Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that automated or AI-supported decision-making relating to sponsorship licences is transparent, fair, and subject to human oversight.

AI is not being used to make or support decision making in Sponsor Licensing applications, licence maintenance or visa sponsorship applications. There is some automation of updates to organisation and key personnel details made by sponsors via their Sponsorship Management System (SMS) and automated renewals of annual allocations of Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS), where Sponsors have demonstrated a track record of compliance.

For organisation and key personnel changes, whilst details are updated automatically in SMS to ensure that licence details are up to date, appropriate checks and case working still takes place.

For the automatic renewal of annual allocations of CoS, renewed allocations are calculated using the sponsor’s usage in the previous allocation year. Where an increase in that allocation is required, the sponsor is required to submit a request, stating the reason for the increase, for consideration.