• April 25, 2024

Care Homes warned about unannounced audit visits: Here are 10 key things to be prepared

Care Homes warned about unannounced audit visits: Here are 10 key things to be prepared

By A Staff Reporter

LONDON April 25: The Home Office can carry out either announced or unannounced sponsor compliance visits to your premises. If you receive an unannounced visit and refuse to agree to the Home Office entering your premises to carry out the audit then they cannot force entry. However, they could record the business as non-compliant and this may result in your sponsor licence either being refused, suspended or revoked.

A sponsor compliance visit is likely to be unannounced if the visit is intelligence-driven (for example HMRC reporting potential irregularities) or if there have been previous concerns about sponsor licence compliance. As you never know if you will receive an unannounced compliance visit, your HR, recruitment and management systems must be sufficiently robust that you can cope with an unannounced audit.

It appears the Home office may be doing unannounced site visits very soon, according to reports.

Compliance is an ongoing game and you can never relax but here are my 10 key things from Krishmorgan Solicitors to ensure you have nailed.

1. Prepare a short presentation (10 mins tops) of your company and its systems. Ask to present before audit begins.

2. Have your Sponsor license documents in a ready folder.

3. Complete Right to Work checks – printed and filed for every employee, including the directors.

4. Update SMS reporting – report all significant changes.

5. Check minimum wage has been updated. It is good practice to do a group email to employees to advise them of new rate.

6. Update Start dates of employment on SMS.

7. Make sure your SIC code on Companies House is accurate / updated.

8. Make a spreadsheet showing total number of migrants sponsored, those currently working, and those that have left. Update this frequently.

9. Have paper trail of the recruitment process on each file.

10. Have a Business Continuity Plan (this is not mandatory at the moment but it is good practice).