UK Home Office has revoked the licenses of more than at least hundred companies that brought workers from different countries, including Bangladesh on care visas. Nearly thousands of workers have received visa cancellation letters due to issues of sponsor company's license
After coming to Britain by spending twenty to thirty thousand pounds, the concerned company could not provide work. Then now hundreds of Bangladeshis who have recently come to Britain after getting the visa cancellation letter are now in deep worry and anxiety. Those who have come to this country with children, they are spending time in endless suffering without getting a place to stay and work. Running to the lawyers of the Bangladeshi community. Many are applying for political asylum.
Lot of care providers has been placed in special measures and lost its licence to sponsor foreign workers. Santos Care, based in Wolverhampton, has been condemned as inadequate, in the wake of a Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection. Santos had been recruiting staff abroad to work in people's homes as carers.The Home Office said Santos has now been suspended from sponsoring foreign workers.
But some care homes are facing legal battles. A care provider has won a High Court challenge against the Government’s decision to revoke a migrant worker sponsor licence that could have meant up to 68 people and their families would have had to leave the UK.
Supporting Care Limited, which has contracts with the NHS and councils to provide at home services to the vulnerable and elderly across London, took legal action against the Home Office after losing the licence in June last year.
The immigration sponsor licence had allowed the care provider to recruit and sponsor 68 “skilled migrants”, out of a total workforce of 162 employees, a judge was told.But following a routine inspection, the Home Office was not satisfied that the role filled by one employee was a “genuine vacancy” and alleged it had been “exaggerated in order to facilitate her stay in the UK”.
A hearing in London in November was told that the revocation of the licence meant that “all 68 migrant workers will be required to find another sponsor or be required to leave the United Kingdom within 60 days of notice” from the Home Office.
It also meant the care provider would “no longer be able to retain any skilled migrant” which “would likely undermine its operations and ability to fulfil its contracts within an industry involving vulnerable individuals”.
This impact had to be balanced against the principles of the licensing scheme, with the Home Office entrusting those with licences to act in a way that “maintains proper immigration control”, the court was told.
Notices had not been served at the time of the hearing, with the Home Office deciding to wait until the outcome of the legal challenge.
A freedom of information request, by a renowned law firm to the Home Office, has revealed that during the period between 1 January 2021 and 26 October 2023, 94 private care providers in the health and social care sector have had their Skilled Worker Sponsor Licences revoked already.
Barrister MD Iqbal Hussain, principal solicitor of Chancery Solicitors told to Daily Dazzling Dawn,Not only will these providers have been forced to dismiss all the overseas workers they were sponsoring, their businesses will have faced fines and considerable reputational damage.”
Common pitfalls where providers are often found to be non-compliant are:
1. Failure to report changes to sponsored workers (within 10 working days) examples include where the employee does not start the role within 28 days, and failure to report when a pre-registered nurse completes their NMC registration or if they fail to complete it within 8 months.
2. Failure to report changes to your organisation (within 20 working days), such as a change in status of any registration or accreditation providers are legally required to hold e.g. with the CQC.
3. Failure to keep compliant records for example, a copy of the right to work check or DBS check; salary and skill level documents such as copies of any required qualifications e.g. for Senior Care Workers and proof of registration (such as with the NMC).
4. Failure to conduct right to work checks properly and omitting to diarise follow up checks when visas expire.
5. Failure to understand minimum salary requirements in the context of overall salary and hourly rates, and that shift premiums are prohibited.
6. Failure to comply with immigration law and extensive compliance duties generally. This includes recruiting the right candidates and assigning the correct occupation code to the role, specifically failing to issue a new Certificate of Sponsorship (COS) when a care worker is promoted to senior care worker and applying for change of employment; only allowing the worker to undertake the role permitted by their visa and failure to disclose if you assign a COS to a family member of anyone within the organisation.
Last month, the government announced it was banning foreign care workers from bringing in dependants, as part of its plan to reduce legal migration. Now in the beginning of 2024, the risk of financial recession anew, the rise in commodity prices, specially the newly arrived immigrants including Bangladeshi's are fed up with one after another uncoordinated decisions of the Home Office. The new imigration rules have significant implications for illegal immigrants and their families, as well as for employers and others who may hire them to work.
The Bangladeshi community, like other immigrant communities, is also upset with the successive changes in immigration policy in Britain. Several thousand Bangladeshis have come to this country on care visa in the last one and a half years but they are living in inhuman life without getting work. The housing crisis is at an extreme, especially in London.