Right to work checks

[BlaueLagune]

Hi employment (immigration) law experts. I work freelance on a variety of contracts. I'm not employed by anyone (don't come anywhere near the definition of employed, I provide a service, and get paid for it). I never work at clients' premises and I could do my work from anywhere, I happen to be sitting in my dining room at home at the moment but I could just as easily be working from a beach in Australia or a cafe in the US. There is no requirement for me to be in the UK, I just happen to live here (and am a British citizen).

So why do some clients carry out right to work checks? Some don't, but some do. Are they overinterpreting the laws or are the other clients missing something?

there is a difference between the terms "employee" and "worker" and it is possible to be a worker but not an employee. depending on what exactly you are doing it could be that you are a "worker" in some of your contracts and not at all in others. where you are not having to prove your right to work it doesn't mean that such proof is unnecessary but just that it would be your company (and yourself as director of it) that got prosecuted in the event of a breach rather than the customer company.

I'm a freelancer too. I'm a writer/researcher and work for clients all over the world, mostly UK and EU, but Australia and Canada on occasion too. I have a couple of times been asked to supply ID, one for a German company I work for, they wanted a photo of my passport page. Another UK lawyer wanted me to sign a disclaimer to say that I was self-employed and registered with HMRC.

I see it as a "cover your arse" policy so that if one of their freelancers turns out to be either not paying tax or living illegally in whatever country they're in, the company has a get out clause.

I could quite easily overstay my Visa when in the US next year and carry on working for all my clients in the UK, uploading things by email and getting paid straight into my bank account. I would be in the US illegally though and deported if caught. The clients may not want their names caught up in that sort of scandal.

Yes - it's a cover your arse thing.
At my previous employer I was involved in all external audits - financial, SHEQ, industry specific etc and some auditors required additional info from some freelance contractors, even those working through Ltd Co to evidence that we'd covered absolutely every angle. Very frustrating as it wasn't a legal requirement.