Our Licence Compliance
Licence Compliance
Sponsorship privileges come with an obligation to the UKVI, you must comply with your sponsor licence duties and responsibilities. These may change from time to time without warning and it is for the Sponsor to demonstrate due diligence. Failure to preserve your statutory excuse by following basic HR practices of licence compliance or understanding your responsibilities may result in civil penalties or downgrading of your Licence rating. The consequences of this can cause unnecessary delays, extra paperwork and expense.
How we can help
Our Licence Compliance audit can commence at any point, whether you are applying for a licence, renewing your licence or whether your licence has been down-graded, refused or revoked. For small to medium size companies that might not have designated HR departments, handling more than just a few sponsored employees can become a complex task particularly as they progress through sponsorship and how they might develop within their own career path. Our 360 Audit looks at both the Sponsor and Personnel compliance and may be conducted on an annual basis or in advance of any UKVI audit.
Explore
Exploring your options
- We provide a ‘Future Proof’ virtual meeting with the designated responsible person to establish the overall company compliance and to see whether it has the infrastructure and resources to maintain sponsorship of its existing and future Migrants.
- Review the current company processes and personnel file systems and documentation.
Inform
Educating you on the steps
- Advise on Immigration rule changes and new compliance requirements pertinent to the operations of the business.
- Advise on changes to be made to the licence and company systems or whether a new licence is required.
- Make recommendations to the company for their on-going personnel and compliance records
Prepare
Preparing your case
- Update the Licence with any changes of circumstance to the business.
- Update the licence with any personnel changes of circumstance.
- Provide a list of supporting documentation to support any of these changes
Support
Supporting you on the way
- Provide guidance on all findings. Brief the Key Personnel on their on-going compliance duties and responsibilities.
- Point of contact; to advise during an ‘on the spot’ UKVI licence audit and make recommendations.
Find out how we can help you.
Let us help you get ahead with your compliance. Our team are very experienced in bringing businesses up to date and ensuring they are compliant with their duties.
Frequently asked questions
The UKVI has the reserved right to carry out arranged or ‘on the spot’ audit of your compliance and sponsorship duties. They will look at your business structure and personnel files to see whether you have undertaken the right checks in order to meet your duties. They will also check whether you have actively undertaken the reporting duties for example reported through the Sponsor Management System if your Migrant employee has not turned up to their first day of work.
If it is discovered the company is no longer compliant, the UKVI representative will advise you of the areas in which the company has failed to meet their standards. Depending on the severity of this, the UKVI may make recommendations for you to improve your compliance and down-grade the licence from an A Rating to a B Rating. You will have less privileges if you are B Rated and employing further migrants will stand scrutiny until such times you are awarded an A Rating.
If you have recently been down-graded to a B-Rating please contact us. Our advisers can talk you through the UKVI findings and help you design a more robust compliance and reporting system.
If you do not undertake the correct process of checking that your employee has the right documents to work for you and you are unable to demonstrate to the UKVI that you have carried out the proper checks you will be served with a Civil Penalty Notice and fined up to £20,000 per illegal worker.
If during an ‘on the spot audit’ the UKVI are not satisfied that you have met their compliance requirements they may down grade your licence to a B-Rating whilst you make arrangements to review and improve your compliance.
