UK Immigration News

The Home Office has announced a scheme under which non-EU/EEA nationals can come to the UK to take up work in schools during their gap year (the year between finishing secondary school and commencing University studies).

If you meet the following conditions, you can come to the UK to work in a school as a gap-year entrant:

The Home Office has recently announced Workers Registration Scheme that set out transitional measures that will apply to nationals from the new EU member states. These will allow nationals of eight of the ten EU accession countries to work in the UK after EU enlargement on 1 May 2004 as long as they register with the Home Office when they take up a job.

South African nationals wishing to apply for a Working Holiday Maker Visa, Student or Work Visa for the UK will now be able to do so online via the Internet. Those living in South Africa can use the online system called "visa4uk" to speed up the processing of their visa applications for the UK.

The online application process also allows residents of Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Jamaica and New Zealand to make online applications. More "supported countries" will be added to this list over time.

As we reportedlast week, all visa services in Bulgaria and Romania were temporarily suspended on 30 March, following allegations of improper handling of applications from those seeking to enter the UK under the provisions of the European Community Association Agreements (ECAA).

Home Secretary David Blunkett has announced the suspension of all immigration applications from Romania and Bulgaria as the Government launches an inquiry to investigate claims that certain cases, some potentially false, had been pushed through to clear backlogs in the already clogged system.

The Government seems to be in trouble after the British Consul in Bucharest blew the whistle on what was referred to as "seriously lax controls" which possibly allowed Romanian and Bulgarian migrants to enter the UK with false papers.

The Home Office has announced that because the quota of 10,000 SBS Hospitality sector work permits has almost been reached, the programme will temporarily be suspended from today. Any applications that are submitted to the Home Office will not be accepted and will be returned to the applicant with the fee.

The Food Manufacturing sector of the SBS programme is not affected by this particular quota and will remain open.