Immigration news

The Working Holidaymaker Scheme has been very successful with over 40,000 working holidaymakers from Commonwealth Countries arriving each year. Until now the scheme did not in most cases allow you to pursue a career in the UK. Working holidaymakers from 20 June 2003 who are currently in professional level jobs such as in IT, accountancy, etc are no longer working in breach of their Working Holidaymaker status.

Immediate changes from 20 June 2003:

If you are currently in the UK you can now take up any type of work in the UK as a Working Holidaymaker.

Further details announced

The sector based work permit scheme which will be introduced on 30 May 2003 is in many ways similar to the normal work permit scheme. We are including a short overview of the scheme and also have a detailed guide on this scheme.

The new Food Manufacturing and Hospitality Work Permits scheme will be operational from 30 May 2003. This is under the new Government Sectors Based Scheme (SBS). Some brief details have just been announced:

There will be 10,000 permits issued to cover the fish processing, meat processing, and mushroom processing sectors.

There will be 10,000 permits issued to cover the hotel and catering sectors.

There has been some delay in the new work permit scheme for the hotel, catering and food manufacturing industry. It had been expected that the scheme would be introduced in April. Recently, Work Permits UK have announced that the new scheme will definitely be introduced some time this month (May 2003).

The new scheme will come under the new initiative to provide sector based short term work permits for occupations requiring a low level of skills. The initial quota will be 10,000 each for food processing and hospitality.

Building on the success of recent initiatives, the UK Government is taking further steps to facilitate migration as a source of skills and labour in the economy. To maximise the economic contribution of high-skilled migration, the Government will strengthen the Highly Skilled Migrants Programme by adjusting the threshold eligibility criteria, introducing a new category for younger applicants, and taking partners’ achievements into account in assessing individual applications. The new criteria will take effect from August 2003.

More details to follow.

From April 1 2003, anyone applying under the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme from outside the UK will now be required to submit their applications directly to the UK Home Office in Sheffield. Previously all applications from outside the UK had to be submitted to the nearest British Oversees Mission.

Notice of decision will be mailed directly to you (or via your UK representative). If approved, you will then need to make an Entry Clearance application to your nearest British Oversees Mission.

Please note: