Immigration Compliance In 2011

The announcement follows the launch of the new Highly Trusted Sponsor Scheme for Tier 4 Licensed Organisations (Academic Institutions dealing with foreign Students). The new scheme will aim to streamline the application process for Sponsors and to allow the UK Border Agency to concentrate limited on site immigration audit bandwidth on high risk and poorly performing sponsors. By identifying up front ‘those sponsors who are achieving the highest levels of compliance with their sponsor obligations and whose students are showing the greatest compliance with the terms of their visa or leave’ the UK Border Agency can dedicate hard pressed resources to more important areas of the Immigration system while ensuring satisfactory compliance targets are met. The Highly Trusted Sponsor scheme will be rolled out to Tier 2 (Work Permit) and Tier 5 sponsors by the end of 2010.

The Prime Minister also said that the Government would address the United Kingdom’s skills gap by focusing attention on strengthening the link between the Points Based Immigration System (PBS) and training for UK workers. In the past three years the Prime Minister said that the number of migrants entering the UK under Tier 2 (formerly UK Work Permit) had fallen dramatically (99,000 in 2007, 81,000 in 2008, 63,000 in 2009) and that this was linked to training UK workers and advertising jobs locally through Jobcentre Plus. He also announced that Care Workers and Skilled Chefs would be removed from the Shortage Occupation List in 2012 and 2014 respectively, adding that by then there would be a sufficient number of skilled resident nationals available to undertake the roles.

The Director of External Relations at the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC), Tom Hadley, said in response to the announcement ‘The availability of staff is crucial to the success of the recruitment industry, and the companies they supply. If immigration is tightened up too far then the recovery could be at risk.  REC will continue to monitor the impact of immigration changes on recruitment through our specialist sector groups.’

Commonwealth Contractors

Commonwealth Contractors is a collection of highly skilled professionals from the Commonwealth and beyond. We partner with OISC Registered Immigration Partners capable of professionally representing Tier 1 Visa Applications / Extensions and Tier 2 Licensed Consultancy & Associated Trust Partners who may be prepared, where required, to sponsor a Medical, Information Technology or Engineering Professional on a Tier 2 Visa (formerly UK Work Permit).

To find out more call Commonwealth Contractors now on 0330 390 9021 or Submit your details now and we will get right back to you. Please be prepared to send a copy of a recent CV so that we can pass to interested partners.