Sponsor Licence Reporting and Recording Duties and Employee Absence From Work

Posted onMay 13, 2022

With Brexit, the end of free movement for EU nationals, and the UK skills shortage, more and more UK businesses are turning to immigration solicitors to secure their first sponsor licence so they can sponsor overseas workers on the skilled worker visa or the global business mobility route.

For those businesses that are new to the requirements of Home Office sponsor licence reporting and recording duties, it can be hard to get to grips with all your responsibilities, including reporting absences of sponsored employees to the Home Office using the sponsor management system.

In this blog our Sponsorship Licence lawyers take a look at sponsor licence reporting and recording duties and sponsored employees absence from work.

UK Online and London Based Immigration Solicitors and Sponsorship Licence Lawyers

For advice on applying for a sponsor licence or sponsor licence management services call the expert London immigration lawyers at OTS Solicitors on 0203 959 9123 or contact us online.

Sponsor licence reporting and recording duties

Whether you are a small London restaurant or a niche tech firm sponsoring the one skilled worker or a multinational firm sponsoring hundreds of employees on the old style intra company transfer visa, your business needs to fully comply with all its reporting and recording duties. Failure to do so could result in:

A Home Office audit
The suspension of your sponsor licence
A Home Office action plan to get your sponsor licence rating back up to an A rating
The revocation of your sponsor licence

All of those are bad news for both you as the sponsor licence holder and for your sponsored employees. Sponsor licence risks can be managed by:

Investing in regular external audits of HR files and in checking sponsor licence compliance
Use of a professional sponsor licence management service
Careful choice of key personnel to manage the sponsor licence
Appointment of sufficient level one and level two key personnel to manage the sponsor licence
Regular training of key personnel to include training on reporting and recording duties and the absences of sponsored staff
Simple easy to follow staff policies and absence reporting procedures

Whether your business is a start-up or a market leader and whether your company sponsors one person or a hundred employees, your firm needs to have robust but straightforward sponsor licence and employment policies in place that can cope with the sudden absence of the HR director or the maternity leave of a level one or two user.

Sponsor licence reporting and recording duties and absences

With the weather improving and thoughts turning to summer holidays it is best to reiterate the sponsor licence reporting and recording duties on absences by sponsored employees. That’s because whether you are a first time sponsor licence holder, or a company that has held a sponsor licence for a long time, mistakes and misunderstandings do occur.

Firstly, the duty to report absences to the Home Office relates to sponsored staff only though as a matter of essential business practice your company will be recording all staff absences. It is important that your sponsored staff understand that this is a Home Office imposed obligation and that if the reporting and recording duties aren’t followed your business risks losing its sponsor licence and all your sponsored employees will then face their visas being curtailed and them having to leave the UK, unless they can find another sponsoring employer to sponsor them.

Absences to be reported

The following absences of sponsored staff need to be reported using the Home Office sponsor management system:

First day of employment absence.
Absence without permission for more than ten consecutive days.
Four weeks absence in a calendar year - if the sponsored employee is absent from employment without pay for more than four weeks in any calendar year the immigration rules say that a sponsoring employer must stop sponsoring the worker. Accurate recording is needed as the four weeks can be a one off absence or cumulative days. However, there are exceptions to this rule if the sponsored employee is absent from work because they are on statutory maternity or paternity or adoption or parental leave or because they are on sick leave or assisting with a national or international humanitarian or environmental crisis (provided your business agrees to the worker’s absence) or they are taking part in an industrial action that is legally organised.

Given the complexities of remembering who is a sponsored employee, who has pre-settled status or settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme, or who is a settled worker with indefinite leave to remain or has British citizenship, it is vital that simple systems are set up to monitor and record absences and that HR staff and key personnel recognise the importance of the individual employee’s immigration status when recording an absence and the reason for it. That way difficulties with sponsor licence reporting and recording compliance should be minimised. That’s in the best interests of the business as a whole, but especially the sponsored employees whose ongoing right to live and work in the UK is based on their continued sponsorship and therefore the retention of the sponsor licence.

UK Online and London Based Immigration Solicitors and Sponsorship Licence Lawyers