E-envoy wants extrapreneurs to come home

Reports are emerging that Alex Allen, the Government's e-envoy, is developing a plan to tempt 100,000 IT professionals - now known as 'extrapreneurs' - back to the UK as fears of the predicted brain drain begin to materialise.

Mr Allen is reported to be planning to present his plan to Chancellor Gordon Brown in October, when he is expected to seek funding for his initiative - believed to be a mixture of marketing and financial inducement.

For more than a year, there have been predictions by the PCG and others, that IR35 will lead to an exodus of IT specialists who relocate to more favourable countries. However, Paymaster General, Dawn Primarolo, dismissed contractors who said they were leaving the country as 'silly contractors'. Now, the predicted brain drain is already causing concern in Government circles.

Andy White, editor of UKTECH said: "We have been warning the Government that this would happen for more than a year - but they have refused to listen. This Government, which claims to support e-commerce and enterprise, has driven tens of thousands of specialist IT contractors out of the country with this misplaced IR35 measure.

"These people were helping the UK lead the world in high technology - now they are finding that other countries are welcoming them with open arms, while the UK is driving them away. The fact that one part of Government wants to bring these people back while another is actively driving them away seems more in keeping with an episode of 'Yes, Minister' than it does with a Government that claims to be 'joined up'."

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Susie Hughes