Visiting officers say licence and cos are same, HELP!!

[ajek01]

Help!

I am on tier 1 (PSW - expires in November 2012), employed in the same company for more than 1 year.

Background:
originally, I joined this company as a placement student for a year and was introduced to the company through my university, in April 2007. after completing my degree, the company requested me to freelance for them as one of their staffs was ill. I started freelancing in April 2010. During my freelance period, the company was looking for a placement student and they advertised on a university's website. However, considering the situation, they offered me a permanent position and stopped looking for placement.

Now:
In January 2011, my employer applied for a Tier 2 (General) Sponsorship Licence, the UKBA called in mid March to arrange a pre-licence visit. however, they visited us last week . Our company had already in place very detail HR policy and they are happy with these. currently I am the Asst. Office Manager and my employer would like to sponsor me as 'Office Manager' as this position is listed in the Graduate Occupation List (SOC code 1152)

but, problems are:

** they said we will recieve a decision on licence and CoS in 6 weeks. we only applied for licence, not CoS! when we requested the officers to clarify the last sentence, they said licence and Cos are the same thing!! (we didnt want a debate with them, so we let it go)
they also said despite me being on a PSW visa, and I have been working in the company for more then 6 months, my employer have to conduct a Residential Labour Test Market! as reason, they said my role - prospective role - 'Office Manager' is not in shortage Occupation List. When I said 'Office Manager' is on Graduate Occupation list, the officer said there is a cap for roles in graduate occupation list jobs. I dont understand why the cap should imply on me, I should receive an 'Unrestricted' CoS as I am already inside the UK! but I didnt debate with them and stopped my conversation there. it was soooo stressful.

Now, they've asked my manager to provide them,

* a business case explaining why he wants to keep me, why keeping me is cruicial for the company.
* evidence that my position was advertised (as explained earlier, my employer advertised for placement only on a university website, they rec'd couple of CVs but in the end, they decided to offer me a permanent position as I was freelancing for them over that period).


Please suggest on:

* why the officers are saying they will give decision on CoS while we didnt even apply for it, didnt fill in any initial CoS form, didnt pay any fees for cos, didnt give then any job/ salary details!
* we are preparing a business case, but not sure what to do with the advertisements. WE have the ad that went up for placement on the university's website through Prospect. we also have the original applications for that advertisement. Shall I use these evidence? if I do, will they come back sying this advert was not on any listed websites like totaljobs?


thanks

[arsenal49]

umm.... i will be brief, try to point them to their guidance on their site and say WHY they wanna know all those thing especially when you have applied for license.

COS should not even be mentioned in the same breath at this point in time.

[ajek01]

thanks arsenal49

[The Station Agent]

Well, I'm no supporter of the visiting officers (far from it) but what's the point of applying for the licence? To issue you a CoS.

While the licence is not the CoS it is for the purpose of issuing CoS.

They can't do the latter without the former. You are already working there and they want to know how you were recruited, whether the employer went through a Resident Labour Market Test, whether you're even legal to work there. It's pretty reasonable to me. If you were recruited wrongly or they have doubts about your legality to work there then they may use that as a reason to refuse the licence application.

[ratapita]

What checks they have to make prior to granting a license , of course I don't know.
As for checking on how you were employed there should be no issues as long as you are were on PSW at the point when you were first recruited. An employer does not need to meet the RLMT to recruit from PSW, if you have already been with them for 6 months. The rationale behind PSW is to let you competetivley seek employment on a level ground with the rest of the labour force and if you are good enough to secure a job and have been in the same job for the last 6 months then the Guidance is very clear that you can be allocated an unrestricted CoS.