What is a Sponsor licence?
Any UK based employer who wishes to hire migrant skilled workers/employees from within the UK or any one from outside the UK, would require a sponsor licence from the home office.
Requirements for a Sponsor licence.
In brief the Home Office will consider the following requirements when determining a sponsor licence application:
- Eligibility: the prospective sponsor must be a genuine employer with a lawful trading presence in the UK.
- Suitability criteria: this is broader, and the Home Office will consider and check (where desired via compliance visits) that the prospective sponsor has a HR system in place to assist with recruitment and monitoring of employee performance. The Home Office will also consider the good character of those acting as the authorising officer and Level 1 user (see below) and will ask whether there are any criminal convictions etc.
- Genuine vacancy: the vacancy must be genuine and appropriately meet the salary requirements as per the Immigration Rules.
Once the licence is granted, the sponsor will also be expected/required to comply with sponsor duties which include reporting employee behaviour and business changes to the Home Office, where required. There is much guidance on this and it can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/sponsorship-information-for-employers-and-educators
Applying for a Sponsor Licence
Here are the steps a prospective sponsor will need to take and/or consider:
(a) submit the appropriate application form. This is an online form, easier to complete once the documents are in order.
(b) submit the appropriate documents. There are specified documents that must be submitted in accordance with specified guidance issued by the Home Office. I would tell you what the appropriate documents would be. This will be provided in a list format. You simply need to provide those documents and discuss those documents with me as and when required by either of us.
(c) pay the relevant Home Office fee. This is done at the time of submission of the application and all that needs to be done is to select the size of the company and insert card details to essentially make an online payment on the secured Home Office website. The fee payable depends on the size of the business and type of licence sought. The Home Office fee for a small or charitable company is £536 paid at time of application and £1,476 for medium or large company also payable at time of application i.e. anything larger than a small company.
A company will be a small company if two of the following apply:
- your annual turnover is £10.2 million or less
- your total assets are worth £5.1 million or less
- you have 50 employees or fewer.
Based on the two out of three factors that we have discussed (8-9 employees and turnover under 600K) your company appears to be a small company.
(d) decide which type of licence will be required. We discussed that a Skilled Worker sponsor licence will be required and therefore, the appropriate Home Office fees have been mentioned above. A Skilled Worker is essentially someone who is employed for a long-term job and not on a temporary basis.
(e) decide how many workers need to be sponsored in the first year and why a licence is needed. This is just to give the Home Office an idea of your recruitment plans for the near future. This will simply be explained briefly in the application form and in detail in the cover letter supporting the form. Once again, this is something I will be doing.
(f) appoint an Authorising Officer i.e. most senior member of the organisation responsible for recruitment and compliance with sponsor duties. This is done at the time of filling in the application form and is simple as filling in details of the relevant person. You will simply need to decide who this person will be however as the name suggests, it is usually a senior member such as a director.
(g) appoint a Key contact (person who maintains contact with UKVI and may be same as the authorising officer). This is once again done at the time of filling in the application form and is a simple task once a person within the company has been identified.
(h) appoint Level 1 user (an employee responsible for carrying out day-to-day sponsorship activities using the SMS). Same as the above. All three roles can be fulfilled by a same person.
You can see that the application process although requiring detailed work to be carried out on my end at each interval, it only requires the instructions and cooperation of the prospective sponsor, as I would assist from the moment instructions are received until a decision is made. Aside from this, the only thing that needs to be done is for the company to have selected appropriate persons (if applicable), know why it requires the licence and have sufficient systems in place (e.g. HR) to be able to adhere to and be fully aware of its sponsor duties.
Processing times:
As you are aware, the standard decision-making timeframe is up to 8 weeks. As discussed, a decision can be obtained within 10 working days should your request for property service be accepted. If it is, an additional £500 will be payable to the Home Office. For further information on this, please see: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pre-licence-priority-service-guidance/pre-licence-priority-service-guidance
Post licence fees payable by the sponsor:
If after the licence is obtained and an individual is sponsored, the sponsor may incur further costs. Please note I cannot predict how it will be in the future, but the costs now are as follows:
- Once a company is ready to sponsor a worker and wishes to assign a Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) to a particular candidate, a fee of £199 will need to be paid to the Home Office in order to formally assign the CoS. At the same time, an Immigration Skills Charge (ISC) will need to be paid for sponsoring a worker. Please note the following with respect to the ISC:
- This depends on the size of the company and how long a person is being sponsored for.
- This also depends on the job type. Certain types of jobs are exempt e.g. those in the medical field however this does not appear to be applicable to any of the three prospective sponsors in my preliminary view.
- A small/charitable company will pay £364 for the first 12 months of sponsorship and £182 for every 6 months thereafter until the end of the proposed period of sponsorship.
- A medium or large company will pay £1000 for the first 12 months and £500 for every 6 months thereafter until the end of the sponsorship.
- The longest a person can be sponsored is 5 years so the most the employer may have to pay is £1,820 (small or charitable company) or £5000 (medium or large company).
Once ready to sponsor a worker, we at Connaughts can also help you determine the job and salary requirements and assist with the assigning of the CoS.
We also offer a compliance service in which we can assist you in ensuring that you have the correct processes in place to comply with sponsor duties. Should this interest you, please do let me know.
Post licence fees payable by the sponsored worker unless agreed otherwise:
These fees are applicable once the CoS is assigned, and the worker is ready to make his/her own immigration application to regularise their immigration status or apply to come to the UK.
The individual being sponsored will need to make a Skilled Worker application. Please note the current breakdown of applicable fees which can be paid by the worker personally or the employer as agreed. This is something for the employer and worker to discuss and agree.
- Home Office fee per person: depends on a number of factors but generally speaking you should note the following:
Applying from outside the UK:
- up to 3 years – £610 per person
- more than 3 years – £1,220 per person
Applying from within the UK:
- up to 3 years – £704 per person
- more than 3 years – £1,408 per person
- Immigration Health Surcharge: this depends on the number of years the worker will be given a visa for. This is directly related to the number of years the worker is sponsored for. The surcharge payable per year for grant of visa per person is £624. The maximum number of years a worker can be sponsored is 5 years. This is paid to the Home Office.
- There are usually some administrative charges related to the enrolment of biometrics. These can be confirmed at the time of making the application and will be subject to a conversion rate if the applicant is oversees. Appointments for enrolling biometrics can also be chargeable (varied amounts) if no free appointments are available. This is paid to the Home Office/their partner taking the biometrics.
- The worker also needs to have sufficient savings in his/her bank account to show that you he/she can maintain him/herself and any dependents, unless the employer certifies maintenance.
Disclaimer:
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. Connaught Law and authors accept no responsibility for loss that may arise from accessing or reliance on information contained in this blog. For formal advice on the current law please don’t hesitate to contact Connaught Law. Legal advice is only provided pursuant to a written agreement, identified as such, and signed by the client and by or on behalf of Connaught Law.
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