The Home Office EU Settlement Scheme provides EU citizens and their families with a route to living and working in the UK beyond 31 December 2020.
The UK left the EU on 31 January 2020 and entered a transition period. EU citizens living in the UK already will be able to prove their right to work and live in the UK via the EU Settlement Scheme, up until 30 June 2021. Individuals arriving in the UK before the end of the transition period (31 December 2020) will be able to live and work as normal and apply for the scheme up until 30 June 2021, while those arriving on or after 1 January 2021 will be subject to the new immigration system. The government broadly outlined this new system in a policy statement in February 2020.
A number of resources are available to support your staff to understand their eligibility and apply to the scheme and you can find further background to the scheme below.
| Resource |
Description |
| Encouraging your workforce to apply for the EU Settlement Scheme | NHS Employers |
This resource includes good practice examples of support NHS organisations have offered their EU staff. |
| Eligibility for EU Settlement Scheme flowchart | NHS Employers |
A flowchart to help staff understand whether they are eligible for the scheme or not. |
| EU Settlement Scheme webinar | NHS Employers |
A recording of our webinar with Capsticks LLP, discussing the political context and ways of supporting staff. |
| One year left to apply to the EU Settlement Scheme | Gov.uk |
This new section for June 2020 includes detail on the current status of the scheme, a link to communication materials in 26 different EU languages as well as other supportive resources.
|
| Employer toolkit | Gov.uk |
This resource contains an overview of the EU Settlement Scheme and provides a range of tools and information to help you support your EU staff and their families to apply to the scheme, including posters and social media content to share with your staff. |
| Template letter | Gov.uk |
A template letter to share with EU citizens and raise the profile of the scheme. |
Applying to the scheme
The EU Settlement Scheme is open to all EEA citizens meeting the eligibility criteria.
To make an application, please visit the government website.
EEA citizens will have until at least 30 June 2021 to apply for their settled or pre-settled status. The ID checking process can be completed on Android devices (6.0 and above) and as of November 2019 on iPhone devices (iPhone 7 and above). The process is now free of charge.
The process for EU citizens
Your EU staff will need to follow three simple steps when making their application:
- confirm their identity
- demonstrate that they live in the UK
- declare that they have no serious criminal convictions.
For those EU staff who already have a valid permanent residence documentation, they will be able to exchange it for pre-settled or settled status for free.
Those with indefinite leave to enter/remain in the UK or have British or Irish citizenship do not need to apply to the EU Settlement Scheme.
Demonstrating settled status
EU staff are able to view and prove their settled status online using the Gov.uk website. Using this service, staff will be able to obtain a code to share with employers that will evidence their status. Note that it is currently not necessary to prove status and candidates are able to show their identity documents as normal until 31 December 2020 if preferred.
Recording status
The Electronic Staff Record (ESR) team have confirmed that new fields to record EU pre and settled status are to be released 31 July 2020.
HR teams will also be able to record the date status was issued by the Home Office, expiry date (for pre-settled status) as well as temporary leave to remain should the UK transition out of the EU without a deal. The release will be followed by functionality which will support HR teams to report on these fields, scheduled for launch on 25 September.
Both the new fields and reporting functionality are subject to the successful completion of design, build and test phases.
The development of the new fields follows close engagement between ESR, NHS Employers and NHS organisations to ensure EU Settlement Scheme information can be suitably recorded.