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Sponsor Licence Management

Once your organisation has a sponsor licence, you are also vested with numerous sponsor ongoing duties and responsibilities.

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Sponsor Licence Management

Once your organisation has a sponsor licence, you are also vested with numerous sponsor ongoing duties and responsibilities. The objectives of these duties include preventing abuse of the immigration laws and sponsorship arrangements, capturing early any patterns of behaviour that may cause concern, addressing weaknesses in the process which cause those patterns and monitoring compliance with the immigration rules and wider UK law. 

Your responsibilities as a sponsor start on the day you are granted your licence and will continue until you surrender your licence or it’s revoked. 

Even experienced HR teams can find it challenging to keep up with the latest changes in UK immigration law, policy and best practices as this is resource intensive and can often fall down the priority list against demands from core operational objectives. Below are some of the key pointers to note and comply with your duties.

Sponsor Duties Overview

Below are broadly your duties as a licenced sponsor:

  • Reporting Duties
  • Record keeping duties
  • Compliance with immigration laws
  • Compliance withal applicable UK Laws
  • Not engaging in behaviour or actions that are not conducive to the public good

If you fail to comply with your sponsor duties, the home office may initiate actions against you, which can include any of the following sanctions:

  • Reducing your CoS allocation or setting it to zero
  • Downgrading your licence rating
  • Revoking your licence
  • Reporting you to the police or other relevant authorities.

Home office compliance visits or digital inspections are common. Licence holders should also be aware that at the licence renewal stage the Home Office examines the HR Controls, Processes and records to ensure compliance throughout licence validity and ascertain if the organisation can maintain compliance into the next licence period. 

Our team has extensive experience in assisting small and large businesses to ensure they fully comply with all the home office requirements and adhere to their sponsor duties. Feel free to get in touch to understand how we can help you.

Reporting & Record Keeping Duties

Your organisational level 1 & level 2 users are given access to the SMS (Sponsor Management System). The authorising officer is accountable for adherence to all reporting, record keeping and other sponsor duties vested on you. Your organisation can use the SMS to create and assign the Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) to prospective employees, report sponsored employee changes, withdraw or vary sponsorships issued and report organisation changes to the Home Office.

You must report certain information or events to the home office within specific timelines based on the occasion. Some of the events that need to be reported within 10 working days are delayed work start of the worker; worker absent without authorisation for more than 10 working days, end or termination of contracts and any significant changes to the employment. 

Some significant changes to your organisation which must be reported within 20 working days include changes to the name or branch names, selling all or part of your business, any mergers or take overs or other substantial changes to the nature of business. 

These and other sponsor duties are subject to change from time to time and you as a sponsor must be up to date with any regulatory or requirement changes. 

We’ve built corporate immigration retainer packages to assist your organisation with adhering to the ongoing sponsor duties. Check out the below table and give us a call so we can help you adhere with the sponsor duties.

Compliance Visits

In order to ensure that the sponsor is complying with their duties and are upholding the trust placed on them, the Home Office may undertake compliance visit at any point. This can be pre-licence before they grant or post-licence after they grant. 

They may undertake a physical inspection of your premises; however, they are now more commonly undertaking digital compliance checks through online meetings. They may also undertake phone or email audits with tight timeframes for response. 

They may also audit through inter-government sharing of intelligence like with HMRC. As a sponsor all your processes, practices and systems must be audit ready at all times. 

We can assist your organisation with achieving this and always being audit ready. We can help you respond to any audit questions or for any physical/digital inspection.

FAQs

The sponsor management system (SMS) is the Home Office’s online tool to which the sponsor organisation is given access. This is used by the organisation to meet their compliance responsibilities and administer their day-to-day licence management activities. This is also used to request and assign Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) for individuals identified and make the ISC (Immigration Skills Charge) payment.

In the original sponsor application, companies can only nominate one Level 1 user and this person must be an employee or an office holder i.e. a Director, Trustee, or Company Secretary. Once the licence has been granted, it is possible to appoint more Level 1 users, including a company Representative or other staff members. UKVI recommends keeping numbers to the minimum necessary for effective business operation.

The same person can fill all key personnel roles, or a combination of different people, although there can only be one authorising officer and one key contact. However, one or both of these individuals can also be appointed as a level 1 user.

A CoS (Certificate of Sponsorship) is an electronic document which can be requested and assigned by a sponsor through their Sponsor Management System. This is then issued to the individual that is being sponsored, who can then make a visa application under the points-based system like Skilled Worker etc.

A genuine vacancy requires the jobholder to perform the specific duties and responsibilities for the job and meets all of the requirements of the relevant route, does not include dissimilar and/or predominantly lower-skilled duties and is appropriate to the business in light of its business model, business plan and scale and meet the entry requirements for the relevant role.

Organisations can recruit any foreign workers, immaterial of their location. Different processes apply for those who are overseas and seeking to enter the UK as opposed to those who are in the UK and eligible to be sponsored. Our corporate immigration team will be happy to assist the organisations in determining the right route and strategy for the licence application and/or requesting certificate of sponsorship and/or employee’s skilled work visa application.

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Our client-centric approach works around your availability and your objectives. Get in touch with us and see how we can assist with your immigration issues.
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Premium Retainer Package

Outsource all SMS management activities completely with professional support using our corporate immigration retainer.
£ 250+VAT
per month
  • ONGOING LEGAL REPRESENTATION - SMS
  • IMMIGRATION LAW UPDATES
  • UNLIMITED IMMIGRATION ADVICE – TELEPHONE & EMAIL
  • HR GUIDANCE & TEMPLATES
  • DISCOUNTED BESPOKE LEGAL FEE
  • SMS LEGAL REP, KEY CONTACT AND LEVEL 1 USER
  • Sponsor Compliance Portal
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FAQs

We have various options to pay for our services as per your convenience. You can make a bank transfer, pay online using our pay online link, or set up a Direct Debit for ongoing retainer services. If you are instructing in person, you can pay using your debit or credit card at our offices.

We are fully capable for completing all our processes online. We use e-signatures for contracts and online conferencing for consultations. Communications and approvals are through emails and we also have client portal to give you an overview of the accounts. You do not need to necessarily come in person however, all our clients are always welcome to visit us in our office.

Whilst we have a very high success rate, we do not offer a no-win-no fee service. Our fee is for the time and work undertaken by our legal and support team. In order to ensure our practice is client-focused and result oriented, we ensure ample resourcing is provided for all matters we undertake. We stay away from other pricing models as it may result in less or no allocation of required resources for each case and deterioration in the quality of service the client receives.

You can pay the disbursement to our client account if you wish us to make the payment to the home office on your behalf. Your final bill will show the actual charges incurred and we will request for additional funds or refund the remaining monies if applicable. Alternatively, you can pay the home office fee directly at the submission stage. We will talk you through both the options when you instruct us.

Our fixed fee band is the best estimate and the majority of matters we undertake fall within this range. In certain situations, you may incur additional charges resulting from complexities due to information not disclosed to us from the outset. There also may be situations where a significant change in the law or information provided to us requires a re-application or significant additional work. In certain situations, the home office may raise queries regarding your application, need detailed representation or additional evidence, or require advice and assistance in challenging a decision.

You may also be charged lesser than the fixed fee band when there is a specific contractual agreement for work or when instructed by a business who is a retainer client who subscribed to one of our packages and the service offered is under a discounted fee agreement for the bulk work undertaken. We may also provide a discounted rate for a returning client based on the circumstances or via employee benefit schemes, this can be requested from the practice manager.

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