If you are a business and have group control over other properties within your organisation, the Home Office will allow these to form under one sponsor licence if your group meets the 5 key areas plus, your documents are in order.

What does group control mean?

Group control means the group of properties are owned under one trading entity and, the head office has full access to how the business operates. The Home Office will assess if the group properties comply to the 5 key areas of compliance. If a group licence is granted but one property in the group fails a Home Office inspection, the group is impacted by the Home Office decision which could be B-Rated, Suspended or Revoked sponsor licence.

If the group sponsor licence is revoked, the group cannot apply for a new sponsor licence for 12 months and all sponsored workers would lose their right immediately to work in the UK.

If the group is applying for a new sponsor licence and the Home Office decides to do an audit first, if the group failed the audit, the group would not be permitted to apply for another sponsor licence for 6 months unless exceptional circumstances came into place.

Applying as a group does bring it challenges when presenting to the Home Office. We would recommend an external audit to help prevent issues down the road.

Sponsor licence documentation

Depending how your group is structured, the above will determine the types of documents required. The Home Office only asks for 4 documents when submitting a sponsor licence application but in 99% of cases, additional evidence will be required.

What if we have departments in our business?

If your business has departments and they do their own recruitment, this will need to be assessed to see if your infrastructure is compliant to having a sponsor licence.

Home Workers

If you employ staff from their own homes, this would need investigating to ensure compliance areas are met.

If you are a business and have a group of trading premises where you employ staff but at present you do not have in place a system where you can demonstrate control of your HR and workforce, the Home Office will not approve a group sponsor licence and even if they did, when they come to audit you they are likely to find compliance issues that will breach the 5 key areas of holding a sponsor licence.

What does group control mean?

Group control means the group of properties are owned under one trading entity and, the head office has full access to how the business operates. The Home Office will assess if the group properties comply to the 5 key areas of compliance. If a group licence is granted but one property in the group fails a Home Office inspection, the group is impacted by the Home Office decision which could be B-Rated, Suspended or Revoked sponsor licence. If the group sponsor licence is revoked, the group cannot apply for a new sponsor licence for 12 months and all sponsored workers would lose their right immediately to work in the UK.

How do we make our group compliant?

When our firm audits the group, our aim is not to change how the business operates but simply look at the way data is shared amongst the group. We look at and identity how each property is registered with the likes of HMRC, regulating bodies, insurance policies, policies on employment and who has what control and decision making. Often, we find across groups they allow individual properties to make business decisions which is fine if they fall outside of the 5 key areas and those decisions the head office is not aware or immediately updated.

If the sponsor licence was approved as the Home Office trusted your business set up but decided at a later date to carry out an audit, if any property in the group failed the audit, the group would not be permitted to apply for another sponsor licence for 6 months if their sponsor licence was revoked unless exceptional circumstances were applied.

Applying as a group does bring it challenges when presenting to the Home Office. We would recommend an external audit to help prevent issues down the road.

Sponsor licence documentation

Depending how your group is structured, the above will determine the types of documents required. The Home Office only asks for 4 documents when submitting a sponsor licence application but in 99% of cases additional evidence will be required.

What if we have departments in our business?

If your business has departments and they do their own recruitment, this will need to be assessed to see if your infrastructure is compliant to having a sponsor licence.

Home Workers

If you employ staff from their own homes, this is still classed as branches to your business, but you must have in place a tracking mechanism so if challenged by the Home Office, you can demonstrate any sponsored workers working from home, you know what they are doing, their duties and employment hours reflect what is stated in their assigned Certificate of Sponsorship.

If you are a business and you have other trading entities within your group, it may be possible to place them all under one Home Office sponsor licence. 

Business types can be:

1. Limited company
2. Sole trader
3. Partnerships
4. Limited Liability Partnerships
5. Charities

If the plan is to link business(es) that falls under points 1-5 under one sponsor licence, a common ‘Link’ must be in place. A link is where common ownership or control is in place.

Common ownership or control of branches

The Home Office will assess common ownership or control of branches in the same way they assess it for applications for an Intra Company licence. 

Your business must be able to show a direct link by common ownership or control with the UK entity or entities from which you plan to sponsor under a group licence holder. Common ownership or control may be shown by one of the following and below covers UK and overseas:

• one entity controls the composition of the other entity’s board.
• one entity holds enough shares in the other entity to have more than half of the voting rights in that other entity.
• both entities have a common parent entity, and that parent entity (either by itself or through other entities) meets one of the above requirements.
• one entity is related to the other entity as both are party to a joint venture agreement.
• one entity is related to the other entity in that one is party to a joint venture agreement and the other is formed by that joint venture agreement.
• one entity is related to the other by an agreement that would constitute a joint venture agreement other than for the fact that joint venture agreements are not permitted in the country of operation or one of the entities is not permitted to enter into joint ventures in the country of operation.
• one entity is related to the other in that one entity is party to an agreement that would constitute a joint venture agreement other than for the fact that joint venture agreements are not allowed in the country of operation or that entity is not allowed to enter into joint ventures in the country of operation, and the other entity is the entity formed by that agreement.
• where both entities are either accountancy or law firms, one entity is related to the other by an agreement which allows both to use a trademark registered or established under UK law and the jurisdiction of the other entity’s country of operation.
• where both entities are either accountancy or law firms, one entity is related to the other by agreement which allows both to run under the same name in the UK and in the jurisdiction of the other entity’s country of operation.
• in the case of unincorporated associations, we may accept that the UK entity is linked to the overseas entity if there is evidence (such as a written constitution or Articles of Association) to show that one entity controls the other – for example, a member of one entity has the power to appoint the other entity’s trustees.

Sponsor licence documentation

Depending how your group is structured, the above will determine the types of documents required. The Home Office only asks for 4 documents when submitting a sponsor licence application but in 99% of cases additional evidence will be required.

What if we have departments in our business?

If your business has departments and they do their own recruitment, this will need to be assessed to see if your infrastructure is compliant to having a sponsor licence.

Can each business operate differently?

Yes, they can, but each business must share certain data and follow certain policies set by head office to meet the sponsor licence rules.

What if a business cannot or will not share their data?

If a business in a group is not willing to share their data, then they must apply for their own sponsor licence. Note: When the Home Office carries out their audits, they will expect the head office to have full access to the other businesses and property files especially sponsored workers to ensure the 5 key areas are fully compliant. Tip: To avoid any of your group businesses breaching the sponsor licence 5 key areas, the nominated head office should put in place strict policies where each business and additional properties comply with.

Home Workers

If you employ staff from their own homes, this is still classed as branches to your business, but you must have in place a tracking mechanism so if challenged by the Home Office, you can demonstrate any sponsored workers working from home, you know what they are doing, their duties and employment hours reflect what is stated in their assigned Certificate of Sponsorship.

What if we cannot demonstrate a common link?

If this is the case, you will have to apply for separate sponsor licences and if the sponsor licences were approved per business, you cannot transfer sponsored workers between each licence.

What if later on after we obtained a sponsor licence, we able to demonstrate a common link?

Once a common link has been agreed, you can then apply to add the business entity as a branch to your main sponsor licence.

Business assessment

We can assess each business to see if suitable to go under a group sponsor licence. The assessment is likely to find areas that will need improvement or possible compliance issues.