Sponsorship - important information
- Iwona Bycroft
- Nov 20, 2024
- 3 min read
Worker and Temporary Worker Priority Sponsor Change of Circumstances service
The Home Office (UKVI) have published updated guidance for Worker or Temporary Worker sponsors on the Priority change of circumstances service.
The priority service is now open from 7am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. Any requests made outside of this time will not be considered. Additionally, there is now a maximum of 100 priority service requests that will be accepted each day.
These changes will undoubtedly be welcome news for sponsors who have struggled to use the priority service in recent months.
The updated guidance on the Priority change of circumstances service can be viewed here.
Unexpected / scam calls claiming to be from the Home Office / UKVI
If your Level 1 or Level 2 user receives an unexpected email, telephone call or letter from someone claiming to be from the Home Office (UKVI), it may be a scam. Please be vigilant!
The Home Office (UKVI) will never contact you to ask you for, or to verify your SMS user ID or password OR to provide you with a link to log into the SMS system. If you are contacted by the Home Office (UKVI) and you have any concerns, you should call them on 0300 123 4699.
There is also some useful guidance on Fraud, tricks and scams on the GOV.UK website, which can be viewed here.
Applying for a Student sponsor licence - updated guidance
The Home Office (UKVI) have updated their guidance for education providers / sponsors on applying for a sponsor licence.
The key changes were as follows:
Definitions for Private providers and Overseas HEIs have been added to the Glossary.
References to the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW) have been replaced. with the Commission for Tertiary Education and Research (Medr).
References to the sponsor licence renewal process have been removed.
References to the Premium Customer Service have been removed.
A broken link to UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) in Table 3 on para. 6.13 has been fixed.
The updated guidance can be viewed here.
Pre-licence priority service - updated guidance
The Home Office (UKVI) have published updated guidance to sponsors and prospective sponsors on applying to use the Pre-licence Priority service.
The ‘How to apply’ section has been updated to reflect that the pre-licence priority service is available between 9am and 23.59pm, Monday to Friday, excluding public holidays.
You can either request the priority service when you make your application for a sponsor licence and pay the priority service fee with your application fee, subject to the eligibility criteria, or you can request priority service after you have submitted your application and paid your application fee by logging back into your sponsor application account and selecting ‘Finish incomplete applications’.
Where you are successful in prioritising your licence application, normally you would receive a decision within 10 working days unless your application raises complex issues, and UKVI requires further time to assess these fully.
The updated guidance can be viewed here.
Sponsorship Transparency Statistics (Q3 2024)
The Home Office (UKVI) have published their Q3 2024 Sponsorship Transparency statistics.
The key statistics from this quarterly report are as follows:
As of Q3 2024, there were a total of 106,215 Skilled Worker sponsors, 1,053 Student sponsors, and 4,535 Temporary Worker sponsors registered with the UKVI.
The number of new sponsor licence applications made in each route during this period were as follows: 9139 Skilled Worker licence applications, 318 Temporary Worker licence applications, 159 Skilled Worker / Temporary Worker joint licence applications, 18 Student licence applications, 4 Skilled Worker / Student joint licence applications, 1 Skilled Worker / Student / Temporary Worker joint licence application, and 1 Student / Temporary Worker joint licence application.
The percentage of Student sponsors with full ‘Student Sponsor’ status was 95.5%.
The average length of time taken (days) to process a sponsorship application was 29 days.
The following actions were taken against sponsors during Q3 2024: 509 Skilled Worker licences were suspended / 513 were revoked, 49 Temporary Worker licences were suspended / 46 were revoked, and 4 Student sponsors were issued with an intention to revoke / 2 were revoked.
The Q3 2024 Sponsorship Transparency Statistics can be viewed here.
