UK Business Immigration – Ten Tricky Sponsor Compliance Issues

Following some turbulent years dealing with the immigration impact of Brexit, COVID-19 and the Ukraine conflict, the Home Office appears to be processing visa applications in line with its own service standards – long may it last!

The Home Office is also picking up the pace on compliance matters – we are seeing increased “activity” on everything from civil penalties to visa curtailments and requests from the Home Office for further evidence across all aspects of sponsorship. The Home Office is putting additional resource into this area, which is likely to mean an increase in Home Office audits, a stricter approach to non-compliance and more licence suspensions or revocations. Having a thorough understanding of your sponsor compliance obligations (as well as systems in place to ensure they can be met) is more important than ever – the revocation of your sponsor licence would usually mean having to end the employment of all your sponsored employees (as well as being unable to sponsor anyone else for at least a further 12-month period).

Join our webinar on 14 September 2023 at 12:30 p.m. when Annabel Mace and May Cheung will use their wealth of experience to address a range of scenarios, including:

• A sponsored employee occasionally works longer hours than those stated on their certificate of sponsorship. Is that an issue?
• A line manager has asked to second a sponsored employee to help out a client at its own offices. Is that allowed?
• You are carrying out an internal audit and notice that changes to the job titles, salaries and work location for sponsored employees have not been reported to the Home Office. Does this put the business at risk?
• The business needs to make redundancies, which may affect your sponsored employees. What should you think about?
• You find out that the entity that holds your sponsor licence has had a change in ownership, but it was more than 10 years ago. What are your obligations?
• You have been asked to find a role for the son of a board director who requires sponsorship. Can that be done?

There will also be time for an audience Q&A.

This webinar is aimed at anyone with responsibility for sponsored employees, including HR, global mobility and talent acquisition professionals (particularly from a compliance perspective), and in-house counsel, as well anyone holding authorising officer, key contact or Level 1 user responsibilities for their organisation’s worker sponsor licence.