Right to Work Checks for UK Kitchens
🍴 Statutory Checks, Properly EvidencedEmploying someone without a valid Right to Work check costs £45,000 per worker for a first breach, and £60,000 if it happens again. The only defence is the statutory excuse — and that depends entirely on having done the check correctly before the person started, and being able to produce the evidence years later. Chef-Ops-Pro turns that into a tracked process: the staff member submits their declaration and documents, the manager verifies against a checklist, and the record is retained for the length of employment plus two years.
The Problem
Kitchens hire fast. A commis starts Saturday, agency cover fills a gap on Friday night, someone’s cousin picks up two shifts a week. The Right to Work check gets promised and forgotten, or a photo of a passport ends up in a WhatsApp thread on a manager’s personal phone.
When the Home Office asks, a photo in a chat app is not a statutory excuse. There is no record of who looked at the document, when they looked at it, whether they checked it was still valid, or whether the person in the photo was the person standing in front of them. And when that manager leaves, the evidence leaves with them.
From 1 October 2026 this gets harder. The scheme extends beyond employees to cover agency workers, gig economy workers and individual sub-contractors working under a company name — the exact labour most kitchens lean on hardest during service, and the arrangements that have historically fallen outside the check.
Who This is For
Module compliance & Record Keeping
Module Compliance & Record Keeping
Every check leaves a durable record rather than a file in a folder. The verifying manager is recorded by name against the check, the staff member's declaration signature carries its own timestamp, and the verification carries a second one — so you can show not only that a check happened, but when each half of it did. The record stores which route was used, a manual document check or a Home Office online share code check, along with the manager's actual checklist answers rather than a bare pass or fail: whether the photograph matched, whether the document was still in date, and whether any work restrictions applied. Where a check has been bypassed for someone already employed when you adopted the module, the reason and the person who authorised it are recorded too, so a gap in your records is visible rather than silent. Everything is retained for the length of employment plus two years, in line with the Home Office retention requirement.
What you can do with this module
Let staff submit their own documents.
The staff member signs a declaration, selects British/Irish or foreign national, and either photographs their passport or enters a share code — from their own phone, before their first shift.
Verify with a real checklist.
Managers work through photo match, expiry, and work restrictions rather than glancing at a document and hoping.
Check share codes without leaving the process.
A direct link to the GOV.UK share code checker sits alongside the record for foreign nationals.
See who is outstanding at a glance.
Every staff member in Users & Access carries a status badge — Pending, Documents Submitted, Verified, Bypassed, Expired or Failed.
Get warned before a visa expires.
Automated email and push notifications reach managers at 90, 60 and 30 days before a document expiry date.
Chase without chasing.
Staff with an outstanding check see a red action banner on their own home screen that takes them straight to the form.
Handle existing staff honestly.
A bypass exists for people already employed when you adopt the module, and it records who authorised it and why — so the gap is documented rather than pretended away.
Turn it on only if you need it.
Right to Work is enabled per property in Settings → Modules.
The Right to Work scheme extends beyond traditional employees to cover agency workers, gig economy workers, and individual sub-contractors providing services under a company name. If you use agency cover or engage anyone who is not on your payroll, arrangements that previously sat outside the scheme will be inside it.
Not on its own. The statutory excuse depends on the check being carried out correctly before employment begins and being evidenced — including the date of the check and who performed it. A photocopy in a drawer, with no record of when it was taken or by whom, is difficult to rely on.
There is an admin bypass for existing staff. It records who authorised it and the reason, so you have a visible list of people whose checks predate the system rather than a silent gap you discover during an inspection.
Yes. Managers receive email and push notifications at 90, 60 and 30 days before a recorded document expiry date, and the staff member’s status badge changes to Expired if the date passes.
No. Digital identity checks must go through a government-registered Digital Verification Service Provider, and Chef-Ops-Pro is not one. The module supports manual document checks and Home Office online share code checks, and stores which method was used on each record.
For the length of employment plus two years, in line with Home Office retention guidance. The retention date is set automatically when employment ends.
Yes. Staff sign the declaration and upload a document from their own device — on mobile, tapping the upload button offers the camera as well as the photo library.
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