Sponsor Licence Maintenance
Sponsor Licence Maintenance
If you hold a Home Office sponsor licence, it is paramount you comply to the 5 key areas of good HR practices or you risk losing your sponsor licence.
When your organisation applied for their sponsor licence, you agreed to comply to certain terms and keep your Sponsorship Management System (SMS) updated.
When the Home Office first introduced the sponsor licence in 2008, our firm was approved on the Home Office website as a firm that fully understand the sponsor licence process.
Since 2008 we have supported SMEs to corporate organisations by ensuring they keep their 5 key areas of good HR practices in order and their SMS updated.
If our sponsor licence is revoked by the Home Office, you cannot sponsor any tier workers for 12 months
Sponsor Licence Maintenance?
Learn about how G4I can support your sponsor licence and help keep you compliant
When you hold a sponsor licence that has been issued by the Home Office, the Home Office visiting compliance officers inspects the organisation monitoring system.
What is monitoring?
It is a legal requirement to monitor peoples right to work status if employed by you.
The organisation is also supposed to keep an employee HR file that outlines how they were recruited, engaged, contracts, timesheets, absences etc.
If the employee falls under Tier 2 or Tier 5 of the points-based system, these employees must be tracked to prevent illegal employment.
If the organisation employs other workers that need permission to work in the UK, they must also track these employees.
The service level agreement that the organisation signs when engaging G4I services under a sponsor licence maintenance will outline what the organisation should do.
If the organisation feels they do not have a complaint system in place, they can engage G4I to carry out various services that can include:
G4I will provide full support to the organisation. the organisation will no longer have to spend hours searching the web for answers, 'assuming' that if organisation A can do this so can I as circumstances could be different per organisation. G4I will guide the organisation what to do. If the organisation Sponsorship Management System (SMS) needs updating, the organisation emails G4I instructions and we do the rest. G4I will email to the organisation screen grabs of actions taken so if the SMS loses the data or the Home Office compliance officers states we have no online record, you have our evidence.
What is Level User 1?
This allows a person from within the organisation to access their SMS. Once the Home Office has approved the organisation Level 1 User, G4I can then be added. Each Level 1 User will have their own login to the organisation SMS and the Home Office can track by the login IP address where that person was when accessing the SMS.
To add G4I as a level 1 user, the organisation level 1 user must first add a regulated staff member of G4I as a 'Legal Representative'. This is done via the organisation SMS. Once approved the organisation level 1 user must add the G4I member of staff as a Level 1 user. The Home Office will notify the organisation when G4I staff member has been approved.
If the organisation needs services prior to approval of G4I member of staff as a level 1 user, G4I will help the organisation level 1 user do this remotely.
Service Level Agreement
What is a service level agreement and the purpose of having one?
A service level agreement has several sections that helps the organisation understands their responsibilities as they are 100% responsible to keeping their sponsor licence compliant. G4I role is to support the organisation and guide them what to do. Below is the service level agreement index:
- About G4I
- Client introduction
- Preventing illegal employment
- SL compliance audits
- Resident Labour Market Test (RLMT)
- SL compliance
- Compliance audit on the Client’s premises
- What do G4I or the UKVI look for when a SL audit is carried out?
- The 5 key areas that the Client must be compliant with
- Keeping the right staff records
- What documents must the Client keep
- Types of data the Client should keep
- SL training
- HR & SL compliance
- HR & SL setup
- Head office & branches
- Clients that own multiple entities that are trading under different HMRC unique payrolls
- Having the right people assigned to the Client SL
- Role of the Authorising Officer
- Role of the Key Contact
- Role of the Level 1 Users
- Role of the Level 2 Users
- Role of a representative
- Who cannot be assigned a CoS?
- SL Clarification
- CoS clarification
- CoS introduction
- What are UCoSs
- What are RCoSs
- What are standard CoSs
- What are priority CoSs
- Certifying Maintenance
- Right to work evidence for overseas nationals
- BRP clarification
- What does UKVI look for when they carry out a SL audit?
- Tier 2 & 5 workers
- Contracting Out Tier 2 & 5 Workers
- Sponsor Duties
- Outsourcing
- Responsibilities
- Visa process guide
- SL support services
- Support clarification
- What support will the Client receive under their package?
