Successful Sponsorship Licence application for a micro company

By Dr Lusine Navasardyan

Dr Lusine Navasardyan is Director and Head of Corporate and Business Immigration at RVS Solicitors. Dr Lusine studied at Yerevan State University and the Bucharest University of Economic Studies. She is also a published author and a member of the Bucharest Bar. As a Director of RVS Solicitors, she is instrumental to the operation of the law firm, and as Head of Corporate and Business Immigration, she helps our clients to forge new futures in the UK.

Our immigration team was asked to provide merits assessment on the possibility of making a Sponsorship Licence application for a micro company that offered specialist IT services to businesses. At that particular time, the company, owned by a husband and wife, had no other employees. However, in the recent year, the company had experienced a sudden growth in demand of their services. As a result, the company was in urgent need to hire specialists for key positions. They had made several attempts to hire locally, however due to the very specialist skills required, the pool of talent was small and existing candidates were not interested in working for such a small company with the salary that they were able to afford.

Despite the challenges of the case, our team acknowledged the necessity of identifying a viable solution to prevent the company from losing business and a great opportunity to grow.

Given the vast experience of the head of our Immigration Department, Dr Lusine Navasardyan, her personal and direct attention was required to effectively approach the case. Throughout the matter, she remained the main port of contact for the client, working directly with them in order to achieve optimal results for them. Due to her experience in corporate law, she was expeditious in identifying the primary areas of pressure for the business. Predominantly, she highlighted that the key reason preventing the business from fostering growth was the lack of available skills and expertise. Once the business had the opportunity to hire, their development would allow them to retain the employee easily and potentially continue hiring additional employees.

After reassuring our client that sponsorship license could be obtained, with a bit more work than usual, the team, began to work on preparing the application.

What are the Sponsorship Licence application requirements?

After determining he need for the licence, our team of Sponsorship Licence lawyers proceeded to assess the Company’s circumstances against the requirements for Sponsorship Licence.

To secure sponsorship Licence, an organisation needs to prove:

• They are a genuine organisation legally operating in the UK.
• They are capable of meeting the Sponsor duties.
• They are able to demonstrate genuine need for Sponsorship Licence.
• They offer a genuine vacancy that meets the Tier 2 skill level requirement and are able pay the salary appropriate for that job.

In order to satisfy the requirements of, and to secure a sponsorship licence, an organisation needs to prove:-They are a genuine organisation legally operating within the UK.

• They are capable of meeting the Sponsor duties.
• They are able to demonstrate a genuine need for Sponsorship Licence.
• They offer a genuine Vacancy that meets the Tier 2 skill level requirement and they are able to pay the appropriate salary for that specific job that they are providing.

The main difficulty of the application process arose from the fact that previously, the company was very small and until that moment, had no other employee. Therefore, it was going to be very difficult to demonstrate that: they could be trusted with such complex and taxing task as abiding by Sponsorship duties.

Dr Navasardyan and our immigration team examined, with great detail, the business background in order to identify any aspects that could raise issues of credibility or genuinity. Subsequently, a plan was implemented with regards to the preparation of policies and processes to ensure the fulfilment of the sponsorship duties.

To demonstrate the need for the licence and capability to afford the salary, the team submitted evidence showing: the growth of the business; how that growth translated into expending income.

For each of the mentioned points, our lawyers worked closely with the client to ensure that the relevant evidence was ready and available for submission.

Sponsorship Licence Application process and timelines

Once the documentary evidence and the representations were deemed to be ready, the team assisted the client in submitting the online application. This is the first step in applying for Sponsorship Licence.

As with all Sponsorship Licence applications, our team ensured that the bundle containing the required evidence to support the application was also submitted, within the 5 working day period as set out by the rules.

Following the submission, the team advised the Client that an inspection was likely to take place before the Home Office would ultimately make their decision. This is due to the fact that the client was a micro business with no other employees so they were resultantly deemed as high risk.

Indeed, two weeks after submission, the client was contacted by the Home Office who informed the client of the intention to visit them. Since our team had already anticipated this, and as part of our application process, had advised the client on their policies and processes in which they should implement, the client was ready for inspection. In order to prepare for the inspection, Dr Navarsardyan also discussed other matters with the client such as: training them on the Sponsorship Duties; explaining what to expect on the day of the visit; explaining the types of documents to have available at the time of inspection; the information to prepare.

As a result of the efforts of our experienced business immigration lawyers, the Home Office visit occurred without any problems and the inspectors were fully satisfied with the Client’s readiness and ability to ensure that the Sponsorship Duties would be observed. Following the inspection, a decision to grant Sponsorship Licence was made, with the whole process not taking more than 7 weeks.

Follow up work

Having secured Sponsorship Licence for our client, the client began their recruitment campaign overseas and in short time managed to find a suitable candidate. They worked with our immigration team in respect of requesting a CoS and meeting other formalities that would enable them to sponsor the migrant.

Our team was happy to have enabled a small business start on the path of achieving their big dream.

To find out more about how we can assist you with obtaining a Tier 2 Sponsor Licence or managing your compliance, please contact our London office on 020 3372 5125 or complete our online enquiry form to make an appointment. Find out more information on our fees here.