As an employer you will need to check that your workers are eligible to work in the UK. Some people are automatically entitled to work in the UK. Others may have restrictions on how long they can stay, whether they can work or the type of work that they can do.
It is a criminal offence to employ anyone subject to immigration control aged 16 or over, who doesn’t have permission to work in the UK or to do the type of work that you are offering. The courts can impose large financial penalties per illegal employee. It is therefore important to follow certain procedures and to check each potential employee’s eligibility to work, to avoid facing prosecution for employing somebody who isn’t legally entitled to work in the UK.
To establish a potential employee’s entitlement to work in the UK you will need to check some of their documentation.
The Home Office have issued detailed guidance on what to check and how to check it. You can find this:
It is important that your recruitment practices do not discriminate against any person on the basis of their racial background. You are only obliged to check when the employee is within one of the groups described on the website.
You may need to know the following:
A National Insurance Number (NINO) is a unique reference number allocated to an individual. It is always made up of two letters, six numbers and one more letter. For example AB123456C.
You must always ask your employees for their NINO as soon as they start work for you. The NINO ensures that National Insurance contributions they have paid are allocated to the right record and they receive their correct entitlement to any benefits they may later claim.
If your employee does not know their NINO or can’t remember it, you should first of all check if it is shown on any papers or records they have given you, a P45 from a previous employer for example.
If your employee does not have a P45 and you send a P46 (PDF 44K) to your HM Revenue & Customs office, you need not take any further action as they will automatically trace the number and tell you what it is.
If you do not have to send a P46 you can ask your HM Revenue & Customs office to trace a NINO for you using form CA6855 (PDF 38K). Or you can prepare your own schedule, as explained in Helpbook E13 - Day-to-day Payroll (PDF 521K).
If your employee has lost their National Insurance number they can trace it themselves by calling the HMRC NI Registrations Contact Centre.
Anyone who has never had a National Insurance number can apply for one by contacting the Jobcentre Plus NI Allocation Helpline on 0845 600 0643.
For more information please visit the Jobcentre Plus website.
At the end of the tax year you will have to send us information about the pay, tax and any other deductions relating to each of your employees on a form P14.
If you do not know their National Insurance number when completing the P14 at the end of the year, you should:
If you do not know their date of birth enter '01/01/1901' in the date of birth box.
A temporary National Insurance number uses the prefix 'TN', the date of birth and M or F to denote gender e.g. TN131160M. These are no longer accepted and must not be used. If you receive a P45 from an employee with a National Insurance number starting with TN you should take steps to trace the correct number.
The national minimum wage is the minimum amount of pay that workers are entitled to.
The rates from 1 October 2006 are:
New rates from 1 October 2007 are:
From pay reference periods starting on or after 1 October 2006 the special rules for apprentices will be extended to apprentices aged over 25. This will mean that:
Further information about National Minimum Wage is available from:
The NMW helpline for Northern Ireland is run in conjunction with the Citizens Advice Bureau. The number is 0845 6 500 207.
Once you have established the above and are able to employ the worker, you can follow the usual guidance in the Helpbook P49 Paying someone for the first time and Helpbook E13 Day-to-day payroll (PDF 521K).
The above helpbooks will provide a step by step guide as to how to operate PAYE or alternatively you could use the Employer CD-ROM which includes a calculator which can calculate the tax and National Insurance payments for you.
This CD-ROM can be requested by telephoning the Employer Orderline or by using the Employers online order form which will also include the above mentioned helpbooks.