- Non-SMS support services
- Changes made in SMS
- Additional support services
- Visa services
- Chargeable immigration support services
- Visa & purchase order process
- Summary of contractual terms
- Rate card
- SLA Authorisation.
As you can see, G4I covers an array of areas and each area confirms who does what and the process.
G4I removes the word 'Assumption' when working with organisations as assumption means we not sure what to do or who is responsible to do that job. G4I service level agreement helps to protect al lparties.
Remote Support
Learn how G4I can support your organisation sponsor licence remotely
Remote support is essential to all organisation as this reduces the cost of our services as most things can be done online. If the client needs a physical inspection then they will need the onsite services.
G4I will guide the organisation how they must create jobs remotely for G4I to do. Every job will require G4I to access the organisation SMS. G4I will make the changes as per the organisation email instructions but if the instructions are incorrect, G4I will guide the organisation what to do.
Areas the orgaisation is likely to need help on:
- Annual CoS/CAS allocation
- Ad-hoc CoS/CAS allocation
- Add worker note to a live CoS or Add student note to a CAS
- Withdraw a Cos/CAS
- Request Restricted CoS and if approved, complete and assign to worker
- Update authorising officer details or replace
- Update key contact details or replace
- Add/remove Level 1 user
- Add/remove level 2 users
- Amend organisation trading details
- Add/edit organisation branches
- Update UKVI on organisation action plans
- Email UKVI as the organisation legal representative
- Renew sponsor licence
These are some of the changes required in a SMS or changes are required because if UKVI are not updated, this basically means the SMS may no longer be compliant.
Onsite Support
Learn how G4I can support your organisation sponsor licence by site visiting
Employing staff has its own rules and regulations and the likes of HMRC, Home Office and other regulating bodies your organisation might fall under would expect you to be compliant.
G4I offers onsite:
- Auditing of employment and contracting
- Training on employment and contracting
All organisations are expected to follow good HR practices to avoid rule breaches that could lead to civil penalties and custodial sentences.
All sponsor licence holders must comply to:
- Area 1: Monitoring immigration status and preventing illegal employment
- Area 2: Maintaining Worker contact details
- Area 3: Record keeping
- Area 4: Worker tracking and monitoring
- Area 5: General HR duties
We also listed below our 10-step guide to help the organisation understand the foundations of the process from initial hiring to employment termination:
- Job Advertisement
- Invitation
- Interviewing
- Right to Work
- Shortlisting
- Verification
- Contract
- Documentation
- Tracking
- Termination
We can look at all of these areas, plus the 5 key areas of holding a sponsor licence.
We can provide the following auditing and training services:
- HR compliance
- Immigration training (General)
- Points-based system training (specific)
- Preventing illegal employment (all visa types)
- Recruitment cycle
- Sponsor licence training
- Workforce compliance
Sponsor Licence
Inspection
Learn how G4I and the Home Offcie carries out a sponsor licence audit
Contracting people to work for you falls under a number of categories. We have:
- Full-time and part-time contracts
- Fixed-term contracts
- Agency staff
- Freelancers, consultants and contractors
- Zero hour contracts
- Employing family, young people and volunteers
To learn more about contracts
click here.
For immigration purpose, any UK organisation can send their work force to work for another business. As long as both businesses agree the terms, you have no real issues.
Contracting sponsored Tier workers
If you contract your staff who are being sponsored by you under sponsor licence, to avoid being non-compliant, the UK organisation RLMT, employment contract and assigned CoS must reflect the job is on a job contract.
Possible breaches to consider:
- Failure to disclose in the RLMT the worker will be working on different business premises
- Employment contract clearly outlines this and covers costs to the third-party business place of work
- Within the CoS the box is ticked to confirm work is on a client job contract
- Within the CoS the UK organisation only assign the work dates in line to the job contract. You cannot assign a CoS for 3 or 5 years if the job contract is only guaranteed for 6 months.
- The business whom the UK organisation Tier worker will be based at must be informed that the worker is being sponsored by the UK organisation and at no point in time, can the worker be under their direction and control.
- It is illegal for that third-party business to contract out the UK organisation sponsored Tier worker.
- At all times the sponsored worker must demonstrate they have carried out the work and the UK organisation can demonstrate they keep a daily log of work activities.
The above are just some areas to consider. If you are unsure contact G4I and depending on the contract type, we can guide you further.
How to proceed with a sponsor licence maintenance agreement
Learn more about other key compliance areas
