If the Home Office finds your organisation has breached immigration compliance duties, it may suspend your sponsor licence. You must act swiftly to resolve the issues to retain your licensed sponsor status.
The Home Office may then either reinstate or revoke your licence, depending on your response. Failure to respond could result in revocation, jeopardising your ability to hire skilled workers, which is crucial in the current talent market.
If your sponsor licence suspended, you can call us at 02033939272.
For the duration of the suspension, neither you nor your company will be able to sponsor new migrants, and your sponsor licence will be deleted from the public registry of sponsors. On the other hand, your present sponsored migrants will not be impacted.
Suspending a sponsor licence can be done for a variety of reasons, such as if the right documents are not kept for sponsored migrants, if there are illegal salary fluctuations, or if the authorising officer is not eligible to hold the position.
Despite the suspension, you are still obligated to fulfil all sponsor responsibilities. It is still necessary to apply for a Sponsor Licence Renewal if your licence is set to expire while the suspension is in effect, in order to retain it.
UKVI may reinstate, downgrade, or cancel your licence once their investigations are over.
The Home Office has the authority to suspend or revoke a sponsor licence in case that the holder is found to have failed to comply with several legislative requirements. The responsibilities of a sponsor licence include:
When it comes to recording and reporting, you need to make sure that your HR systems are solid enough to keep an eye on your workers’ immigration status, keep copies of their passports and right to work paperwork, keep tabs on their attendance, make sure their contact information is current, and notify UKVI of any issues, like if an employee suddenly stops showing up for work.
Sponsoring organisations are obligated to disclose any substantial changes in their own situations as well. If your company has undergone a major transformation, you are undergoing a merger or takeover, you have altered your relationship with foreign companies that have transferred employees to you, or you have revised a contract related to temporary employees or vendors providing services, this may apply. You must also notify UKVI if your contact information changes, such as your assigned tasks or address.
To ensure compliance at all times, sponsors must have a thorough understanding of this guidance and be vigilant in following any updates. This guidance also lays out the many reasons why UKVI can decide to suspend your licence.
When the Home Office finds evidence of non-compliance during a site inspection, or when concerns are voiced about the risk of non-compliance, the sponsor’s licence is usually suspended.
Failure to communicate with the Home Office about any stage of the sponsorship process will result in a negative outcome.
Your licence could be revoked if you do not reply to the suspension letter, do not answer within the specified timetable, or refuse to actively participate with the Home Office throughout the suspension procedure.
If UKVI does not receive a response about a suspension notice, it will take the next step it deems appropriate and send you a written notification of its decision. The UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) will normally proceed to cancel your sponsor licence. This is due to the fact that they will be unable to consider re-evaluating your licence to its original A-rating or offering you a second opportunity with an action plan if your grade is B.
Workers you are sponsoring at the time of suspension who have legal permission to enter or stay will not be affected, unless and until UKVI decides to cancel your licence. But, if your sponsorship licence revoked, you will lose the ability to sponsor migrant workers and the authorisation of any current workers would be terminated. This means that these individuals may need to seek alternative sponsorship, change their immigration status, or leave the UK entirely.
The grounds for the suspension will dictate the proper course of action in response to a notification of suspension. If UKVI has decided to suspend your account because you did not provide them with the documents they required, for instance, you need to provide them with the requested information as soon as possible and explain why you were late.
When your licence has been suspended due to non-compliance with recording and/or reporting requirements, it is important to correct these omissions and provide UKVI with a satisfactory explanation for your non-compliance once again.
However, it is imperative that you promptly consult with knowledgeable legal counsel in order to expedite the reinstatement of your suspended sponsor licence. If you want to increase the chance that UKVI will take no further action against you and that your licence will be reinstated quickly, our compliance specialists can craft a strong response that addresses all of the concerns indicated in your suspension notice.
When evaluating whether to challenge a sponsor licence suspension, it is critical to evaluate the reasons offered by the Home Office for the suspension. The letter of notification should clarify the reasons for the suspension and specify the particular licence violations. Is there a factual error in these reasons that can be addressed using evidence? Is there anything you can do to fix the security hole?
In most cases, these will relate to failures to comply with immigration regulations in areas like reporting, personnel monitoring, and record-keeping.
If you want to know what to do next and have any chance of making a successful challenge, you need to examine this data closely.
You have the right to request further information or evidence in order to contest the decision if it was based on an incorrect assessment of facts.
Another possibility is proportionality. One may argue that a licence suspension is an excessive and unreasonable measure that ought to be reversed if the violation was relatively minor but you could demonstrate that the organisation would suffer greatly if the licence were revoked.
If a sponsor licence is revoked and 20 sponsored workers lose their jobs, and the company has to close, causing more job losses for other employees, one could argue that the licence should be reinstated due to the wider economic benefit if the company takes corrective action and cooperates fully with the Home Office.
In some cases, challenging a suspension is not the best option. For instance, even if the allegation is true, there’s no need to waste money challenging the judgement because there’s little chance of success.
Assuming the claims are correct, you should concentrate on fixing the problems the Home Office found and showing that you have done everything to stop them from happening again.
Whatever course of action you take, you must reply to the Home Office within the specified time limit, answering the notice’s points and providing proof to back up your claims.
You will be informed of the deadline for your answer in the suspension letter. This will typically take 20 business days. Failure to answer within the specified timeframe may result in the revocation of your licence.
In practice, 20 days will be a short time to do the necessary investigations, gather evidence, and draft a response.
For the response to be successful, it must address each of the breaches mentioned in the suspension letter by the Home Office.
Each one will be unique to your company and will necessitate careful evaluation of the claims. By consulting with professionals, you may better evaluate the claims, think about the best way to respond (both in terms of what to say in response and what steps to take to be in compliance), and ultimately reach a satisfactory resolution.
