Record-keeping

One of the most common areas of immigration compliance risk for sponsor licence holders relates to record-keeping, and checking and retaining specific documentation for specific periods, in particular formats, and that these are to be made available to UKVI on request.

All documents provided as part of your application to become a licensed sponsor must be kept for the duration of the period covered by your licence.

All documents relating to sponsored workers must be kept for a shorter period of either one year from the date you end your sponsorship of the migrant or if the migrant is no longer sponsored by you, the point at which a compliance officer has examined and approved them.

Reporting duties

Your organisation will need to have HR systems and procedures in place to monitor all sponsored workers and track and record their attendance, as well as ensure they are complying with the terms and conditions of their visa.

Sponsors are under a duty to notify the Home Office of certain activities and changes in circumstances relating to their migrant workers and to the organisation itself.

For example, the sponsor reports regular non-attendance, non-compliance or disappearance of migrant workers. For organisational changes, you will need to update the Sponsorship Management System (SMS) with developments such as changes to contact details and if there has been a significant change such as a merger or acquisition.

Right to Work

Sponsor licence holders remain subject to the same rules on the prevention of illegal working as all UK employers. Regular right-to-work checks should be performed for all prospective and existing employees to avoid civil penalties for illegal working. The documents that you retain must prove that the right checks on an employee’s immigration status have been made and continue to be made. This will be considered by UKVI to determine if your organisation is compliant with its record-keeping duties.

Checks on an employee’s immigration status should be made before employment commences. Importantly, this duty applies to all employees – including British and EEA citizens.

Periodic checks on the work eligibility of non-EEA employees with temporary work permits should be conducted every 12 months starting from their date of employment.

Complying with immigration laws

Any requests from the Home Office, for documentation or for access to conduct a site inspection, must be complied with in full and in a timely manner. This also extends to acting honestly and with full disclosure in all dealings with the Home Office.

What causes a Home Office Compliance visit?

A compliance visit, according to the Home Office, is "where we visit you to perform a compliance check. This includes visiting any branches or sites under your control, or any relevant client site or third party where your sponsored workers will be working." The UKVI carry out the compliance visits solely to ensure that sponsorship duties and obligations.

Pre-licence visit

To ensure that the information provided in your sponsor licencing application is accurate and that you have a strong HR system in place to fulfil your sponsor duties, the Home Office may undertake an inspection when deciding on your application.

Post Licence visit

The Home Office has the right to conduct inspections at any time throughout the sponsor licence validity period. This is to check that you are continuing to comply with your sponsor duties and that you are a genuine company operating or trading lawfully in the UK.

What Happens If You Fail a Home Office Inspection?

The following measures may be taken against you by the Home Office if you fail to fulfil your sponsorship responsibilities once your sponsor licence has been granted.

Downgrading a licence to a B-rating

A B-rating means the UKVI compliance officer is not satisfied that the Sponsor is able to fully comply with sponsorship duties, but is satisfied that the Sponsor has the ability to fix any gaps in the organisation’s processes. In general, a licence will only be downgraded to a B-rating for relatively minor breaches of the sponsorship system that UKVI believes can be resolved by issuing an action plan.

Whilst on a B-rating, the Sponsor will be prohibited from assigning any Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) to new workers. The sponsor will be required to carry out time-sensitive steps to:

• Pay the action plan fee to receive an action plan from UKVI; and
• Comply with a time-limited action plan which sets out the steps the Sponsor must take to return to an A-rating.

At the end of the period, a further compliance check will be carried out to see whether all the requirements of the action plan have been met.

Sponsor Licence is suspended

A licence is normally suspended where the Sponsor is found to be breaching sponsor duties and/or pose a threat to immigration control or is engaging in behaviour/actions detrimental to the public good.

UKVI may suspend a Sponsor Licence with or without a full investigation. The reasons for suspension will be provided in a written notification and the Sponsor will have 20 working days from the date of the letter to respond in writing.

This may result in the licence being reinstated to an A-rating, being downgraded to a B-rating, or being revoked. 

Whilst a licence is suspended, a Sponsor will not be able to assign any CoS. your current sponsored workers will not be affected unless the Home Office decides to revoke your licence. 

The Sponsor Licence is revoked

Where a Sponsor Licence is revoked, it will be revoked for all the routes in which the Sponsor is licensed and the organisation’s details will be removed from the public register of licensed sponsors. The Sponsor will not be able to sponsor any more workers and all your sponsored workers will be notified that their remaining permission may be cancelled or shortened to 60 calendar days left. 

Reasons for revoking a sponsor licence include having given false information when you made your Sponsor Licence application, employing a migrant in a job that does not meet the skill level requirements and using a CoS to fill a vacancy other than the one specified on the CoS you assign for that role. Human resource policy failures are a common reason for revocation.

If a Sponsor with a revoked licence wishes to apply for a Sponsor Licence again, they will be unable to do so until the cooling-off period of 12 months (or any longer period specified) has passed from the date of revocation.