The Site

A £130 million new build development, to house commercial offices and residential dwellings in the south east of England.

The construction started on the development in 2016 with completion due in July 2018.

The construction was contracted to a major UK developer.

The Details

During the later stages of the build, the site was six months behind schedule, the main build had been completed and the internal services were now being installed.

To bring the project back on track, the developer had employed several contract companies in an attempt to claw back some of the delays.

The developer had a tested and certified quality system, which ensured all the contractor companies were also certified to national standards. This system ensured only qualified tradesmen were allowed on site.

This system checked the qualifications of all tradesmen on site but did not perform checks on labourers. One afternoon in March 2018 UK immigration raided the site following complaints from local residents about noise late at night.

It was then discovered one of their contractors had employed 30 labourers,  of which 17 were illegal  this was to complete some menial tasks after the main contractors had gone home for the night.

The result of this was the site was closed for 10 days while an enquiry was carried out causing further delays to the overall project Fines were also issued at £20k per illegal worker operating on site, totalling £340k costs for the developer. It was found the developer was aware their contractor was completing menial tasks after hours, however, no checks were carried out on those performing the work.

The Solution

If the developer had been using the V Site Pass system, they would have had peace of mind that every worker on their site was qualified, remained qualified, and was eligible to work in the UK.