Government unveils visa details

The Government has announced the detailed plans for the implementation of the fast-track visa system to bring non-EU workers into the country with specialist IT and other high demand skills.

Employment and Equal Opportunities Minister, Margaret Hodge, made the announcement two weeks after her Home Office colleague Barbara Roche recognised the 'international scramble to attract IT experts'.

Mrs Hodge said: "We want to run an efficient work permit system which meets the needs of British business in the global economy, yet protects the opportunities in the domestic market. These changes will ensure employers can quickly and easily transfer staff from abroad and recruit talented graduates and others with key skills.

"At the same time we are working to improve the skills of the UK work force, not least in ICT, which was neglected until three years ago in many of our schools and colleges. Information gathered from skills shortages notified to the Overseas Labour Service will help influence the strategy for skills training."

The main changes that take effect from October are:

* revising the skills thresholds so that graduates with skills in short supply will no longer need to have two years' relevant post-graduate work experience. The skill threshold for work permits which required graduates to have two years' relevant post graduate work experience will be abolished.

* the key worker category - which led to some 1,200 work permits last year and includes people like some head and specialist chefs and technicians in health, electronics and engineering - will be merged into the main work permits arrangements. It will ease the previous restrictions for key workers, including limiting work permits to three years' experience instead of five, and the domestic labour test will be simplified;

* a pilot scheme involving a small group of multi-national employers who can issue their own permits for employees transferring from the company abroad; this intra company transfer category attracted around 20,000 applications last year. The OLS will carry out on-site checks to ensure the system is working. Companies taking part include UBS, Rolls Royce plc, Ernst and Young and Sony United Kingdom Limited. This self-certification scheme will be piloted for six months with the possibility of extending it to 12 months. (UKTECH readers will recall ATSCo recently proposed a similar scheme for agents.)

* increasing the maximum permit period from four to five years, and people who already have a work permit and who wish to take on some extra part time work will be able to do so without needing a further permit.

A user-panel to obtain regular feedback from employers has already been established. Further changes, such as employers being able to submit applications electronically, will be introduced shortly.

Mrs Hodge added: "The new system will help us to compete internationally for graduates with high level skills which is particularly important if we are to meet short term skill shortages.

"We clear about half of our work permit applications within one week, and over 90 per cent within four weeks. This is a great achievement as current estimates are that nearly 100,000 applications for work permits will be received in this financial year."

Keith Smith of Ernst and Young, one of the companies taking part in the new pilot scheme to issue their own intra-company work permits, said: "We are pleased to be taking part in this important pilot scheme and are looking forward to seeing how it can make the process simpler for us. The other changes in the work permit system will help us to recruit from the increasingly competitive global pool of skilled people."

However, Conservative spokesmen pointed out the double irony of IR35 driving IT workers overseas and the lack of retraining for the over 50s.

Shadow Home Secretary Ann Widdecombe said: "IT people are telling the Government that people are going abroad because of the Government's IR35 and at the same time the Government is saying that it needs to import IT skills. It's ridiculous."

Conservative home affairs spokesman, David Liddington, said: "We also need firm proposals from the Government to do more for British workers who need retraining and support. It's crazy to see men and women in their 50s who cannot find work because their skills are out of date while we are making it ever easier for overseas workers to come here."

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Susie Hughes