The Home Office may revoke an organisation’s sponsor licence, if they failed to meet or breach any sponsor duties and/or pose a threat to immigration control. The Home Office may decide to revoke the organisation’s licence directly and without suspending the licence first; if the sponsor breach is severe, normally indicating a significant or systematic failure and/or constitutes a threat to immigration control.
Impact of Sponsor Licence revocation
Revocation of Tier 2 or 5 licence can have devastating consequences for an organisation and should not be taken lightly. The organisation will not be able to sponsor new migrants and will be removed from the public register of sponsors during the period of suspension. The leave of the current migrant workers under sponsorship will be curtailed and be given 60 days to find alternative sponsorship or leave the UK.
The common reasons for revocation include failing to adhere to the Resident Labour Market Test requirements, not undertaking Right to work checks or employing illegal workers, failing to uphold proper HR and Recruitment practices, pose a threat to immigration control by facilitating jobs that are not suitable for sponsorship, submitting false or misleading documents when requested etc.
Revocation Challenge
There is no right of appeal against a decision to revoke a sponsor licence and the organisations will not be allowed to apply for a new sponsor licence again until the end of the appropriate cooling off period from the date the licence is revoked. The organisations however may have an option to challenge the decision by the form of a judicial review. This process looks into the ways the decision was reached by the Home Office and assess whether they have acted unreasonably.