Diana Todirica

Practice Areas

UK Personal and Business Immigration Law

Personal

Diana is a UK qualified solicitor with over ten years of experience and a particular interest in immigration law. Throughout her career, she has advised a wide range of businesses and individuals on complex UK immigration matters, delivering clear, practical, and strategic solutions tailored to each client's needs. Before joining the practice, she worked at a Legal 500 ranked firm as Head of the Immigration Department and Senior Solicitor. In that role, she led a growing team, oversaw high value and high risk matters, and built long standing relationships with corporate and private clients across multiple sectors.She is particularly passionate about helping businesses navigate the UK's evolving immigration system, from sponsor licence applications and compliance to securing visas for key personnel. Simultaneously, she takes great pride in supporting individuals and families with work visas, settlement, and British citizenship, guiding them through significant life transitions. Clients value her responsive, straightforward approach and her commitment to achieving the best possible outcomes, even in the most challenging cases.

Work Highlights

Sponsor Licence Compliance Audit for an Established Home Care Provider

Background

Our client is a well-established home care provider with over ten years of operational history in the UK. The organisation has held a Skilled Worker sponsor licence for more than five years and employs over 30 sponsored migrant workers alongside a significant local workforce.

Despite its long-standing sponsor status, the business had never previously undergone a Home Office compliance visit. In light of the increased enforcement activity and targeted compliance action within the care sector, the client proactively instructed our team to conduct an independent sponsor licence compliance audit to assess risk exposure and ensure inspection readiness.

Issues Identified During the Compliance Visit

During our on-site audit, we identified several areas where sponsor licence record-keeping and monitoring processes did not fully meet Home Office compliance requirements. These included:

• Failure to retain full historical contact address records for sponsored migrant workers

• Inadequate monitoring and recording of absences, including annual leave, sickness absence, unpaid leave and maternity leave

• Missing or incomplete evidence of sponsored workers’ arrival dates in the UK

• Failure to retain documentary evidence of skills, qualifications and experience for sponsored roles

• Inconsistent right-to-work documentation across sponsored and non-sponsored staff

• Insufficient personnel files for sponsored migrant workers

While these issues had not yet resulted in Home Office enforcement action, taken together they represented a material compliance risk, particularly given the current scrutiny of sponsor licence holders within the care sector.

Our Approach

We adopted a practical, solutions-focused compliance approach, working closely with senior HR staff and management throughout the visit.

During the audit, we:

• Reviewed the files of sponsored migrant workers

• Updated the Sponsor Management System (SMS)

• Assessed internal processes relating to:

o Maintaining and monitoring immigration status

o Right-to-work checks

o Sponsored workers’ contact details

o Job roles and duties

• Conducted mock Home Office compliance interviews with seven sponsored migrant workers to:

o Assess understanding of their roles and responsibilities

o Prepare them for the types of questions typically asked by Home Office Compliance Officers

• Provided senior staff with guidance on Home Office interview expectations and common compliance risks

Following the visit, we issued a clear, prioritised action plan setting out the steps required to bring the organisation fully in line with sponsor licence duties.

Outcome

The client was provided with a structured and achievable roadmap to compliance, including:

• A corrected and strengthened visa expiry monitoring system with multiple safeguards

• A compliant right-to-work checking framework covering all employees

• Standardised and complete personnel files for sponsored migrant workers

• Improved systems for tracking absences and maintaining address histories

• Immediate prioritisation of missing sponsored worker files

We continue to support the client by reviewing completed actions and verifying compliance remotely.

Impact

As a result of the audit:

• The organisation significantly reduced the risk of sponsor licence suspension, downgrade or revocation

• Senior management gained clarity and confidence in meeting Home Office compliance expectations

• Sponsored migrant workers were better prepared for potential Home Office interviews

• The business is now in a strong position to respond confidently to any future Home Office compliance visit

The client moved from a reactive compliance position to a proactive, inspection ready posture.

Summary

This case study demonstrates that even long-standing sponsor licence holders with no previous Home Office visits can face hidden compliance risks particularly in highly regulated sectors such as care.

By taking a proactive approach and engaging our team early, the client was able to identify vulnerabilities, implement corrective action and protect their sponsor licence before enforcement action arose.