The Principal Sponsor Application Process allows groups to tailor their application form and property search to a specific family they have been referred and accepted. You will still be asked to provide your permission for the group to apply to the Home Office, however, the sequencing of the application will work differently to traditional applications.
What is a Principal Sponsor?
A Principal Sponsor is an organisation (the Lead Sponsor) who have previously successfully applied to, and welcomed a family through the Community Sponsorship programme. This term is applied to the organisations selected by the Home Office to participate in the process as having a successful track record of refugee resettlement. You can find a list of current Principal Sponsors on the Reset Training website. Local Authorities have shared with us that they have more confidence in working with those who have a track record of Community Sponsorship in this way.
What is the purpose of PSAP?
In recognising the experience of Lead Sponsors through this process, the Home Office introduced this as a response to their wish to make the sponsorship process quicker and easier. Groups are also able to plan their support for a specific family, rather than working in the abstract. Groups who have welcomed through this process have all said that this is the biggest benefit that they have seen; they are able to get a ‘head-start’ on building bespoke support to a family, rather than preparing their applications for all eventualities.
What is the Principal Sponsor Application Process?
What do Local Authorities need to do?
You will be asked to confirm that you give your permission for a family to be resettled through Community Sponsorship in your area. More advice on how to consider your consent process is available in our full toolkit for local authorities.
Some Local Authorities choose to give their consent in principle at stage 1, subject to reviewing part 2 once submitted to the Home Office. If you choose to do the same, please make this clear in your written consent.
You will be asked to accept the family allocation prior to the group completing part 2 of their application.
You will be asked if you would like the Home Office to arrange a pre-approval call with the group, Lead Sponsor and yourselves.
Further Questions
If you do have further questions, or would like to access more information about this process, please contact the Reset team.
