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Tier 2 Immigration Cap
On the 19 July 2010 the UK Government introduced a temporary Immigration Cap which will be in place until the full Immigration Cap is Introduced in April 2011. The Cap affects Tier 2 General (formerly UK Work Permit) and Tier 1 General (formerly HSMP).Please be aware that the Interim Immigration Cap will not affect the Intra Company Transfer, Sportsperson or Minister of Religion subcategories of Tier 2.
How does the Tier 2 Immigration Cap work?
The Tier 2 Immigration Cap applies to the number of Certificates of Sponsorship (CoS) a Tier 2 Licensed Employer can issue to migrant workers in a month, it does not affect those migrant workers who already hold Certificates of Sponsorship.Each month Tier 2 license holders are allowed to issue a pre-determined number of Certificate of Sponsorship to migrant workers. Once the pre-determined limit has been reached the employer cannot issue any further CoS’s without requesting further allocation from the UK Border Agency (which is considered under truly exceptional circumstances).
Once a worker has received a valid Certificate of Sponsorship he or she can apply for a Tier 2 General visa in the same way, from either Outside of the UK or Inside the UK.
CoS Allocation Reduction
Following the announcement by the Government that a temporary Immigration Cap would be introduced the UK Border Agency wrote to all Tier 2 Licensed organisations to inform them of their Certificate of Sponsorship allocation (which would be in place until April 2010). Many organisations saw their allotment of CoS’s fall significantly and those organisations issued with a ‘B’ rated license were not issued with an allowance at all.The knock on effect is that migrant workers will find it increasingly difficult to gain a Certificate of Sponsorship with only those ‘established organisations’ (who have a long standing history with the UK Border Agency) in a position to issue CoS’s to foreign workers.
