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on July 6, 2023
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As many past clients of ours, as well as regular readers of our news updates here at Cranbrook Legal will have some familiarity with, applying for a sponsor licence can be a crucial move for many UK employers. Often, an employer in the UK will need to have a sponsor licence in order to hire someone from outside the UK to work for them.
A sponsor licence effectively constitutes permission from the UK Home Office to recruit certain migrants from overseas. There are some categories of workers from outside the UK that a UK employer can hire without the need for a sponsor licence – for example, Irish citizens and those with “indefinite leave to remain” status in the UK.
As a general rule, though, if you wish to recruit someone from beyond the UK’s borders to work for your organisation, you can expect to need to obtain a sponsor licence. So, it is well worth familiarising yourself with the full range of requirements that the Home Office puts in place for sponsor licence applicants, even before you approach experts in UK immigration law, such as our own specialists here at Cranbrook Legal, to guide and assist you through the process.
Even before you consider whether the role that you are looking to recruit for is actually suitable for sponsorship, and the type of licence you would like to apply for, you should be checking whether your business would be eligible for a sponsor licence.
At the time of typing, you will not be able to obtain a sponsor licence for your organisation if you have had a sponsor licence revoked during the last 12 months. Nor will you be eligible in the event of having unspent criminal convictions for immigration offences or certain other crimes, such as fraud or money laundering. Another extremely important consideration, however, is whether you have appropriate systems in place within your organisation for the monitoring of sponsored employees. Closely related to this, you will also need to appoint people within your business to manage the sponsorship process, at the time you submit your sponsor licence application to the Home Office.
The sponsorship management system – also referred to as simply the “SMS” – is the Home Office’s online tool that an organisation holding a sponsor licence uses in order to manage its responsibilities as a sponsor.
It is through the SMS that a licensed sponsor can carry out a range of duties and processes, including:
You might be wondering why it is so important that the Home Office itself provides this tool. The short answer to that question, is that the Home Office needs to be able to see the information in the SMS, so that it can confirm the given employer is complying with its duties in relation to the sponsor licence.
This information being contained within the SMS enables the Home Office to be confident that it reflects the up-to-date situation of the business, and the employees that the organisation is sponsoring at any given time.
As we touched on above, it is possible to not only be approved for a sponsor licence by the Home Office, but also have a sponsor licence suspended or revoked.
There are good reasons for this; the UK Government is anxious to ensure that sponsor licence holders are doing everything possible to stay in compliance with the UK Immigration Rules, and to prevent illegal working.
It makes sense, then, that as far as the Home Office is concerned, meeting the requirements for a sponsor licence is not a one-time act to be fulfilled at the initial application stage, but is instead something that an employer must keep on doing for as long as it holds a sponsor licence.
A sponsorship licence lasts for four years, and if an employer that holds a sponsor licence wishes to do so for longer than this, it should apply to renew the licence prior to it expiring.
The Home Office sets out various responsibilities that it expects sponsor licence holders to fulfil. These include:
Any failure on the part of a sponsor licence holder to meet the aforementioned duties is an extremely serious matter as far as the Home Office is concerned. If your organisation falls short of meeting such requirements, it could risk having its sponsor licence downgraded, suspended, or withdrawn.
So, if your organisation is to be successful in being granted and keeping hold of a sponsor licence, it cannot depend on conducting itself in an “ad hoc” manner. Instead, you must invest time and effort in establishing the most robust possible compliance HR systems.
The monitoring of sponsored employees is one of the most crucial sponsorship management processes. When your organisation has the right HR systems in place, it will be in a good position to carry out such tasks as the following:
If any significant changes in the circumstances of your organisation arise – for example, the business becoming insolvent or ceasing to trade, or the nature of the business substantially changing – it will be necessary to report these changes within 20 working days. These are all responsibilities that your organisation will find it much easier to fulfil, if it has robust compliance HR systems in place before it even submits its application for the sponsor licence.
Despite what may be implied by its name, a Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) is not a physical certificate or other paper document, but is instead an electronic record.
Nonetheless, the CoS plays a critical role in the sponsorship management process, given that the organisation that holds a sponsor licence will need to assign a CoS to each foreign worker it wishes to employ. Once the given worker has been assigned the CoS, they will have a three-month window in which to apply for a UK visa, using the number that comes with the CoS.
As for exactly how an employer can gain access to a CoS in the first place, this will depend on the type of CoS involved. There are two types of CoS: defined certificates, which are for people applying via the Skilled Worker visa route from outside the UK, and undefined certificates. The latter type of CoS is for Skilled Workers applying from within the UK, as well as applicants on all other visas.
So, let’s summarise the process for both types of CoS:
There are various further steps that a business can take to ensure it has the most robust possible HR systems in place with which to manage its sponsorship licence responsibilities. This, in turn, will strengthen its chances of being granted a sponsor licence in the first place, and of keeping that sponsor licence in the longer term.
One such essential step for the organisation is to familiarise itself with the range of sponsorship management roles. As we referenced above, at the time you apply for a sponsor licence for your organisation, it will be necessary to appoint people within your business to these roles, which will include the authorising officer, as well as the key contact and level 1 user.
We recently wrote here at Cranbrook Legal in greater detail about these different sponsorship management roles, and what is involved in each one. And as we mentioned then, if you are worried about your organisation being able to keep on top of its day-to-day sponsorship responsibilities, one option could be to appoint an expert from Cranbrook Legal as a level 1 user, with access to your firm’s SMS portal.
In addition, we can train your existing staff on how to use the SMS effectively, so that you are in the best possible position to stay on top of your compliance duties.
Something else that you might do, whether as a candidate organisation for a sponsor licence, or a company that already holds a sponsor licence, is ask about our expertise in UK immigration audits.
As we have explained on the relevant page of our website, you cannot rule out the possibility of the Home Office’s immigration inspectors conducting an in-person visit to your premises. Indeed, this is a particularly likely prospect if your firm is currently attempting to secure a sponsor licence for the first time, or if it is trying to renew an existing sponsor licence.
Instead of leaving such matters to chance, we would urge you to consider arranging for Cranbrook Legal to carry out a comprehensive review of how well your firm is complying with its obligations in relation to UK immigration law and the Home Office’s requirements.
Taking advantage of this service will allow you to access invaluable feedback with which to optimise your organisation’s compliance HR systems. This, in turn, will strengthen your case for being approved for a sponsor licence when the Home Office’s own inspectors arrive.
Would you like to learn more about all the advice and assistance our specialists in UK immigration law can provide to your business, as you seek to obtain a sponsor licence? If so, you are very welcome to call 0208 215 0053 today, or to complete and submit our online contact form in order to request a free consultation.
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