For businesses employing international talent, the suspension of their Sponsor Licence can potentially prevent effective operation and the retention of essential staff. Here are 3 helpful tips to help you deal with your sponsor licence suspension.
All sponsor licence holders risk suspension if they are found to be non-compliant. If the Home Office suspends a business’s Sponsor Licence, their ability to issue Certificates of Sponsorship is frozen and the business’s name name is temporarily removed from the public Register of Sponsors.
The suspension of a sponsor licence is different from revocation, where the sponsor licence is permanently cancelled and the organisation’s sponsored workers’ visas are curtailed. Suspension allows businesses a specified timeframe to rectify any issues, after which the Home Office will either lift the suspension, or revoke or downgrade the licence.
Here are our 3 tips for if your sponsor licence is suspended by the Home Office:
- Understand the reason for suspension. The Home Office should explain the reasons for the suspension of your business’s sponsor licence in your suspension notice. Reasons can include inadequate record-keeping; the business or one of its directors, owner(s) or certain key personnel having been issued with one of a number of civil penalties; failure to comply with reporting obligations of a sponsor; or false information having been provided in a previous application. Understanding the allegations is crucial in determining how to respond.
- Respond within the timeframe and address all of the Home Office’s concerns. You will be required to respond to the Home Office within 20 working days, either rebutting the allegations or accepting them, ideally providing corrective action you are taking to address breaches. Your response should include evidence, particularly where you are countering a claim of the Home Office.
- Mitigate the risk of permanent revocation or your Sponsor Licence. When applying for a sponsor licence, you are committing to undertake a number of duties in respect of your workers and keeping the Home Office updated in respect of your organisation. These include keeping up-to-date records of all Sponsored workers, conducting right-to-work checks (which are required whether you hold a Licence or not, and apply to all workers, whether sponsored or not) and promptly reporting changes to your organisation or workers to the Home Office. To mitigate the risk of the Home Office revoking your licence, you should demonstrate in your response your understanding of and commitment to complying with the obligations.
The Home Office will review your response, and either reinstate, revoke the sponsor licence or downgrade it, whereby restrictions will be placed on your sponsorship abilities (for example limiting the number of Certificates of Sponsorship you are able to issue), and you will be required to commit to an action plan to correct the shortcomings which led to the suspension. While you wait for a decision, it is important to continue compliance with your sponsor duties.
Conclusion
20 working days can be a relatively short timeframe to compile a response sufficiently robust to prevent the revocation of your sponsor licence, particularly where significant evidence is required which has not been effectively maintained. Seeking legal advice is strongly recommended where you receive a suspension notice, as the revocation of your sponsor licence can be extremely disruptive to business operations, as you will no longer be able to employ any workers you are currently sponsoring. Your ability to recruit talent from overseas will also be significantly restrained, as you will not be able to apply for a new sponsor licence for 12 months following the revocation.
Suspension of a sponsor licence can similarly be significantly disruptive to day-to-day operations. To minimise the risk of your licence being suspended, it is important that your key personel fully understand what is required of them and of the organisation as a registered sponsor. Gherson offers a wide range of tools, from training to mock Home Office audits, to place their clients in the strongest position when it comes to understanding their duties as a sponsor and minimise the risk of them being in a position where their licence is at risk of suspension or revocation.
How Gherson can assist
Gherson’s Immigration Team are highly experienced in advising on UK Sponsor Licence matters. If you have any questions arising from this blog, please do not hesitate to contact us for advice, send us an e-mail, or, alternatively, follow us on X, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn to stay-up-to-date.
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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