Business immigration for employers

Andrew Williams Solicitors has been here since before the regime began

The employer civil penalty regime came into force on 29 February 2008. Andrew Williams Solicitors, formerly AW Immigration, was established in 2005 and has worked in UK immigration law throughout the entire life of the regime. That experience matters.

Immigration compliance is not simply about knowing what the current checklist says. It requires an understanding of how Home Office requirements operate in practice, how statutory excuses are established, how evidence should be retained, when repeat checks arise, how sponsor duties interact with Right to Work obligations, how civil penalties can be challenged and how organisations should respond when Immigration Enforcement attends their premises.

Over the lifetime of the regime, the emphasis has increasingly moved from reacting to enforcement to preventing compliance failures before enforcement begins.

Compliance must be continuous

A Right to Work check can be valid on the day it is completed and still create future risk if the organisation fails to manage what happens next. Permission may be time limited, a repeat check may become necessary, evidence may be lost, a sponsored worker's circumstances may change, a reporting obligation may arise, or different employees may follow different processes.

That is why immigration compliance should increasingly be treated in the same way as payroll, health and safety or financial controls: as a continuous business function rather than a one-off check.

How Andrew Williams Solicitors can help

We provide immigration compliance support for employers, sponsor licence holders, care providers, hospitality businesses, construction companies, recruitment businesses, colleges and education providers, landlords, estate agencies and letting agents.

Our compliance work can include Right to Work audits, Right to Rent compliance reviews, sponsor licence compliance, immigration-status checking procedures, expiry and repeat-check monitoring, document and evidence reviews, staff training, mock compliance audits, support during Home Office compliance visits, civil penalty advice and compliance remediation.

The objective is not simply to help when something has already gone wrong. It is to identify weaknesses before the Home Office does.

The financial case for getting compliance right

A business employing 20, 50 or 100 sponsored or migrant workers may have hundreds of individual compliance obligations operating at the same time. One missed check can become expensive. Several missed checks can become commercially serious. For sponsor licence holders, poor compliance can potentially affect the organisation's ability to continue sponsoring migrant workers.

No solicitor or compliance provider can guarantee that a civil penalty or enforcement action will never occur. A properly managed compliance system can materially reduce risk, preserve the evidence required to establish a defence, identify weaknesses earlier and place the organisation in a substantially stronger position if the Home Office investigates.

With employer civil penalties reaching £60,000 per illegal worker, immigration compliance should now be treated as a core business risk. Prevention is significantly cheaper than enforcement.

Book a compliance consultation

If you are an employer, sponsor licence holder, landlord, estate or letting agent, education provider or other organisation and you are concerned about your immigration compliance systems, contact Andrew Williams Solicitors to book a consultation. We can review your current position, identify potential compliance gaps and discuss the level of ongoing support appropriate for your organisation.

Who this page is for

• Employers considering sponsorship for the first time
• Existing sponsors managing reporting, record-keeping and right to work duties
• Businesses changing structure, ownership or key personnel while holding a licence
• Sponsors facing a compliance visit, information request, suspension or revocation
• Employers whose sponsored worker's role, salary or place of work is changing

How the work is usually sequenced

• A solicitor establishes the employer's current position, licence status and obligations
• The position is reviewed against the Immigration Rules and sponsor guidance in force
• Written advice sets out the duties, the practical risks and who inside the business owns each duty
• Applications and responses to the Home Office are prepared and approved by a solicitor
• Records are organised so the employer can evidence what it has done if asked

Records employers are usually asked about

Recruitment records, right to work check records, contracts and job descriptions, payroll evidence, records of reported changes, and a clear allocation of responsibility for sponsor duties within the business. Where records are incomplete, it is better to identify and address that in advance.

Where sponsors most often run into difficulty

• Details that do not match what was assigned on a certificate of sponsorship
• Reportable changes not reported in time
• Right to work checks carried out late or without a retained record
• Sponsor duties left unowned after a change of staff
• Replying to a Home Office request without legal review of what is being sent

Sponsorship duties remain the sponsor's own legal obligations, and enforcement decisions remain matters for the Home Office. Our role is to advise and to represent the employer.

Fees

We agree fees in writing before substantive work begins, and we confirm what is included in the scope of work. How we charge, and the Home Office fees that are payable in addition to our professional fees, are explained on our fees page.

If you would like the position on your own facts reviewed, make an enquiry and we will confirm the next step in writing. An enquiry is a request for a consultation; it is not advice, and it does not create a solicitor-client relationship.