Tier 4 Monitoring Service (colleges)

Service monitoring hours worked by Tier 4 students at University of Oxford colleges

The College Tier 4 Monitoring Service is a staff immigration function which monitors the number of hours that a Tier 4 visa holders work for colleges. This only applies to Tier 4 visa holders and not Tier 4 Doctoral Extension Scheme (DES) visa holders.
 

The College Tier 4 Monitoring Service can only provide guidance on what a student can legally work, not what they should work, and recommends that college employers prioritise maintaining a healthy work/study balance for the student when allocating work.

The monitoring undertaken by the service creates a centralised record of all work engagements, which is used to prevent students from working more hours than is permitted by their Tier 4 visa, particularly when working at multiple colleges, or at both a college and the University.
 

The Service is a product of extensive consultation by the Conference of Colleges Right to Work Panel and the University’s Staff Immigration Team. It has been designed to address risks to the Collegiate University’s shared Tier 4 Sponsorship license and to the students who are Tier 4 visa holders.

 

Students should make themselves familiar with the work restrictions of the Tier 4 visa. Information can be found on the Student Immigration's Working while studying pages and the Paid Work Guidelines for Oxford Students

 

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When a University-sponsored Tier 4 student is engaged to undertake paid work, the employing college should provide the following information by email to the College Tier 4 Monitoring Service:
 

Information about the student:

a)  
 		 Student Name
 b) Student Number
 c) Has the student declared any other work on their Tier 4 Student Employment Declaration (Yes/No)
 d)     If yes, please confirm the number of hours they have declared, the period of employment and whether the work is for another college, a University department, or external employer.

 

The engagement (the piece of work):

e) 
 		 Job title
 f) Start date
 g)  Expected end date
 h) Will the hours of work vary from week to week during the above dates?
 i) Is there a maximum number of hours the student will work in any given week? (if yes, please confirm the No. of hours)

 

Alternatively, if you would like to provide a list of multiple Tier 4 students/work engagements, please use the following spreadsheet template: Tier 4 Engagement list template

 

Please email this information to collegetier4@admin.ox.ac.uk 

 
 

 

Receiving an engagement confirmation from the service                                                              

Once details of an engagement involving a Tier 4 student are received, a record will be created within on the College Tier 4 Monitoring Service system and confirmation will be sent to the employing college and the student.

Once a record of the engagement has been designated, college representatives will be able to log in to the online system and view the engagement details and any associated timesheets.

View details of engagements and timesheets at college: 

LOG IN TO COLLEGE TIER 4 MONITORING ONLINE SYSTEM 

 

Students wanting to access the system should log in to the student portal:  

LOG IN TO STUDENT PORTAL  

 

If you are designated as a point of contact at your college, you will receive a welcome email from the College Tier 4 Monitoring Service explaining how to log into the online portal which can be found here.

Username:

Please use your Oxford username (SSO)

Password:

You will be issued with a temporary password which expires after 5 days, please log in to the system as soon as possible and update your password to something memorable. For security reasons, we strongly recommend that you do not use the same password as associated with your Oxford username.

 

Once you have logged into the portal, the default view displays any timesheets requiring authorisation (see section below).

You can also view details of the engagements menu by clicking on the ‘Engagements’ option under ‘RESOURCING’ in the Left-hand menu.

More detailed guidance on using the College Tier 4 Monitoring Service online system can be found under the ‘GUIDANCE NOTES' section, by selecting ‘Guidance for College Users’. 

 

 

Confirmation and applying controls

The College Tier 4 Monitoring Service will send written confirmation to the employing colleges and the student confirming any agreed controls, but colleges will need to ensure anyone involved in assigning shifts/work patterns for the student in question understands the importance of adhering to any restrictions advised by the service.

