All sponsors have certain duties and responsibilities to help prevent illegal working. Any failure to meet these duties can lead to your licence being suspended or revoked.
The Home Office can check your knowledge and understanding of these duties at any point once you have applied for a sponsor licence. They can also check in detail the systems and processes that you have in place to meet these duties. It’s therefore vital to make sure that you have robust systems in place at all times.
A Home Office check will often take the form of a compliance visit, which can be pre-arranged or unannounced. During the visit the officers will ask detailed questions about your compliance procedures, and also ask to see you processes in action.
Increasingly, the Home Office is also asking sponsors to provide written details of their processes.
So what are your sponsor duties?
Recruitment and employment
You must only sponsor a foreign worker where they are suitable for the role they are filling because they have the necessary skills, qualifications or professional accreditations to do that job.
It is no longer obligatory to carry out a ‘Resident Labour Market Test’, but you must still keep copies of documents to show that you have assessed the suitability of anyone you sponsor. If you found them through advertising the position that means you need to keep copies of the advert and the recruitment process. If you found them through some other means, e.g. they applied speculatively, you still need to keep evidence that you assessed their suitability, and that they do have relevant qualifications, skills and experience.
Ongoing duties
Once you are sponsoring one or more employees, you will also have to meet the following ongoing sponsor duties:
Record-keeping
You must keep certain records for each of the migrants that you sponsor. These are set out in Appendix D
Many of the documents listed are ones that you will be keeping for all of your employees – for example, a contract or statement of employment, a record of absences or sick leave, and evidence that you have carried out a right to work check.
It’s important to check the list thoroughly though, because some of the requirements are very specific and you may not be keeping all of the documents as a matter of course. For example, it’s a requirement for anyone that you sponsor to keep a job description on file, and that the job description does not only set out the duties and responsibilities of the job, but also specify the skills, qualifications and experience needed to fill the position.
Monitoring
You must have systems to monitor and record your sponsored employees’ attendance at work. That includes sickness and absence records, but the requirement goes beyond that to a duty to check daily attendance.
You must also have very robust systems in place to monitor and remind you of the expiry dates of sponsored employees’ right to work.
Reporting
You must report certain events, or changes, to the Home Office. This includes changes to your employees’ work or immigration status, but also certain changes to your organisation.
Reports are made through your licence portal – the Sponsor Management System.
There are deadlines for reporting – within 10 working days for anything directly relating to a sponsored employee, and within 20 working days for anything relating to your organisation itself.
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The information in this blog is for general information purposes only and does not purport to be comprehensive or to provide legal advice. Whilst every effort is made to ensure the information and law is current as of the date of publication it should be stressed that, due to the passage of time, this does not necessarily reflect the present legal position. Gherson accepts no responsibility for loss which may arise from accessing or reliance on information contained in this blog. For formal advice on the current law please do not hesitate to contact Gherson. Legal advice is only provided pursuant to a written agreement, identified as such, and signed by the client and by or on behalf of Gherson.
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