Home Office Crackdowns on Sponsor licence Compliance and Right to Work Checks
In November 2024 the Home Office published their most recent Sponsor transparency data and this has shown a drastic increase in Home Office suspensions over the last year.
There has been a drastic increase in the number of penalties imposed by the Home Office on licence holders for non-compliance. The most recent data from Q3 2024 showed the Home Office issued 509 suspensions and 513 revocations in that quarter of the year. The most suspensions and revocations issued since the outset of the data in 2012 was issued in Q2 of 2024 whereby there were 524 suspensions and 499 revocations from April to June of last year. This trend only highlights the importance of sponsors ensuring they are meeting their licence obligations and properly maintaining their licence to protect their position should they receive a visit from the Home Office.
Trends have shown that common reasons for suspension and revocation includes: not making reports when there is a change of circumstance, non-compliance with record keeping and incomplete or lack of Right to Work checks.
Your obligations as a licence holder
As a Sponsor licence holder you have certain obligations to the Home Office in order to keep and maintain your licence. If you fail to satisfy these duties then the Home Office have the power to invoke penalties. This can have potentially catastrophic effects on your business should you lose your sponsored workforce.
Contained in Sponsor Guidance your duties as a sponsor extend to: reporting duties, record-keeping duties, complying with immigration law, complying with the wider UK law and not engaging in behaviour conductive to the public good.
The Reporting duties are with regard to changes to sponsored workers circumstances or changes to the business’s circumstances. Any reportable change must be made on the Sponsor Management System within certain timeframes which is dependant on the type of change.
The record keeping duties are listed and contained within Appendix D of the Sponsor Guidance. There are certain documents you must retain pertaining to both the worker and the business.
Your obligation to conduct Right to Work checks
As part of your record keeping requirements, you must be able to supply the Home Office with evidence that your employees have the Right to Work in the UK. Conducting a right to work check allows the business a statutory excuse should the right to work status of your employee be brought to question.
You must conduct the Right to Work check before the employee starts working for you. It is also vital you retain this evidence and keep it accessible should the Home Office request to see it.
Right to Work checks and the new eVisa system
The Right to Work system is the same as it has been before the roll out of eVisa’s at the end of last year. There has been some confusion caused by this new system. The Government had issued all Biometric Residence Permits with the expiry date of 31/12/2024, this date is not necessarily the leave expiry date of your worker but the expiry date for that particular document. Many people have confused the BRP expiry date with their leave expiry date and this often not the case. If you have already conducted a Right to Work check on your employee and the online system has shown that they have leave to remain in the UK that surpasses 31/12/2024 then you do not need to take any further action until their leave expires, at which point you may wish seek legal advice.
If either yourself or your employee is unsure of their status in the UK since the beginning of 2025 then it is best to conduct another check to minimise your risk of engaging with illegal working and maintain your statutory excuse.
For any Right to Work checks going forward, for employees with status which has been granted since 2025, then they can log on to ‘view and prove’ their status and share their Right to Work share code.
What can the Home Office do if you are not compliant with your obligations?
The Home Office have the power to conduct compliance checks on licence holders to ensure that they are being compliant with their sponsorship duties. The Home Office are able to do both announced and unannounced visits on a random basis or where suspicion has been raised.
The Home Office have an array of powers at their disposal should they find a licence holder to be non-compliant with their duties. The Home office are able to:
- Reduce your certificate of Sponsorship allocation
- Downgrade your licence
- Suspend your licence
- Revoke your licence
- Cancel permission of sponsored workers in the UK
- Where there has been a criminal or civil offence, report this to the relevant authorities
Specifically, if you have not conducted adequate right to work checks and are found to have employed illegal workers, the Home Office can issue penalties. These include a fine up to £60,000 per worker, prosecution and potential imprisonment for up to 5 years and/or an unlimited fine.
How can OTB Legal help?
OTB Legal offer an array of services to help sponsors maintain compliance with their duties and prepare them for compliance visits.
Services we provide:
- We offer Sponsor Licence training services whereby we can either deliver training to yourself and your team on the specific obligations and responsibilities you have with regard to your licence
- We can also conduct Mock Home Office Audits and attend your premises and conduct a check of your files and prepare you for Home Office Audits
- We offer ongoing Sponsor Management System support, providing you with ad hoc advice on an ongoing basis depending on the businesses specific needs
- We can also issue you with specific Right to Work check training and guidance