Sponsorship Compliance for Employers

Through the sponsorship system, the Home Office entrusts employers with ensuring that immigration laws are complied with.

As a licensed sponsor, the Home Office expects you to play your part in ensuring that the system is not abused.

Sponsor duties include:

• To report changes to the organisation and its key personnel
• To monitor the status of sponsored migrants and report changes where appropriate
• To comply with the relevant law and policy, and ensure that all information given is accurate, up to date and transparent
• To ensure adequate records are retained to demonstrate compliance
• To cooperate generally with the Home Office Behind these broad duties is a significant amount of underlying detail.

Behind these broad duties is a significant amount of underlying detail. Even seemingly minor changes, such as a change in a sponsored migrant's location of work or their core duties, requires a report to be submitted.

In order to ensure that your ability to sponsor foreign workers is not jeopardized it is also necessary to pro-actively manage your Sponsor Management System to ensure that:

• Your licence is renewed prior to expiry
• Your annual allocation of undefined certificates of sponsorship is renewed prior to expiry each year
• At least one Level 1 user is a current employee (where a Level 1 user is due to leave your employment, they must ensure a colleague is added as a user prior to their departure as password sharing is prohibited).

Failure to comply with your duties as an employer and sponsor could result in a number of penalties including:

• revocation or suspension of your sponsor licence; cancellation of your sponsored workers' visas;
• downgrading of your sponsor licence from an ‘A’ rating to a ‘B’ rating (preventing further sponsorship unless remedial action is taken);
• civil penalties of up to £20,000 per worker found to be without permission to work;
• and criminal prosecution for employing illegal workers.

It is therefore important to ensure your sponsorship duties are complied with. Please contact our Immigration team if you need any help.