The UKBorderAgency pre-empted a report from the Migration
Advisory Committee(MAC) about the Intra Company Transfer
(ICT) scheme for migrant workersby ruling, earlierthismonth, that ICT could not be used to replace settled
workers.
The fact that the government has put this in writing as a clause
will go some way to eliminating the alleged abuse of the
system.
This rule has always been the case, but was not clear, said
George Anastasi, spokesman at the Professional Contractors Group.
"We are pleased that the government has put this in black and
white. We are seeking clarification of what this means in
detail."
The UK Border Agency
announcedchanges
to the points-based systemon 7 August and
revised its guidance for employers and education providers who
sponsor migrant workers and students.
It added an
additional requirement to the ICT rulethat "a migrant employed
under ICT must not be directly replacing a settled worker".
Peter Skyte , national officer at Unite, said the requirement
that has been added was originally part of the ICT rules but had
dissapeared in later versions. "It was the result of pressure from
Unite that this was put back in."
According to the Border Agencywebsite, a settled worker is "a
person who is a national of the European Economic Area or is
legally settled in the United Kingdom with permission to work here.
In some cases, an employer who wants to employ a person who is not
a permanent resident must show that no settled worker could be
found to take the job."
Mark Lewis, partner and head of outsourcing at law firm Berwin
Leighton Paisner, said the changes outlined by the UK Border Agency
suggestedthat Indianoutsourcers cannot sendsomeone to the UK to
replace an existing worker. "This doesgo further than what is
described in the immigration rules, but it is open to
interpretation."
Bending the rules
The MAC carried out the report in response to complaints about
overuse and misuse of the ICT scheme, particularly in the IT
sector.
The scheme was introduced to allow businesses to bring in people
with important skills that the company could not source within the
UK. But IT contractors claimed these rules were being used to
replace UK staff with lower-cost labour.
Robert Morgan, director at Hamilton Bailey, which advises
outsourcing service providers, said this hadalways been the
case.
He added that suppliers get around this rule by bringing them in
for projects which by definition are not permanent, but "can last
many years".
IT contractor Sean Key, who has
set up a
petition to stop this abuse, said of the ICT scheme,"[It]
bypasses other schemes, such as the skilled migrants points system,
which work fairly based on national need and individual migrants'
skills. This is allowing the displacement of tens of thousands of
workers, particularly in IT.