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About a sponsor organisation’s responsibilities
Your duties start as soon as you get a licence. They last for the duration of the licence.
If you do not follow your duties, you could lose your licence. This could put your workers at risk of breaking immigration rules.
You might get a planned or unplanned audit.
You must:
- Have key staff
- Keep records
- Report any changes
We’ve explained your duties below. However, it’s best to read the immigration rules in detail or speak to a qualified immigration lawyer to help you. We recommend booking a free one-to-one appointment with us.
Key staff
You’ll need key people to keep your sponsorship licence. This could be one person or several people.
You’ll need to ensure key staff:
- Are replaced if they leave their role
- Haven’t broken immigration rules in the past
- Haven’t got criminal convictions, bankruptcy or other issues
Authorising officer
An Authorising Officer is responsible for the sponsorship licence.
They decide who has access to the sponsorship management system (SMS).
This person must be:
- The most senior in the company
- Responsible for hiring non-UK national staff
Key point of contact
You’ll need a key point of contact for the Home Office. This is usually the Authorising Officer.
Level 1 user
You’ll need a level 1 user. This is someone with access to the sponsorship management system (SMS).
This is so they can do day to day duties, including giving a certificate of sponsorship to a worker.
They’ll need to be:
- British or settled
- An employee, partner or director of the company
Level 2 user
Level 2 users are optional. They’ll have restricted access to the sponsorship management system (SMS). They’ll do limited duties.
Responsibilities to sponsored workers
You have responsibilities to your sponsored workers from the time you give them a certificate of sponsorship.
Your responsibilities last:
- For as long as you’re employing the worker
- Until you report any changes to the Home Office
A change could be a worker having their visa denied or starting a different job.
Employee records
You’ll need to keep records on a human resources (HR) system for each sponsored worker.
This includes:
- Copies of all relevant pages of a worker's passport, such as personal and visa details
- Biometric resident permit
- National Insurance number
- Contract and other information, such as a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check
- Pay details including payslips
- Contact details (current and past)
- Absence records
Application records
It’s important to keep all the documents you used for your sponsor licence application.
Reporting duties
There are duties to report changes to your organisation and workers. The information below is not exhaustive.
Changes to your organisation
There are different time limits for reporting changes to your organisation.
Within 10 days:
- Change to the size of your organisation
- Changes to a charity which impact the charitable status
Within 20 days:
- Your organisation is no longer able to trade or operate
- Changes to your organisation’s name
- Your organisation is being sold or taken over
As soon as possible:
- Change of organisation address
- Change of Authorising Officer
- Opening or closing a branch of your organisation in the UK or overseas
- Any other big changes
Changes to your workers
Report on the online system within 10 working days if:
- A sponsored worker is not following their visa conditions while employed
- A sponsored worker does not work on their first day
- An employment contract ends early or changes significantly
- A sponsored worker is absent from work without permission. This does not include permitted absence such as sickness or holiday
Audits and compliance checks
The Home Office can carry out audits of your business. They can do this before or after granting your sponsorship licence application. They can make announced and unannounced visits.
They can check that you’re:
- Keeping employee records on appropriate HR systems
- Keeping the documents you used for your sponsor licence application
- Reporting any changes to your workers and business
- Following your general sponsorship duties
An audit can take place over several days. The Authorising Officer may need to go through your HR systems with the auditing officer. Your files may also be reviewed as part of the audit.
The content on this page is provided by immigration law firm Seraphus. Seraphus is fully regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
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