Compliance
checks for the
festive season

19 December 2016

The season of festive cheer is upon us! But before your HR department leaves the office floor in favour of a 2-week long diet of turkey, mulled wine and mince pies, it would be wise to spare some time to check that your UK immigration compliance procedures are prepared for the New Year.

We advise sponsor licence holders to conduct the following compliance checks to ensure that their organisation enters the 2017 as a fully compliant employer.

Company data

As a sponsor of Tier 2 migrants, you have a duty to maintain up-to-date company information on your Sponsor Licence and Home Office records. Has your business, for example, recently changed its address and has this been relayed to the Home Office? If not, it would be advisable to reported this as soon as possible and definitely before the end of the year.

Key personnel

Every sponsor licence holder has an online account with the Sponsor Management System which allows them to view details of their sponsorship activities and data, including the names of its nominated Key Personnel. There is no excuse, therefore, if a company’s SMS account is found to show incorrect data and the organisation could face the suspension of its sponsor licence, or worse.

Employee data

Another responsibility of the compliant Tier 2 sponsor is the collection and maintenance of up-to-date contact information for each migrant employee. In the run up to the festive season sponsors should ensure that they have the correct personal information on file for each migrant employee, including contact details such as their residential address.

Right to work checks

Have you conducted right to work checks on all prospective and current staff? This is a basic requirement for any employee on their first day of employment, regardless of their nationality. For sponsor licence holders, however, it is particularly important to ensure that the correct checks have been undertaken on migrant employees and their immigration documents, especially when the check is time-bound and needs to be repeated.

CoS allocation

Will your current allocation of Certificates of Sponsorship (CoS) be sufficient to cover your recruitment needs until April 2017? It is impossible to employ a Tier 2 migrant without this government-issued document and whilst sponsor licence holders receive an annual allocation of these documents they are able to request an additional allocation if necessary. At this time of year it is more important than ever to look ahead to the final three months of the allocation year and apply for an addition allocation if you find that you do not have enough CoS to meet your recruitment needs.

More on complying with the Tier 2 sponsor licence rules:

New Tier 2 salary requirements

Hiring a Tier 2 migrant? 5 things you should know

The Brexit Immigration Service

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