Oxfordshire firm first in the area to be certified for 'right to work' checks

By Nicky Godding

15 November 2022

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The first company in Oxfordshire to be approved by the UK Government as an Identity Service Provider for right to work checks has just been announced. The honour goes to NorthRow, a digital company with their headquarters at Milton Park in Abingdon.

Employers were authorised to conduct right to work checks remotely using video calls as part of the interim measures made in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. These modifications ended in October 2022. Employers that want to confirm the identities of potential workers must either conduct manual, in-person examinations of supporting documents or use an IDSP to carry out digital identity verification for right to work checks.

In the first quarter of 2022, there were more than £1 million in fines for violating the right to work laws, with 16 penalties totalling £300,000 given to companies just in London and the South East.

NorthRow’s certified status provides assurance that completing right to work checks using its software will ensure businesses meet all relevant guidance and standards, establishing a statutory excuse against civil penalties and supporting continued compliance with the very latest Home Office and government legislation.

Andrew Doyle is NorthRow's CEO. He said this after hearing of about receiving the certification: “This announcement validates the exceptional work our team has delivered to place NorthRow in a very small group of certified IDSPs - becoming the first and only business in the Oxfordshire region thus far to do so."

“This means we can now support even more clients with their exceptional standard, compliant remote identity checks.”

By Nicky Godding

Nicky Godding is editor of The Business Magazine. Before her journalism career, she worked mainly in public relations moving into writing when she was invited to launch Retail Watch, a publication covering retail and real estate across Europe.

After some years of constant travelling, she tucked away her passport and concentrated on business writing, co-founding a successful regional business magazine. She has interviewed some of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs who have built multi-million-pound businesses and reported on many science and technology firsts.

She reports on the region’s thriving business economy from start-ups, family businesses and multi-million-pound corporations, to the professionals that support their growth and the institutions that educate the next generation of business leaders.