Employers should apply for immigration licences now or face delays in employing migrant workers

Employers wishing to hire workers from outside the EU are being urged to sign-up to the UK Border Agencyís newly-launched register of sponsors in plenty of time in order to comply with new rules which will replace the current work permit system.

The register is part of a new five-tier points-based immigration system being introduced which will replace the current work permit system, with skilled workers and intra-company transfers comprising Tier Two of the new regime, from November.

All employers wishing to employ workers who do not have permission to work in the UK will need to have a sponsorship licence from that date or risk lengthy delays, says UK law firm Dundas & Wilson.

Any businesses looking to bolster their UK offices by bringing in talent from places like the US and China should be thinking about applying for a licence under the new rules sooner rather than later. The UK Border Agency has stated that employers should make sure that they have a licence completed in time for the opening of the new Tier Two in order to avoid delays.

Elaine McIlroy, an associate in the employment law team of Dundas & Wilson, said that the new sponsorship duties will be a significant change to the current system.

Under the new laws, employers who wish to bring in workers from outside the EU must apply to sponsor the employee and appoint a 'senior, responsible, honest and competent' member of staff who will be responsible for compliance with the sponsorship duties.

Elaine said: ìThe UKBA is taking a tough stance on illegal working generally and the new regime is far more rigorous than the system it replaces, so there will be no quarter for firms who arenít aware of the new obligations or donít think they apply.

ìAt the moment employers have fairly limited duties in terms of ensuring that migrant workers comply with their immigration conditions. Under the new Tier Two system, employers' obligations will be more onerous. For example, if migrant workers are absent from work for certain periods, or if the employer suspects that the migrant is breaching his immigration conditions, the employer must report that to the UK Border Agency.

Employers will need to put in place robust HR processes to ensure that they can comply with the terms of the licence that will permit them to employ migrant workers under Tier Two. The UK Border Agency will assess five areas of an employer's HR processes to check that they can comply with their new obligations. These include:

ï Whether the employer has systems in place to monitor the employee's immigration status and to prevent illegal working. This will involve keeping copies of immigration documents and diarising checks of such documents.

ï Whether there are systems in place to keep up-to-date contact details of migrant workers.

ï Whether there is an appropriate standard of record-keeping generally involving comprehensive personnel files.

ï Whether there are systems in place for migrant tracking and monitoring (e.g. appropriate attendance management policies to highlight unexplained absences from work).

ï Whether there are recruitment practices in place to ensure that a migrant has the appropriate professional skills and qualifications for a role.

The UKBA has recently fired-up its resources to tackle breaches of illegal working laws. It has also adopted a policy of naming and shaming employers who breach illegal working on its website along with publishing details of the penalties imposed.

This could be quite an embarrassment for large corporate bodies as the reputational damage could be substantial Elaine said.