Sponsor Licence Audits by UK Immigration Lawyers

Posted onFebruary 17, 2025

Why would you let the lawyers in? It’s a good question. Things seem OK. There are no signs of a pending Home Office visit and all seems settled with your key personnel. Our UK Immigration Lawyers say that allowing a Sponsorship Licence Solicitor access to your offices to conduct an audit could save your business thousands. It could also save your sponsor licence.

UK Online and London-Based Immigration Solicitors and Sponsorship Licence Lawyers

For sponsor licence management and audit advice call OTS Solicitors on 0203 959 9123 or contact us online.

What is a sponsor licence audit by UK Immigration Lawyers?

Our Sponsorship Licence Lawyers try to make our audits like the real thing.

The difference between a Home Office audit and our Immigration Lawyers calling and conducting an audit is that we try to make the experience constructive. We won't tell you everything is great with your licence because most, if not all, real-life businesses make mistakes or could do things better.

We try to highlight where your procedures are falling short of full compliance with sponsor licence reporting and recording duties and explain how, with tweaks to your current systems, you can try and make your licence audit-proof.

Unless you want us to do so, we won't try to overhaul the way you do things but we will point out how your systems fall short of Home Office expectations and what you can do about it. As SME business owners ourselves, we understand the importance of keeping our recommendations simple, affordable and doable for your business.

Who needs a sponsor licence audit by Sponsorship Licence Lawyers?

Any company considering applying for a licence or with a licence would benefit from a licence audit.

Many company bosses think audits are only of benefit if the business is facing an announced Home Office inspection of its sponsor licence. Others only think an audit is justified if the company is at risk of an unannounced inspection as it is in a ‘high risk’ sector targeted by the Home Office for compliance checks and enforcement action.

The reality is that an audit by Immigration Solicitors can help any business where:

You are intending to apply for your first licence
Key personnel have been struggling with their duties or overwhelmed with too much work
You realise that you have a problem. For example, you haven’t been conducting right-to-work checks according to the latest guidance
Systems feel a bit chaotic
Key personnel have been absent or new ones have been appointed
Immigration Law Training has revealed things you were not aware you should have been doing
The business is going through organisational changes
There is an HMRC or other investigation and you think government departments may liaise with one another
The business is expanding and recruiting additional Skilled Worker Visa holders
You are planning to sell the company
You are thinking of extending the licence so you can sponsor other types of overseas workers
A rival business had an audit and you have heard it didn’t go well
Telling business customers that you have regular external audits or use a Sponsor Licence Management Service assures them that they are not likely to suffer reputational damage by being associated with your business
If you have previously had an audit by the Home Office and want to show that you are treating the concerns raised and getting the help you need

What to expect during an Immigration Lawyer’s audit

As your lawyers, we work with you, your HR staff and key personnel during the audit. We don’t expect you to ‘tidy up’ before our audit as the Home Office may one day arrive unannounced and therefore we need to see how things are normally managed.

No one likes having their work checked or examined and we get that. However, your Immigration Solicitors need to find any weak spots and explain how to sort them out rather than allow things to go unchecked.

You can expect us to:

Look at HR files
Assess your use of the sponsor management system and compliance with deadlines
Examine how you allocate certificates of sponsorship
Look at your right-to-work checks
Check record keeping, such as reporting absences of sponsored workers
Systems to diary up. For example, for repeat right-to-work checks or to renew certificates of sponsorship
Look at how you deal with change, such as the promotion of a sponsored worker and changes to their job description or a sponsored employee asking to change their hours of work due to a temporary change of circumstances
Consider how you are resourced to carry out all the key personnel work with other HR or admin duties
If your key personnel or sponsored employees would be confident in being interviewed by a Home Office official as part of an audit

If you would like us to do so, we can also help with Immigration Law Training or we can provide a full Sponsor Licence Management Service for a fixed monthly retainer.

Business Immigration Lawyer, Hans Sok Appadu, welcomes discussions from HR directors and business owners to see how we can tailor our audit, training and Sponsor Licence Management Service to meet the needs of your business.

UK Online and London-Based Immigration Solicitors and Sponsorship Licence Lawyers

For sponsor licence advice management and audits call OTS Solicitors on 0203 959 9123 or contact us online.

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