ATSCo offers to make visa scheme 'more effective'
The Association of Technology Staffing Companies (ATSCo) has suggested that its members, recruitment agencies, act as 'sponsors' for the fast-tracking of work permits for overseas IT workers. ATSCo, which has 47 members representing about 45 per cent of the turnover of the IT and comms sector, made its proposals to make the scheme 'more effective' to a section of Government recently.
In a recent meeting with the Overseas Labour Service (OLS) of the Department of Education and Employment (DfEE) one of the areas discussed was the pilot programme being developed by the DfEE, which will allow multi-national corporations to self-certify applications for workers being transferred between countries. ATSCo is suggesting that its members operate a similar self-certification scheme for fast-track IT workers entering the UK who move from project to project.
ATSCo's Chief Executive, Ann Swain, said: "We found that the OLS were very well informed on the nature of the skills crisis in the industry and were keen to explore additional ways of aiding organisations to have the staff to fulfil their needs.
One suggestion that we made is that the Department should consider the potential for a parallel scheme to be developed for recruitment companies."
In a brief to the DfEE, ATSCo said that much IT work in the UK is performed on a short-term contract basis. "End users have short-term needs defined by the status of the particular IT project they are developing. They do not retain staff indefinitely to fulfil IT roles as the skills-set of any one individual will usually be inadequate over the lifetime of the project. Even large multi-nationals, therefore, are unlikely to be able to fully exploit the opportunity offered by this initiative to satisfy their IT needs.
"Agencies, on the other hand, would be able to ensure that the skills of immigrant workers are fully utilised by moving workers from project to project with different end-users. Agencies have a strong commercial interest in maximising the use of any one contractor's skills. The skills of each overseas worker would therefore be utilised to their full extent. We are keen to discuss whether it would be possible to develop a scheme where agencies would 'sponsor' work permits. This sponsorship would make the agency responsible for overseeing that workers are fully employed in high demand areas."
Ann Swain described the meeting as 'positive and productive' and although no commitment was given, she believed the proposal would 'be given serious consideration'.
She continued: "A further advantage of our scheme is that it will also help to solve the IT skills problem for SMEs who would be unlikely to be able to commit to sponsoring permits for four or five years.
"As ATSCo is committed to high standards and has a strong Code of Practice we could help to ensure that any re-structuring of the rules on entry are not abused."
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Susie Hughes