UK Immigration Update| Tier 2 Sponsor - Important key dates to plan for in 2016

Posted: 07/01/2016 Author: Nishil Patel

Happy New Year from Santa Fe Immigration Services Team!

As we start 2016, we would like to draw your attention to some important key dates to plan for in 2016.

Sponsor Licence Expiry

A sponsor licence is valid for a maximum period of 4 years. Those organisations who initially applied or extended their sponsor licence in 2012, will have sponsor licences that are likely to expire in 2016. If your organisation intends to continue to sponsor migrant workers in the UK, please ensure the sponsor licence expiry date is checked so that an application can be submitted to the Home Office prior to the sponsor licence expiring.

If an organisation does not renew their sponsor licence on time, this will affect the visa status of all their current sponsored migrant workers in the UK.

Home Office Audit

As part of Sponsor Licence obligations, the Home Office are authorised to attend an organisation at any time in order to conduct an audit. The audit is designed to review an organisation's existing HR policies and procedures, together with any previous dealings that they have had with the Home Office. If your organisation has not had an audit in the last 6 months, it is very likely that an audit will take place in the coming months.

It is very important that an organisation is in a position to demonstrate they have maintained their sponsorship duties as a registered Tier 2 sponsor in line with their obligations. Failure to meet the sponsor licence obligations could lead to the revocation of the sponsor licence which would cause serious financial and reputational risks to an organisation.

Certification of Sponsorship (CoS) Allocation Expiry 5th April 2016

The Certificate(s) of Sponsorship (CoS) for Tier 2 (General) and Tier 2 Intra Company Transfer applications will expire on 05-April-2016.

The Home Office introduced an automatic allocation to selected organisations whereby the Home Office would automatically grant certificate of sponsorships to organisations based on their previous usage. However, this is not applicable to all organisations.

If a request is not made, the allocation will expire and any remaining unassigned CoS will not be available for use from the date of expiry. However, should an organisation need to sponsor an individual over the coming year; additional certificates can be requested as and when required.

Tier 2 General restricted CoS allocations

The Home Office are not likely to increase the annual limit from 20,700, and it is predicted that restricted certificate of sponsorship requests will be oversubscribed again from June to September.

Santa Fe Immigration Services Team will continue to keep you updated on the latest immigration developments.

Should you have any questions or require any support or assistance, please contact:

Nishil Patel
Senior Manager
Santa Fe Immigration Services
Tel : +44 (0)20 8961 4141
E-mail: nishil.patel@SantaFeRelo.com

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Santa Fe Group A/S issued this content on 2016-01-07 and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 2016-01-07 14:26:14 UTC

Original Document: http://www.santaferelo.com/news-and-blog/UK-Immigration-Update-Tier-2-Sponsor-Important-key-dates-to-plan-for-in-2016