The New Year is a great opportunity to take stock and consider your sponsor licence compliance duties for the year ahead – we have provided some ideas for HR teams to consider.

HEALTH CHECK CHECKLIST:

• Annual renewal of Certificate of Sponsorship: Check and diarise when your annual allocation of undefined certificates of sponsorship needs to be renewed – it is usually cheaper and easier to apply in bulk provided that you can justify the number that you request.
• Licence renewal: Check when your licence is due to expire (licences must be renewed every four years).
• Recruitment needs: Consider whether you may need to recruit migrant workers this year. Sponsorship can take several weeks to put in place and the process differs depending on whether the individual is currently inside or outside of the UK. 
• Key Personnel: Check that all of the key personnel on your sponsor licence are still in their roles and available to maintain sponsor compliance duties. Consider changing key personnel if you know that a member of key personnel is working their notice period or has an upcoming period of prolonged absence.
• Visa expiry dates: Consider if any of your sponsored migrants' visas are due to expire this year so that you can diarise when to start renewal processes.
• Sponsored migrants' details: Changes to contact details, job roles, salary changes, changes in work location and absences from work may all need reporting within 10 working days of the change. Ask migrants to confirm their contact details and consider any upcoming changes that may need reporting.
• Corporate changes: Changes to company address, share ownership, upcoming changes to company structure, TUPE transfers and other corporate changes may all need reporting within 20 working days of the change.