Immigration Law and Compliance Training
You may think that once you have put in the hard work to secure your sponsor licence to sponsor overseas workers the hard work stops. Our Immigration Solicitors can tell you that it doesn’t and that the best way to avoid sponsor licence problems (and expense) is through ongoing Immigration Law Training.
In this article, our Sponsorship Licence Lawyers look at how Immigration Law Training on compliance and sponsor licence management can help your business and what it involves.
UK Online and London-Based Immigration Solicitors and Sponsorship Licence Lawyers
For immigration law training and legal advice call OTS Solicitors on 0203 959 9123 or contact us online.
Immigration law compliance
The award of a sponsor licence comes with responsibilities. Our Sponsorship Licence Lawyers are often told by small business owners that they hadn’t fully appreciated the extent of their reporting and recording duties when they applied for their first sponsor licence. Even large companies can struggle with immigration training and compliance, especially where there is a high turnover of HR staff or key personnel.
Immigration law compliance isn’t optional – if you don’t follow the rules your business risks having its sponsor licence suspended or even revoked. In real terms, a revocation means you can't continue to sponsor overseas workers on Skilled Worker Visas or Health and Care Worker Visas. A suspension or a revocation of a sponsor licence involves your business instructing Business Immigration Solicitors to try and sort out the problems. That may not be possible, depending on the seriousness of the issues identified by the Home Office.
From a purely financial point of view, it makes financial sense to either pay Sponsorship Licence Lawyers a monthly retainer to provide a sponsor licence management service or to combine the management service with Immigration Law training. The training and management cost is spread and your interactions with the Home Office should proceed smoothly rather than you knowing that your business is building up sponsor licence problems that will either need to be dealt with or risk losing your sponsor licence.
Managing the risk
Some business owners ask if they can take out insurance against the loss of their sponsor licence. It is a sensible question if your business is heavily reliant on overseas staff who are subject to UK immigration control. For example, nursing homes and care homes in the adult healthcare sector are frequently reliant on employing care workers on Health and Care Worker Visas. Unfortunately, it isn’t an insurable risk as a small business owner can't get cover for something that’s under their control. It would be like asking the RAC to provide breakdown cover on a car where you had chosen to take the engine out.
Managing the risk isn’t possible through sponsor licence insurance but the combination of sponsor licence management service and Immigration Law Training is your next best option if your company wants the benefits of risk management.
The moving target of immigration compliance
Immigration training for risk management is sometimes seen by business owners as a one-off purchase. That can be the case as our Sponsorship Licence Lawyers do offer ad hoc Immigration Law Training to suit your business needs and budget. However, a bespoke training programme that’s budgeted to meet all your Immigration Law Training needs is not only more cost-effective but also better for your HR staff and key personnel. That’s because immigration law and immigration rules are constantly changing or being tweaked. That means you can't be complacent or assume that one training session on immigration compliance will meet all your future needs.
An example of immigration changes is the massive rise in fines if your business is found to have employed a worker who does not have the legal right to work in the UK and your company does not have a statutory excuse to avoid the imposition of a substantial fine. A statutory excuse is only available if you conducted a right-to-work check in accordance with the latest rules and guidelines.
A civil penalty can now be imposed for £45,000 per illegal worker. That maximum penalty assumes you have committed a first breach. The fine is up to £60,000 per illegal worker for repeat breaches. On top of the financial penalty, a business also risks losing its sponsor licence and its sponsored workers and, worst case scenario, a criminal prosecution. These penalties go some way to explaining why Sponsorship Licence Lawyers emphasise how cost-effective Immigration Law Training can be for any sponsor licence holder.
Immigration Law Training as a first defence
Immigration Law Training does not answer all your needs as a sponsor licence holder as reporting and recording still needs to be carried out either by your key personnel or by our Sponsorship Licence Lawyers under our sponsor licence management service. However, if the Home Office raises compliance concerns a first line of defence can be your current investment in training or commitment to do so if your sponsor licence is suspended. Immigration Law Training can help show that you are working with the Home Office on an action plan to get your sponsor licence rating back up to an A rating so you can recruit additional staff on Skilled Worker Visas or Health and Care Worker Visas.
Immigration Law Training from OTS Solicitors
At OTS Solicitors our Immigration Law Training is what you need it to be. Every company is different. You may have highly experienced HR staff and key personnel who need occasional top-up training on new developments or information on the latest best practices. Alternatively, you may have junior key personnel or lots of HR staff changes or know that your sponsor licence is at risk because reporting and recording duties took second place to HR firefighting because of work pressures through new staff inductions or because your HR staff were dealing with employee grievances or employment tribunal claims.
Our Sponsorship Licence Lawyers can provide:
- One-off training or a package of sessions
- In-person training or webinars and Zoom meetings
- Off-the-shelf training that is standardised or specific to your sector or your business
- Practical business focussed Immigration Law Training
We like to talk to you to find out what you need from us and to work out how you can get maximum benefit from our Immigration Law Training.
Talking is an ongoing process as your training needs may change over time. For example, if there is a change in government and another radical overhaul of Work Visas and immigration rules or if your Level One User is away on maternity leave and you either need to temporarily use our sponsor licence management service or intense Immigration Law Training for your Level Two User to step up.
Whether our Immigration Law Training is pitched at an introductory, refresher or advanced level is down to you as we want your HR staff and key personnel to get maximum benefit from our flexible training services.
UK Online and London-Based Immigration Solicitors and Sponsorship Licence Lawyers
For immigration law training and legal advice call OTS Solicitors on 0203 959 9123 or contact us online.
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