employees. The extension of the scheme’s end date means that employers will now be able to carry out Right to Work checks in this manner for a further 6-months.
The Home Office says that the deferral of the schemes end date is due to positive feedback from employers able to use the IDVT (Identification Document Validation Technology), though the online Immigration Law Blog Freemovement suspects that the delay to the scheme’s end is actually caused by potential future IDVT provides not coming forward quite as fast as the government had hoped.
This is not the first time that the Adjusted Right to Work checking scheme has been extended but, as of time of writing, the current date for the ending of the scheme is fixed.
What has not changed is that from the 6th of April 2022 those workers who have biometric residence cards (BRCs) will only be able to demonstrate their right to work via online means. Employers are no longer allowed to accept physical BRCs in order to check workers Right to Work from the 6th of April 2022.
If you require assistance regarding Right to Work checks in an immigration context, please don’t hesitate to contact us here at Descartes Solicitors.