You often read about civil service ineptitude, but it's not often you experience it directly in a way that could have resulted in someone losing their job.
One of our employees has been waiting for his residency permit to come through for several months, which has caused us some concern given that we are currently within the application process for a new sponsorship licence.
Our concerns led me to contact the employer helpline at the Home Office last week, and today I heard back from them.
Much to my alarm, they claimed never to have heard of our employee.
The letter they sent could have led to us instantly declaring the employee's contract void, but we decided to do a bit more digging first.
With the employee's permission, I spoke directly to the Home Office, who did seem to know of our employee despite their letter to the contrary. Furthermore, they apologised for the delay in getting the relevant documents to him.
My reply was somewhere along the lines of, "Never mind about apologising for the delay, what about apologising for the false information that you gave us that could have very well cost him his job?!"
They didn't seem to have much of a response to that one...
"One of our employees has been waiting for his residency permit to come through for several months"
Why isn't your company employing a UK citizen to fill this position?