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"HR said I was illegal because I didn't have a biometric card..."

Steve Bridger

I was following the story of Michael Braithwaite today - the man living in the UK for 56 years who lost his school job over immigration papers.

He is one of an emerging group of people who were born in Commonwealth countries and arrived in the UK as children who have discovered half a century later that they have serious and hard to fix immigration problems.

Amelia Gentleman has been doing a fine job shining a light on these stories at the Guardian. 

I can't help but think this is putting a strain on those who work in HR at schools and local authorities. It reminds me a little of the testing our integrity discussion we've had here in the past.

The relevant bits from the Guardian piece:

"The personnel department got in touch to tell him that without a biometric card he could not continue to be employed. The 66-year-old lost his full-time job in 2017 after the local authority ruled he needed to submit documentary proof that he had the right to live in the UK. He has been trying for two years without success to get the Home Office to acknowledge that he is in Britain legally.

"Braithwaite was distraught at losing his job. “I had a good rapport with the children. The head said I was an asset to the school, but the HR department said I was illegal because I didn’t have a biometric card."

I hope he manages to to put his life back together again.

  • This is a tough one isn't it Steve? HR can't be seen to be acting 'illegally' as defined by government. But I wonder whether there was anything more they could have done to support him - for example writing to the relevant department in support of his case?
  • in reply to Anna
    I guess we'll never know, Anna... but it did make me recall something a respected and valued member of our Community suggested on another thread: that “at end of the day [HR is] a tool of management not an employee representative."

    Discuss ;)
  • The Home Office issues a list of documents which new starters must produce to demonstrate their right to work in the UK. Here it is:
    assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/.../employers_right_to_work_checklist_november_2014.pdf


    The quote (HR said I was illegal ... ... ) makes it seem as if the HR Department is making unilateral and arbitrary decisions but there is no grey area on this. You have the documents or you don't. If you don't, the employer is breaking the law to employ you and is open to prosecution.

    This isn't about HR being a tool of management, it is about all of us being subject to the law. My question would be how he was employed in the first place if he couldn't demonstrate his right to work here.
  • in reply to Elizabeth Divver

    This isn't about HR being a tool of management, it is about all of us being subject to the law.

    That is true, Elizabeth... even if the law is an ass. From the little we know it would seem the school were very sympathetic... but HR less so. The 'system' failed this man.

  • in reply to Steve Bridger
    I agree this is an iniquitous situation, but the HR team here were applying the law (belatedly) - there's no implication that they weren't sympathetic (that I can see; I only read the Guardian article). And in a school environment, as well as the usual 'right to work' evidence, this data check is part of the identity record on the SCR - which is key to safeguarding practice. The law failed this man for sure, but I feel sympathy with the people who had to make those decisions.
  • in reply to Steve Bridger
    www.gov.uk/penalties-for-employing-illegal-workers

    However "sympathetic" the school may have been perceived to be, do we think the head or the governors, or whoever is the decision-maker here, would have been willing to risk a 5-year stretch if not for HR preventing their humanitarian action?

    If the school was so very sympathetic, why didn't they re-engage him when he got his paperwork through? Or was it those flinty-hearted scrooges in HR who blocked that as well as cruelly turfing him out in the first place?

    It was both cowardly and lazy of the school to represent this as HR being the hard cases who weren't sympathetic. Whoever took the decision should have been brave enough to have taken responsibility for it even though it was, in fact, the only decision that the management of the school, not HR, could take.
  • in reply to Elizabeth Divver

    "[He] worked at a north London primary school for over 15 years when a routine check on his immigration status revealed he did not have an up-to-date identity document."

    We just don't know what (if any) representations the school / HR made on behalf of this man. If 15 years count for something, I would hope they would've made some noise and not simply dismissed him. That's all I'm saying. 

    The Home Office have only just approved his documents this week after this all became public.

  • in reply to Steve Bridger
    My experience of dealing with the Home Office is that there is nothing any employer can say that will soften their approach no matter what as asset the employee is to the country. I have had contact with them on behalf of a number of employees working here on various visas and they have always been completely unbending.
  • in reply to Elizabeth Divver
    I know... I *know* you're right, Elizabeth. This issue touches a nerve with me and as I write this I feel my gut turning. I find this all intolerable.
  • in reply to Steve Bridger

    I agree with you. We seem repeatedly to make stupid decisions about who we want to stay in this country. There are so many stories of kids who came here as refugees but have offers of university places, people who have worked and paid tax for years, and then "computer says no" so out they must go. There seems to be no intelligence or ability to see the overall picture instead of a point scoring system that doesn't necessarily capture the things that really matter. It is tragic. I am just objecting to HR been seen as the bad guy. Again.