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on January 30, 2023
Read Time: 8 Minutes
As an employer in the UK, you will naturally be anxious to ensure that your organisation can access the most attractive and relevant talent for its vacancies – and on some occasions, this may necessitate you looking beyond UK shores.
However, it is normally the case that if an organisation in the UK wishes to employ someone from outside the UK to work for them, they will need to obtain a sponsor licence from the Home Office.
Here at Cranbrook Legal in central London, our specialists in immigration law have long had an excellent track record of helping UK employers to submit a successful application for a sponsor licence. But the process is not over once your organisation has secured a sponsor licence from the Home Office. That’s because there are also certain responsibilities you will be required to fulfil in the management of your sponsor licence – and we can assist you with those, too, by managing the sponsorship process for you.
If, as an employer in the UK, you wish to hire someone from another country to work for you, it is very likely that you will need to apply for – and secure – a sponsor licence from the Home Office. This, in turn, would entitle you to ‘sponsor’ the foreign worker so that they can come to the UK to work for you.
It is not automatically the case that a UK employer will need a sponsor licence in order to hire someone from abroad. If someone that your organisation wishes to employ is one of the following, you will not require a sponsor licence to sponsor them:
If the person that you would like to hire to work for you is not in one of the above groups, you may need to obtain a sponsor licence. Please note, however, that sponsoring someone does not guarantee they will be approved for the visa that would enable them to work for you in the UK.
The UK visa sponsorship management system, or SMS, is the tool through which organisations that hold a sponsor licence manage their sponsorship responsibilities.
As a UK employer of one or multiple people on a Worker or Temporary Worker visa, you will be able to use the SMS for the following tasks:
These are tasks that we can help you with here at Cranbrook Legal, including when you appoint one of our professionals in immigration law as a level 1 user with access to your organisation’s SMS portal. For more information on this service, please keep on reading below, or call us on 0208 215 0053 to arrange your free consultation.
At the time of your organisation’s application for a sponsor licence, you will need to assign people to certain roles that will be necessary for the management of the sponsorship process.
Those roles are as follows:
The above are all essential roles to which to appoint someone as part of your sponsor licence application. However, you do not necessarily need to appoint a different person to each of these three roles; you could choose to have one person take on all three roles, if you would prefer this.
It will also be possible, once your organisation has been granted a sponsor licence, to appoint an optional level 2 user. As the term suggests, a level 2 user will be less senior than the level 1 user, with relatively restricted access to the SMS. A level 2 user would not, for example, have the power to withdraw a Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS).
When you apply for a sponsor licence, the Home Office will check that the individuals you have appointed are suitable to take on these roles. For example, your application for a sponsor licence may be refused if anyone named in your sponsor licence application has:
It will also be expected that the staff you have appointed to the sponsorship management roles will be based in the UK most of the time, and will not be subject to a bankruptcy restriction order or undertaking, or a debt relief restriction order or undertaking. Nor should any of the allocated individuals have a history of failing to comply with sponsor requirements.
There is a five-part process to applying to become a licensed sponsor in the UK. These are:
Applying for a sponsor licence online, and paying the Home Office fee. It will be necessary to use the UK Government’s online system in order to apply for a sponsor licence for your organisation. You may need to send supporting documents to strengthen your application, if the Home Office asks for these. The Home Office also charges an application fee, with the exact amount depending on the type of licence that is being applied for, and the type of organisation that is applying for the licence.
Although at least one level 1 user managing your business’s sponsorship process must be an employee of your organisation, it is possible to appoint additional level 1 or level 2 users who are employed by third-party organisations providing you with HR services.
You also have the option of assigning any of the aforementioned roles – with the exception of the authorising officer role – to a UK-based legal representative. If you do take up this option, it is essential that your organisation’s legal representative is qualified to provide immigration advice or services.
If you would favour this, you can choose to have a specialist in immigration law from Cranbrook Legal act as a level 1 user with access to your business’s SMS portal. Our in-depth and far-reaching knowledge and experience in relation to sponsor licences and the management of sponsorship responsibilities for businesses, can help ensure your firm keeps on top of all your duties in this crucial area.
Cranbrook Legal can give your organisation the benefit of comprehensive sponsor licence management services. This could entail us taking on such tasks for you as increasing CoS allocations, applying for the relevant visa for a foreign worker that your organisation is interested in hiring, and other ongoing level 1 duties via the SMS.
We can even provide training on how to use the SMS to your own staff, and carry out the work necessary to renew your firm’s sponsor licence once it expires.
Our central London-based team of immigration lawyers recognises that it can be a confusing and overwhelming process to keep on top of all your responsibilities related to sponsoring foreign workers, especially if your organisation has never previously held a sponsor licence.
This is why it can be a very good idea to arrange for trusted experts to act as a level 1 user for you, to help ensure your firm does not inadvertently fall out of compliance with any aspect of its sponsorship obligations. For more information about this service or about any of our other expertise in relation to sponsor licences, please do not hesitate to contact the Cranbrook Legal team for a free consultation. You can also call us on 0208 215 0053.
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