How do I sponsor a migrant?
How we suspend a licence
This page explains how we suspend a sponsor from the register of sponsors under the points-based system.
On this page
What happens if we suspend your licence
If we have reason to believe that you are in serious breach of your duties and pose a major threat to immigration control, for example, because you are allocating certificates of sponsorship to migrants who do not qualify to come to the United Kingdom, we may suspend your licence while we follow our procedures.
We will remove your entry from the online register of sponsors, and you will not be able to issue any certificates of sponsorship while you are suspended, but you must still comply with all the sponsorship duties for the migrants you currently sponsor. If the suspension is lifted we will reinstate your name on the online register with the rating awarded.
If you are suspended, you are suspended in all the tiers, categories and sub-categories in which you are registered. If we find that you have assigned a certificate of sponsorship to a migrant during your suspension, we will take further action against you - and we will refuse the migrant's application, on the basis that their certificate of sponsorship is invalid.
Migrants who are already being sponsored at the time of your suspension will not be affected, unless our consideration of the case leads us to withdraw your licence. However, we will not consider any applications for entry clearance or permission to stay from migrants who have a certificate of sponsorship issued by you, until we have made a decision on your status.
If we have already given a migrant entry clearance on the basis of a certificate of sponsorship that you assigned before you were suspended, but the migrant has not yet travelled to the United Kingdom, they will be allowed to enter and start working for you. However, we advise all migrants to check the status of their sponsor's licence before they travel, and we recommend that they do not travel to the United Kingdom if their sponsor's licence has been suspended.
How we decide what (if any) action to take
We take all the facts of the case into account when deciding what action to take against you, unless withdrawal of a licence is mandatory. No two cases will be alike, so we cannot list all the circumstances in which we will withdraw a licence, downgrade it or take no action. We will consider:
- the seriousness of your actions and the harm done. We will treat seriously things you have done or failed to do that have resulted in migrants going missing;
- whether your actions are part of a consistent or sustained record of non-compliance or poor compliance or are a single event;
- any action you have taken to minimise the consequences of what you have done or failed to do. For example, it may help if you tell us quickly that migrants you are sponsoring have stopped coming to work or courses. If an individual member of your staff is responsible for the problem, we will take into account any action you have taken against that person. For example, you should tell us if you have dismissed the person, moved them to another area of work, or retrained them, as appropriate. However, we will treat the situation more seriously if we are sure you were involved in the actions of your staff or deliberately ignored what they were doing;
- any civil penalties you are issued with for an offence listed in Appendix C of the full policy guidance of the policy guidance unless we withdrew the penalty or it was cancelled on appeal.
The procedure we follow
If a visiting officer makes recommendations to withdraw your licence or downgrade you, we will write to you to tell you what action we are going to take and why. All action recommended by a visiting officer will be carried out by the Sponsor Licensing Unit.
You will have 28 days to respond in writing to our letter. We may extend this period at your request if we are satisfied that there are exceptional circumstances. You can make any written statements you think are necessary to respond, including sending evidence. However, we will not hold an oral hearing.
The Sponsor Licensing Unit will consider your response and may ask the relevant visiting officer for information. We will notify you of our decision within 14 calendar days of receiving your response. The reviewing officer has the right to ask for more advice before making the final decision, if your response is complex or we need further advice before making a final decision.
If we do not receive a response from you in the time allowed, the Sponsor Licensing Unit will take the appropriate action recommended by the visiting officer and notify you of its decision in writing.
If we decide to downgrade or withdraw your licence, it starts from the date of the letter we send you to tell you about our decision. We will send this letter by recorded delivery.
When we are considering action against you that may result in us withdrawing your licence, you can still issue certificates of sponsorship during the time that responses are being sent or considered. But we will not consider applications for permission to enter or stay from any migrants that uou have issued certificates of sponsorship to until we have made a final decision on your status.