 

The monitoring of engagements detailed in section 1 is aimed at identifying high-risk arrangements at the start of an engagement and recommending suitable controls. The College Tier 4 Monitoring Service also conducts retrospective checks, by monitoring the actual hours Tier 4 students work each week. Both mechanisms are considered necessary to achieve reliable and accurate monitoring of Tier 4 work, particularly with many students engaged on an ad-hoc or variable-hours basis.

 

Once an engagement has been created within the College Tier 4 Monitoring Service system, designated college representatives will be able to log in and view the associated weekly timesheets through their respective portals (see section above for logging into the College users portal).

 

Students will also be able to view the timesheets and, by default, will be encouraged to submit their timesheets at the end of the week in which the work is undertaken. This will trigger an email prompt to the ‘Lead Contact’ associated with the engagement advising that a timesheet requires authorisation.

 

Some colleges enter hours worked on behalf of their student employees. Students at these colleges are not required to submit timesheets.

 

Before making payments to Tier 4 students, colleges should ensure the hours entered into the system match those being paid by the college and that the timesheets are not displaying a Tier 4 warning status.

 

There is no set timetable for the authorisation of timesheets, allowing colleges to fit this around local payroll cycles. Colleges can designate additional timesheet authorisers who, alongside the ‘Lead Contact’, who submit the time sheets.   

 

Any student's experiencing difficulty accessing their timesheets should be directed to College Tier4 Monitoring Service.

 

If it is identified that a student has more than one simultaneous engagement, both employing entities will be informed, so that all parties are aware that some of the student’s 20-hour restriction may be partly used elsewhere.

In addition, the College Tier 4 Monitoring Service may recommend further controls to reduce the risk of the student exceeding their visa restrictions.

 

Examples of multi engagement scenarios are provided below for illustration:

 

Scenario A – student with two regular engagements

A student is working 5 hours a week consistently for College A and 4 hours a week consistently for College B

Action: Low risk scenario. Both colleges are informed that the student has a second engagement which might impact their ability to undertake overtime.

Control(s): Both colleges asked to be cautious if offering overtime and/or increasing the contracted hours

 

Scenario B – student with one regular and one variable-hours engagement

A student is working 3 hours a week consistently for College A and is engaged on a variable-hours basis to work for College B

Action: Medium risk scenario. Both colleges are informed that the student has a further engagement.

Control(s):          College A is asked to liaise with the Service before offering overtime and/or increasing the contracted hours

College B is advised that the student can only work a maximum of 17 hours a week 

 

Scenario C – student with two variable-hours engagements

A student is working for both College A and College B on a variable-hours basis.

Action: High risk scenario. Both colleges are informed that the student has a second engagement and asked to provide input into possible controls, by identifying, where possible, the maximum number of hours they would realistically require the student to work in a single week.      

Control(s):          Based on the feedback from the college and the student

College A is advised that the student can only work a maximum of 7 hours a eek 

College B is advised that the student can only work a maximum of 13 hours a week 

 

There may also be scenarios where it is identified that the student is working for an external employer, or the University, resulting in similar controls.

The College Tier 4 Monitoring Service receives information about a student's personal details and employment directly from the student, their home college or the employing college. This also includes details from the Student Declaration Form which is completed as part of their Right to work check.

The type of work being undertaken, and the identity of the other employer, will always remain confidential. The College Tier 4 Monitoring Service will not share details of student engagements between employing colleges. The only information shared will concern the number of hours the student has committed to elsewhere, for the purposes of determining any appropriate controls.  

Links

 

View details of engagements and timesheets at college: 

LOG IN TO TIER 4 MONITORING ONLINE SYSTEM

 

Students wanting to access the system should log in to the student portal:  

LOG IN TO STUDENT PORTAL 

Who to contact 

Kim Proffitt

College Tier 4 Monitoring Service 
email: collegetier4@admin.ox.ac.uk

Please note our office hours are:
Tuesday, 9:00-15:00
Wednesday 09:00-15:15
Thursday: 09:00-15:00

Documents

 

College Tier 4 Monitoring Service User Guide 

 

Download Tier 4 Engagement list template