Compliance Matters

Right to work validation

We initially concentrated on ensuring we have a central record of a right to work check for everyone working at the University.  Thank you to all those who have supported us with this.

Now we have these records in place, we are working on a series of communication routes to keep you up to date on the minimum standards and any changes to legislation.  

Already in place is a right to work checker to guide you through the process of checking the documents of a casual worker.  

In addition, HR colleagues now help deliver the ‘Paying Casual Workers’ course, providing staff with right to work training.

In progress are new webpages hosting ‘how to' guides for managers, minimum standards for compliance, checklists and examples of what a compliant right to work check looks like.

Casual workers

We recruit a high number of casual workers each year, each with the obligation to check their right to work, and have identified this area as being of potentially high risk to the University.    

To reduce this risk a Casual Workers Compliance Project is underway, looking at areas including right to work checks, managing the number of hours worked, claims, minimum wage regulations and worker documentation.  

The aim of the project is to find a long-term solution for the management of our casual workers.

In the meantime we have been identifying changes to our existing processes that will produce a more robust approach to our casual workers.  We are trying to avoid unnecessary changes wherever possible and ask for your support and understanding where changes do have to be made.

We will keep you updated on the Casual Worker Compliance Project through this newsletter and other communication channels.

Recruitment timescales

Casual workers on Tier 4 visas (usually held by non-EEA students) come with increased levels of obligation and monitoring for us.  

The right to work check is just the beginning: we then need to monitor visa expiry dates and the number of hours worked during term-time.

We are in the process of introducing a booking system to capture all hours booked for our Tier 4 Workers so that we don’t breach their visa conditions.  We have sent a number of communications recently about our Tier 4 Visa workers, explaining our obligations and the reasons for centralising the process.  

A big thank you to all who have contributed to the changes in process for your support and patience while we implement the changes.

Visa sponsorship and recruitment

In order to attract the best people to the University regardless of nationality, we need to ensure that our advertisements are placed in specific media, include certain details and are placed for the right duration.  

If our adverts don’t meet these criteria we are unable to offer Tier 2 sponsorship to candidates should they need it.

A recent review has highlighted areas for improvement in our advertising, so we are embarking on a project to update our advert templates, review our recruitment training and add ‘how to’ guides to our recruitment pages.

Visa sponsorship and monitoring obligations

Once we have sponsored a worker on a Tier 2 or 5 visa and they are working with us in the UK, we attract new obligations to monitor the worker for the duration of the visa.   

We have to capture, record and, where necessary, report on the absences, changes in duties, salary or dates of employment.  We also need to keep up-to-date contact details for each worker.

We have been looking at how this can be achieved with as little impact for departments as possible.   We will send out more information soon outlining the process and forms required.