Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average time taken is for processing an application for certificates of sponsorship for overseas nationals waiting to start employment in the UK; what the size was of the caseload of those applications waiting to be processed as of 9 January 2023; and how many and what proportion of those cases have not been completed within the Department's targets for processing those applications.

The Home Office does not routinely publish data on applications for Certificates of Sponsorship for overseas nationals waiting to start employment in the UK.

The Home Office Transparency data sets out how the Department is performing against its service standard. The latest published information can be found on the GOV.UK webpage at Sponsorship transparency data: Q3 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)