Home Office Commence Crackdown on Sponsors

The Home Office are set to escalate enforcement action – sponsors should expect a sharp rise in compliance visits and licence revocations.

The Home Office have announced that they will be increasing their focus on preventing illegal working and ensuring sponsor compliance. As part of this announcement, the Home Office confirmed that this will involve a rise in sponsor licence compliance visits, putting sponsors at greater risk of having their licence suspended or revoked.

A licence revocation is disastrous for a sponsor. Not only does it prevent the business from sponsoring any migrant workers going forward, but it also brings the sponsorship of all existing sponsored workers to an immediate end – meaning that these workers must cease employment and leave the UK. A business which is heavily reliant on sponsored workers could lose a significant portion of their workforce overnight.

The Home Office have also said that they will be taking more stringent action against employers who look to flout employment laws, such as those relating to the Right to Work and payment of the National Minimum Wage. Reading between the lines, this would suggest that, even if a business has complied with all their sponsor obligations, a breach of UK employment law could result in their licence being revoked. There are already significant financial penalties in place of up to ￡60,000 per worker for failing to carry out the correct Right to Work checks.

We anticipate a significant rise in Home Office enforcement action between now and the end of the year. Home Office visits can be unannounced. Is it therefore more important than ever for sponsors to ensure that they:

• have been acting in compliance with their sponsor licence obligations, including those relating to reporting and record-keeping;
• have carried out the correct Right to Work checks, in line with the appropriate Home Office guidance; and
• are compliant with all relevant UK employment law.

We would strongly recommend that you carry out an internal audit of your records and processes now – by the time that the Home Office come knocking, it will be too late to ensure compliance and protect your business.

We currently offer a package of audit services to suit all budgets.

If you would like to know more about what we can do to help or our audit services, please get in touch at [email protected] .

Our Immigration team can assist with compliance for sponsorship and right to work. We offer mock audits which will help to identify any weaknesses in your HR processes or systems.? Additionally, we offer bespoke training on right to work checks and sponsorship management system for Level 1 users. If we can be of assistance please contact Head of Immigration, Imelda Reddington, at: [email protected]

We recently released the fourth episode in our ongoing series of immigration webinars. This episode deals with preparing for Home Office compliance audits – particularly relevant to the content of this month’s newsletter! The webinar is available to watch on YouTube and our website .

Our team will also be hosting a live webinar on Tuesday 12 November – more details on this to follow!

We will closely monitor immigration law changes throughout 2024 and will publish information monthly in this newsletter. If you want to keep up to date with the latest developments in more details please sign up?to our FSP mailing list to receive our bi-monthly newsletter.

My employment colleagues have asked me to remind you that, from 26 October 2024, all employers will have a mandatory duty to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their employees. A failure to comply, or be able to demonstrate compliance with this duty, will increase the risk of sexual harassment claims and can even increase their value by up to 25%. In anticipation of this, they have developed a comprehensive toolkit for employers with various options to choose from, including a legal review, report, policies and training. Full details and prices can be found here . Please do get in touch with the team if you would like to discuss your options.