Dear C. Evison,

Thank you for your e-mail of 20 March requesting details of 1) the maximum timetable allowed to exhaust all objection and appeal rights for civil penalties imposed on employers of illegal workers and 2) for the details of the number of objections and appeals that have been successful. This falls to be dealt with under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. I sorry for the delay in responding to your request.

After a civil penalty is served on an employer of illegal migrant workers, the employer has 28 days to either pay the penalty, object to the penalty or appeal to the County Courts in England and Wales or the Sheriffs Court in Scotland. If the employer chooses to object, the UKBA have 28 days to respond to the objection and if the penalty is upheld the employer has a further 28 days to pay the penalty or appeal to the courts. When an employer lodges an appeal, the timeframe for the appeal is determined by the Courts and will vary from Court to Court depending on factors such as the availability of hearing dates and the availability of judges.

To answer your second question we have defined “successful” as a penalty being decreased or cancelled at the objection stage and an appeal being allowed by the Judge. As at 31 March 2009, 52 illegal working civil penalties have been cancelled and 137 decreased at the objection stage of the process; this represents 18% of objections considered by the Civil Penalty Compliance Team (CPCT). Six illegal working civil penalty appeals have been allowed by the Judge; this figure represents 6% of appeals which have been processed through the County and Sheriff's Courts.

This data is sourced from a UK Border Agency management information system, the data is not quality assured under National Statistics protocols and is subject to change due to internal data quality checking. Figures provided from this source do not constitute part of National Statistics and should be treated as provisional.

If you are dissatisfied with this response you may request an independent internal review of our handling of your request.  Internal review requests should be submitted within two months of the UK Border Agency sending a substantive reply to your original request and should be addressed  to:

Information Access Policy Team

(Freedom of Information Team)

UK Border Agency
11th Floor - Short Corridor
Lunar House
40 Wellesley Road

Croydon
CR9 2BY

During the independent review the department's handling of your information request will be reassessed by staff who were not involved in providing you with this response. Should you remain dissatisfied after this internal review, you will have a right of complaint to the Information Commissioner as established by section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act.

Yours sincerely

Briefing & Correspondence Team

Immigration Group