In This Article
- Introduction to the Sponsor Licence for the Religious Work Routes
- Overview of Religious Work Routes
- Requirements for Religious Organisations
- Specific Requirements for Religious Work Routes
- Additional Guidelines for the Religious Work Sponsor Licence
- Key Personnel in a Religious Sponsor Licence Application
- Application Process for a Religious Work Sponsor Licence
- Contact Our Immigration Barristers
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Glossary
- Additional Resources
1. Introduction to the Sponsor Licence for Religious Work Routes
If your organisation wishes to sponsor individuals who are not settled to work in the UK, they must apply for a sponsor licence. In this article we focus on the requirements when applying for a sponsor licence to sponsor a worker either as a T2 Minister of Religion or as a Religious Worker. There are specific requirements and additional information that are applicable to the Religious Work routes which we will discuss below.
2. Overview of Religious Work Routes
To sponsor an individual to work in a religious role, your organisation must hold a valid sponsor licence in the Worker route for the Minister of Religion or in the Temporary Worker route for the Religious Worker.
We set out the differences of these visas (including the certificate of sponsorship and activities defined) in our recent article, Minister of Religion Visa and Religious Worker Visa Explained. In summary, the Minister of Religion route is for an individual to come to the UK to fill mainly pastoral roles including leading a congregation in performing rites and rituals of the faith in a bona fide religious organisation. For the Religious Worker route, this role is to come to the UK for a temporary period to support the activities of religious institutions.
3. Requirements for Religious Organisations
In order to be eligible for a sponsor licence, you will need to meet the general requirements as follows:
Genuine organisation operating lawfully in the UK: there are specific documents to be provided for the route to show that your organisation is operating lawfully in the UK. For a charity, you must provide evidence of charitable status.
Honest, dependable, reliable and not engaging in behaviour or actions that are not conducive to the public good:the Home Office will look at the history and background of your organisation and the background of your key personnel and any persons involved in the day-to-day running of the organisation.
Carrying out sponsor duties and evidencing compliance: you should have a human resources and recruitment system in place to show that you can meet your sponsor duties.
A summary of these sponsor duties are:
- reporting duties: this means that you must report changes affecting your sponsored worker or your organisation within the time limit;
- record-keeping duties: A guide on record keeping and compliance is available here;
- employing workers who are qualified or experience to do the job;
- complying with wider UK law: this includes paying the national minimum wage;
As mentioned in our previous articles, we have recently seen a rise in the number of compliance checks carried out by the Home Office. An immigration audit can be effective in preparing your business ready for a compliance check.
4. Specific Requirements for Religious Work Routes
The Home Office guidance sets out the specific requirements for the religious work routes where your organisation must be a bona fide religious organisation which:
- has charitable status
- is the structure for a faith-based community with a common
system of belief and spiritual goals, codes of behaviour and
religious practice, which exists to support and/or propagate common
beliefs and practices and where beliefs:
- include any religious belief or similar philosophical belief in something transcendental, metaphysical or ultimate
- exclude any philosophical or political belief concerned with man, unless that belief is similar to religious belief
- does not exclude anyone from your community on the basis of gender, nationality or ethnicity
- receives financial and material support for your core religious ministry from your congregation or community on a voluntary basis, without promise or coercion
- does not breach, or encourage others to breach, any UK legislation
- does not work against the public interest, or have a detrimental effect on personal or family life as commonly understood in the UK.
To demonstrate your charitable status, you can provide evidence of your registration with the relevant charity commission in your part of the UK such as Charity Commission for England and Wales. For ecclesiastical corporations (corporate sole or body corporate), you can send evidence that your organisation is established for charitable purposes. There is no requirement to be a bona fide religious organisation with charitable status for the Ministry of Defence.
5. Additional Guidelines for the Religious Work Sponsor Licence
In your application for a sponsor licence, you must state the faith or religion of your organisation. The Home Office will also consider the relevant details of your organisation such as the hierarchy chart showing your role, information of your scheduled days and hours of worship as well as the size of your adult congregation and the number of clergy working at your organisation. Your organisation may be asked to provide the relevant form from the General Register Office.
A point to note is that if there is a set hierarchy within your faith, a letter of support from the head of the faith body or their legal representative should be included in the application for a sponsor licence confirming that you are part of the organisation.
Minister of Religion
When applying for a Minister of Religion sponsor licence, you must explain:
- the reasons for your application
- details about your organisation;
- the sector your organisation is operating in;
- operating hours of your organisation;
- details of the vacancy to be filled including job title, duties, occupation code, salary, experience required;
- Information of the worker to be sponsored if you have identified the person;
Religious Worker
If you wish to sponsor a Religious Worker, you must carry out a resident labour consideration such as advertising the job or conducting a search of national records you hold where the settled workers have been given a chance to apply. The exceptions are where the role is supernumerary, the worker will live within and be a member of the religious order or the application is for permission to stay in the UK and they will continue to be sponsored by the same sponsor.
6. Key Personnel in a Religious Sponsor Licence Application
In the application for a sponsor licence, your organisation must decide who will undertake the roles of Authorising Officer, Key Contact and Level 1 User. All these roles can be undertaken by the same person. They must be based in the UK during the period of the licence and not have any unspent criminal convictions. They must also be a paid member of your staff or is an office holder although there are exceptions.
Authorising Officer
This role must be held by a person who is the most senior person in the organisation and is responsible for the recruitment of all migrant workers. They are only able to access the SMS if they are also the Level 1 User.
The Authorising Officer is responsible for the activities of the staff who are using the SMS and must therefore have a system in place to check these activities. It is essential to have an Authorising Officer in place throughout the validity of your licence.
Key Contact
This person is responsible for being the main contact between the Home Office and the organisation. As above, they do not have automatic access to the SMS and will have to be set up as a Level 1 User to gain access.
Level 1 User
The Level 1 User must be a settled person or holds a certain category ( for example, Tier 1 (Entrepreneur or Global Talent routes) of entry clearance or permission to stay. They must not assign a CoS to themselves or to a close relative or partner such as a spouse, parent or daughter or son. There should be at least one Level 1 User in place at all times and if you failed to meet this requirement, your sponsor licence may be revoked.
Level 2 User
A Level 2 User can only create and assign CoS but have fewer permissions than Level 1 Users.
7. Application Process for a Religious Work Sponsor Licence
You will need to complete an online application form and send the supporting documents by email within 5 working days of submitting your application. The application fee is £536 for a small or charitable sponsor and £1,476 for a large organisation.
Processing times are generally 8 weeks or 10 working days for pre-licence priority services with an additional fee of £500. There are only limited slots available each day.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
