Reminder – EU settlement scheme

A reminder that, under the new immigration rules, EU citizens who wish to remain in the UK must have been living in the UK by 31 December 2020 and have applied for settled or pre-settled status by 30 June 2021. If someone does not apply by this deadline, they could lose the right to live and work in the UK.

Late applications will only be accepted if there are ‘reasonable grounds’ for the delay. The Home Office has published a guidance document on the EU settlement scheme. It can be found here.

The Home Office has confirmed that employers do not need to carry out retrospective checks and can rely on the statutory defence that they carried out the correct right-to-work checks during the recruitment stage.

It is recommended that schools communicate with staff, remind them of the deadline and where to access information and apply to the scheme. Government advice and how to apply to the scheme can be found here. Guidance from Citizens Advice can be found here.

Schools may also wish to consider encouraging staff to inform them when they have applied for settled status or pre-settled status and have received confirmation that their application has been successful. However, it is not mandatory for staff to do this.

Further information for employers can be found here.