Leading IT industry groups are to meet government officials
next month to discuss reforms to the work permit system, following
complaints that abuse of the scheme has sparked an illegal influx
of overseas contractors and deprived British IT professionals of
work.
The meeting will examine allegations that UK firms and offshore
Indian companies are using loopholes in the government's fast-track
visa scheme to recruit cut-rate Indian contractors while British IT
professionals are struggling to find work.
Although employers have welcomed the relaxation in visa controls
introduced to overcome skills shortages, there are growing fears
that the policy could leave the UK as an IT backwater, with little
being spent on developing the skills of the domestic
workforce.
The groups, including E-skills UK, the British Computer Society,
trade unions and recruitment agencies, plan to press the government
to explain why it is issuing between 1,500 and 2,000 work permits a
month when unemployment levels stand at a record of 46,000 for IT
staff and 30,000 for self-employed IT contractors.
"All the evidence is that there is an excess of supply over demand.
One would expect to see the number of work permits go down and it
apparently hasn't. The government has to explain why this is the
case," said Matthew Dixon, who acts for the BCS on IT policy.
A draft document prepared by the Professional Contractors Group
accuses firms of bending the rules of the government's intercompany
transfer scheme by using it to import lower cost IT contractors
from India, when workers with equivalent skills are already
available in the UK.
It calls for the government to stop overseas outsourcing suppliers
using the intercompanyscheme to deploy contractors to their
clients' sites in the UK and introduce new controls to ensure that
employers do not abuse the alternative "tier-two" work permit
process.
"My gut feeling is that the level of abuse is very, very high. The
majority of organisations currently using the work permit scheme in
IT are either abusing the system or using it in a manner for which
it was not originally intended," said Gurdial Rai, who represents
the PCG on the government's work permit panel.
The Home Office confirmed this week that despite receiving hundreds
of complaints about abuse over the past two years, including
evidence that some companies may be in criminal breach of
immigration legislation, it has not brought any prosecutions
against firms in the IT sector for breaching work permit
rules.
The admission has alarmed professional bodies, including the
Institute for the Management of Information Systems, which warned
that unless regulations are tightened, the UK's ability to compete
against Pacific Rim countries in IT would be irreparably
damaged.
"Simply importing overseas people at 10%-20% below UK wages
jeopardises the future of the UK as a location for any future high
added-value employment in the IT industry. The current work permit
system is a scandal," said Imis strategic adviser Philip
Virgo.
Peter Skyte, national secretary at trade union Amicus, said the
scheme needed to be tightened up and that the union would highlight
any cases of abuse that came to light.
"We are not opposed to the work permit system when it can be
justified by the need to attract specialist skills not available in
the UK, but there is a clear need to crack down on abuse and
exploitation."
Analysis >>Wanted: evidence
Do you have evidence that the work permit system is being abused?
E-mail
bill.goodwin@rbi.co.uk
in confidence with your story, putting the word "abuse" in the
subject line.