Non-compliance with Right to Work checks costs UK businesses this much...

UK businesses lost almost £50million in civil penalties for illegal working in the year to July 2016, according to figures revealed by global identity verification platform Onfido, sourced from a Freedom of Information request to the Home Office. 

2,943 initial civil penalties costing £49,472,500 were issued between July 2015 and July 2016. This number does not include second or further penalties. 

Onfido suggests that the substantial fees are suggestive of the extent to which UK businesses are struggling to remain compliant with complex and time-consuming pre-employment screening. 

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The reason for this struggle? Onfido think they have the answer: Right to Work checks are often performed by inexpert hiring managers, if they are performed at all, meaning that sophisticated document fraud is overlooked and records lost or damaged.