UK employers holding a sponsor licence must adhere to the responsibilities and duties determined by the UKVI. If you fail to meet those responsibilities that the home office sets, it can result in rejection or abolishment of the sponsor licence. It means you won’t be eligible to sponsor global workers for your organisation any longer. United Kingdom visa and immigration department frequently updates and amends sponsor guidance. A sponsor licence holder must ensure that they regularly review those updates and maintain those responsibilities. It can make your organisation enlightened with its compliance. Let’s dig in and discuss the specific duties of a sponsor licence holder.
Six Sponsor Licence Duties for UK Employers
After submitting your sponsor licence application, the UKVI analyse your understanding and proficiency of several responsibilities. They can even thoroughly check in detail to understand your organisation’s sustainability and work process and whether it is the place to meet the responsibilities. Therefore, ensuring that you have a practical work system in place is essential. Now, let’s check out those sponsor licence essential duties in redemption for a licence holder.
- Monitoring & Reporting of Sponsored Workers
It is one of the most crucial duties of the sponsor licence holder. They need to monitor the migrant workers they are sponsoring and report to the UKVI using the SMS portal within ten working days if a migrant worker does not appear at work on their first day of employment. If the organisation has already abolished the employees’ contract, they must also inform the UKVI in this scenario. Under the responsibility of UK employers, they need to notify the home office a migrant worker is consistently absent from the workplace for more than ten days without any information. It comes under the duties of employers to ensure that workers’ leaves are authorised.
- Inform the Organisational Changes
According to the sponsor licence duties, UK employers must inform the UKVI of specific organisational changes to ensure their records are updated. If you are expanding your organisation or executing any changes impacting its status, you must inform UKVI within ten days. Apart from that, a few more changes should be reported to the home office, such as a change of organisation name if your organisation has ceased to trade, a sale of every part of the business and a change of your organisation’s address.
- Report a Change of Authorising Officer
The home office determines the authorising officer as their key person to contact your organisation. However, they do not involve in the day-to-day immigration process, but it is essential to inform the UKVI if you are changing your authorising officer. If your current officer leaves the organisation for any reason, you must appoint one as soon as possible and inform the UKVI about the same.
- Record Keeping of Sponsor Worker
As sponsor licence holder duties keeping a record of each sponsor worker is essential. Under the UK immigration rules, you will find all the required documents to be gathered in appendix D. You must have the hard copy or printout of the migrant worker’s passport pages containing their details, immigration status, leave stamps, etc. Keep a record of the workers’ biometric residence permits and national insurance numbers. You should have their current and previous contact number and the worker’s employment contract. You must keep all the essential records until a UKVI officer doesn’t go through them.
- Granting CoS & Renewal Certificates to the Workers
CoS refers to a certificate of sponsorship; UK employers must assign it to their migrant workers once it has been allocated to them. You must request the UKVI to issue a new certificate to your workers by the end of every financial year. You should only assign certificates to those global workers who are perfect for the sponsorship. Do not forget to analyse the qualifications of the sponsored candidates.
- Ensuing the UK law & Immigration Rules
For UK employers, it is imperative to consider their responsibility to comply with UK law and immigration rules. You should only employ and sponsor those workers who are qualified, registered and experienced for the job. Employers can not grant a CoS if the employment is not authentic or genuine. As an employer, you must prevent illegal activities by acquiring essential information about migrant workers.
These responsibilities are not easy to implement; it takes a depth knowledge of immigration rules and regulations of the UK government. It would be helpful if you get along with sponsor licence solicitors. They can take care of such responsibilities on your behalf and ensure a positive result.
Conclusion
Therefore, it is crucial to efficiently execute all the responsibilities mentioned above to hold a sponsor licence. For UK employers, there are several essential duties such as keeping a record of their migrant workers, following the UK immigration rules and regulations, allocating CoS to the workers, and reporting any changes in their organisation is crucial. In this regard, the help of A Y & J Solicitors can be effective and beneficial for your sponsorship term.
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