The latest update by the Home Office bring welcome news for employers – priority services are being expanded! In brief, these are:
Removal of the cap for sponsor licence application priority services – now an unlimited service!
This was previously limited to 30 applications per day. The service is for prospective sponsors who have applied for a licence, needed to sponsor an individual in the UK.
The application processing time has been reduced from around eight to twelve weeks to just ten working days.
The fee for this priority service is £500.
The cap on the priority change of circumstances service has been increased from 60 to 100 requests per day.
Emails can be used for these types of application.
These applications include adding a new Level 1 User, amending an organisation’s details, and requesting an increased certificate of sponsorship allowance.
Eligible requests that have correctly made payment will be considered within five working days (standard processing for some of these requests can be as lengthy as 18 weeks).
The fee for this priority service is £200 per request.
This means that businesses can now expedite applications at key points in the sponsorship process and can act with speed when the business needs require them to do so in the labour market.