The most important thing is that you cooperate completely with the Home Office so that they can fix the problem. If you decide to ignore the notification or react after the deadline, additional enforcement measures may be taken.
Make sure you comply with any requests for additional information from the Home Office.
It is your responsibility to recognise and explain any anomalies or inconsistencies that may be found in your documents.
Decision-making time varies based on the size of your organisation, the number of sponsored workers, and the intricacy of the issues.
Sponsor licence holders are under continuous Home Office scrutiny, from the application process to daily compliance. They must be ready for unannounced inspections, which assess adherence to immigration laws and can be triggered by complaints or intelligence. To maintain their licence, organisations must consistently meet compliance standards and be prepared to demonstrate this at any time.
If suspension follows a compliance visit, request the Home Office’s report and related documents. Examining their procedures could reveal grounds for challenge if standards were not met, potentially making enforcement actions unlawful. We offer the expertise needed to navigate this process.
After receiving your response, the Home Office will investigate before deciding. This suspension will last until UKVI decides what to do.
The Home Office will reinstate your licence, either with an A-rating or a B-rating, if they accept your response and corrective actions.
Your suspension will be withdrawn and your entry on the public register of sponsors will be restored if it is decided to reinstate your licence without taking any further action.
It will take a lot of effort for the organisation to achieve the standards even if it is reinstated with a B-rating.
The Home Office will send out a plan of action that must be followed in order to get back to being an A-rated sponsor. There is a cost associated with the action plan that you must pay.
Depending on the seriousness of the violations, you’ll need to devise an action plan and show that enough has been done in a set amount of time—often no more than three months—to pass the inspection.
The license can be raised to an A-rating if evidence shows that the organisation has adhered to the Home Office action plan. Your licence can be revoked if you don’t follow the action plan.
If you are not fulfilling all of your sponsor responsibilities, your licence can be renewed, but with a B-rating. If this happens, you can continue to give COS to current migrant workers seeking visa extensions, but you will be unable to issue new sponsorship certificates until you have improved and upgraded to an A-rating.
To upgrade your licence, which will cost you £1,476, you must follow the steps laid forth by UKVI. Within 10 business days after the date on which UKVI notifies you of the downgrade, you must pay this cost. You will lose your licence if you don’t pay.
After you finish the action plan and make all the necessary improvements, you will be given an A-rating. But your licence will be revoked if you fail to fulfil all the requirements. You might get another B-rating if you still need to make more changes, but you will have to follow a new action plan and pay another fee.
During the four years that your licence is active, you are limited to no more than two B-ratings. Put simply, your licence will be revoked if you are unable to meet the standards set after your second action plan.
It is important to note that in severe cases of serious noncompliance with your sponsor duties, such as intentionally providing false information in a sponsor licence application or being found to be illegally employing workers, UKVI has the authority to revoke your licence without offering the option to pay for an action plan. Your ability to sponsor migrants will be severely limited if your sponsor licence is revoked.
A letter will be sent to you by UKVI to notify you of any decision to revoke your licence. You will not be able to reapply for a sponsor licence until at least twelve months have elapsed from the date of notification of the revocation, and you do not have the legal right to appeal.
A sponsor licence suspension notice from the Home Office is a critical issue. Ignoring the allegations could result in licence revocation, which would prevent you from employing sponsored workers and force current employees to find alternative sponsorship or leave the UK. The operational, financial, and reputational impact can be significant.
At Rees Clayton, our business immigration specialists have extensive experience supporting sponsor licence holders through suspensions. Our team works to resolve issues, engage with the Home Office, and guide you in avoiding future compliance challenges.
We start by assessing the details of your case, including the alleged breaches, to identify potential flaws in the investigation process. Based on this, we advise on the necessary actions to correct the breaches and bring your systems into compliance, with a strategy tailored to your case.
If you are facing a sponsor licence suspension, reach out to us to reduce the impact and disruption caused by Home Office scrutiny.
A deadline for your response will be specified in the letter of notification from the Home Office. Typically, a response is required within 20 days. The licence could be revoked if the deadline is not met.
After receiving notice of the license suspension, the organisation has 20 days to reply to UKVI with the necessary information and any additional evidence that can be used to overturn the suspension.
Until the Home Office rules on the licence suspension, sponsored workers’ visas will remain unaffected. Their visas will not be affected if the decision is made to remove the suspension. If the decision is made to revoke the licence, their leave will be restricted.
A suspension can last for an unlimited amount of time. It will depend on how quickly you can fix the problems that UKVI has pointed out and whether they are happy with your response and steps to fix the problem.
Common causes include inaccuracies in record-keeping, delays in reporting changes in circumstances, noncompliance with immigration inspections, and insufficient proof of actual job openings.
You should promptly do an internal assessment to determine the reasons for the suspension, consult an attorney, and then produce a detailed response to UKVI that addresses all of their concerns.
If your sponsor licence is withdrawn, you will be unable to sponsor workers under the points-based system. If the visas of your current sponsored workers are restricted, they will either have to find new sponsors or leave the UK.
You should not disregard the letter. If you do not address the matter promptly, your organisation may face additional consequences, such as the possible revocation of its licence.
In order to avoid suspension, it is crucial to fulfil all sponsor responsibilities, maintain precise records, evaluate your procedures on a regular basis, and remain informed about any modifications to immigration regulations and requirements. Another thing that can help is training and regular internal audits.
Your company operations can be severely affected by a suspension, especially if you depend on sponsored labour. It could damage your credibility and make it harder to attract and keep talented employees. To lessen these effects, the suspension needs to be fixed quickly.
Yes, it is critical to keep your sponsored workers aware of the situation. Their worries can be better managed and their understanding of the suspension’s potential effects can be better achieved through open and honest conversation.
