UK Immigration home ofice compliance, audits and training for Employers from UK Immigration Lawyers

The Home Office is known to carry out random UKVI Compliance Checks before or after a decision on your Business Sponsor Licence application is made. This is to ensure that you are capable of carrying out your sponsor duties and you have the correct Human Resources processes and procedures in place. Once you are a licenced Sponsor, the Home Office reserve the right to carry out sporadic UKVI Compliance checks to ensure you are complying with your sponsor duties and are carrying out your responsibilities. Our employment lawyers can provide home office compliance and audits advice for businesses.

At Davenport Solicitors, our business immigration lawyers understand that the Immigration Rules and Home Office Policy Guidance and Regulations can be complex and to ease your burden, they are on hand to ensure that your business is and remains compliant with all immigration requirements. Contact us here to find out more.

UKVI Compliance Checks to UK Business Premises

The Home Office can carry out random UKVI Compliance Checks on Sponsors and these can be announced or unannounced. When Compliance Officers from UKVI visit they will be checking:

• Whether the information you have provided is accurate and complete;
• You are able to offer employment;
• You are genuine and trading/operating lawfully in the UK;
• There are no reasons to believe you represent a threat to immigration control; and
• You are complying with all sponsorship duties.

Once at a Sponsor’s businesses premises, Compliance Officers may:

• Photograph the location and premises from which the business is operating from to verify the information given at the time the Sponsor Licence application was made;
• Speak to migrant workers, employees and members of the team involved in recruitment of migrant workers to ensure that sponsorship duties are being complied with;
• Conduct checks on other employees to ensure the business is complying with its duties to prevent illegal working.

Our business immigration solicitors frequently attend and provide assistance in order to prepare employers for such visits by UKVI Compliance Officers. Contact us here to find out more.

Level 1 User

A business which is granted a sponsor licence has numerous obligations they must comply with in order to retain their licence. Our expert immigration lawyer can assist business comply with these duties in several ways.

A Level 1 User is an individual who is an individual who is registered with the home office as being responsible for the company’s day-to-day immigration work. A Level 1 user has several responsibilities including:

• Requesting additional level 1 users and adding level 2 users to the SMS or removing them
• Assigning Certificates of Sponsorship (CoS) to migrants, a document required as supporting evidence to some visa applications
• Requesting an increase in the number of CoS that can be assigned
• Notifying UKVI of minor changes
• Completing the change of circumstances section on the SMS to notify the UKVI of more significant changes
• Reporting migrant activity
• Withdrawing CoS
• Informing the UKVI of changes to work addresses
• Amending user details

Conducting right-to-work checks

Every UK-based employer has a responsibility to prevent illegal working. This can be done by conducting a right-to-work check before employment commences. Any employer found to be employing an illegal worker could face a substantial fine from the Home Office. A statutory excuse is an employer’s defence against receiving the fine. To establish a statutory excuse, employers must do one of the following before the employee commences employment:

• A right to work check using IDVT via the services of an IDSP
• A Home Office online right to work check

The type of check required will depend on the employee’s circumstance. Our employment team can advise on not only the type of check required but also how the check must be conducted.

Training on sponsoring migrant workers/illegal

Our employment lawyers can provide home office compliance and audits advice for businesses. Our immigration experts offer a wide range of training to ensure that employers adhere with complex immigration rules and requirements on a variety of topics, including:

• The application processes, conditions and limits of each immigration route
• Right to work
• Prevention of illegal working

To find out how we can help, contact our office or request a call back here.