Everything you need to know as 26 care workers face having their lives ruined
Need to know
Everything you need to know as 26 care workers face having their lives ruined
Paul Anome who works for Caring Connections(Image: Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo)
Everything you need to know
- Twenty-six migrant workers from charity Caring Connections currently face the risk of deportation after the Home Office revoked its sponsor licence. The charity, which provides vulnerable people with home care and charitable community projects, employs between 60 and 70 migrants workers, 26 of which are sponsored.
- In a letter sent to the charity CEO, Paul Growney, dated January 14 and seen by the ECHO, the Home Office states it has “revoked your sponsor licence with immediate effect, as we are satisfied on the balance of probabilities that you are failing to comply with your sponsor duties”.
- This decision was made due to the Home Office deeming the charity was underpaying two members of staff, referencing “additional hours” on their payslips, although in a legal letter to the Home Office seen by the ECHO, the company states this is a term used to distinguish hours paid at a different rate from the worker’s basic salary, rather than overtime which breaches the sponsor licence terms.
- Should the revocation of the licence continue to stand, employees must either find a new sponsor, switch to another visa or leave the UK within 60 days. Paul Growney, however, told the ECHO the likelihood of all 26 staff members finding new sponsors is unlikely, with the most likely outcome being they have to leave the country.
- A spokesperson for the Home Office explained they do not comment on specific cases but did confirm UK Visas and Immigration write to workers to ensure they are fully informed and give them a notice period of 60 days to find a new sponsor, switch to a different visa or leave the country.
- Paul Growney told the ECHO the charity will often hire sponsor people who have arrived in the UK on student visas and those who are employed “want to be here and working”, but the prospect of having the charity’s licence revoked would also stop plans they have to expand their sponsorship scheme by taking on people who are already in the country on different visas.
- He said: “Just before Christmas was when we received the email from the Home Office asking for documents for each of the workers and they came back saying two people have been underpaid. They haven’t, this has just been a misunderstanding with terms we use on payslips, as a result we have had to get solicitors involved.
- “But what could happen is that people could have 60 days to find another sponsor or they will have to leave the country. These people are like family, we look after each other and we’ve been on work holidays together. They work full-time, pay their taxes and contribute to this country.”
- A Home Office spokesperson said: “Sponsorship is a privilege, not a right. Those who use the immigration system to recruit international workers must follow the rules to ensure both the welfare of workers and that workers already here are not undercut.”
- READ THE FULL STORY: ‘Terrified’ workers fear their lives being torn apart over ‘payslip error’
