New Home Office Audit Rules: What Sponsors MUST Report (And What to Ignore)

[0:00]If a worker who is sponsored under the skilled worker by an employer trips on the way to their workplace, do you need to report that from the sponsor management system? The answer is no. This is what exactly was confirmed by a Home Office senior manager who attended a business conference yesterday, which I attended through Immigration Lawyers Practitioners Association. So this is the example that the manager did give saying, we do want reporting, but don't tell us things like this, where a worker was walking down to the office and tripped. Uh, so we don't want to know that, but another important thing that they wanted to stress on was reporting. That is, that was the main goal of this discussion. Reporting is very, very important. Home Office is heavily targeting on this. Reporting maternity leaves where salaries are reduced. Anyone is on a leave without pay, report that. Any salary reductions, especially salary reductions, that's where they are focused on, because that can be caught in HMRC data. Home Office has been running the HMRC data on PAYE records of employers. Firstly, they also ask when you do make a request for any undefined certificate of sponsorship. Home Office comes back asking for the payroll records, at least for the last six months. And secondly, they do themselves also run on employers who are not applying for COS anyways. They are doing random checks on employers who whether they are paying the salaries that they had stated on the certificates of sponsorship. So this is a very important point, anytime, especially most, there are different types of reportings. Let's say a worker's last date of employment. You need to report that, stop sponsoring the migrant. Let's say the report the worker changed from one immigration route to another. He or she was on a skilled worker visa sponsored by you, and subsequently they became a spouse of a British national, so they don't need sponsorship. That needs reporting or they got indefinite leave to remain on the 10 year long residence that needs to be reported. So there are many such things, work end dates, and there are many, many such reporting requirements. But the main thing that Home Office is quite fussy about nowadays is the salary reduction requirements. For example, maternity leave salaries are reduced. Anyone is leave without pay, or any other reasons. If you are reducing the salaries, make sure you report, but don't report everything and anything and everything such as tripping while walking to work. That's what that was the essence of what the Home Office manager was telling us. So, yes, that's what I wanted to update you all. Home Office reporting requirements. Thank you.