PRESS ANNOUNCEMENT 

Bison Management UK can help Senior Carers find ‘£7.02’ employers and give you a 5 year Work Permit

Thousands of overseas Senior Carers have, until recently, been trapped in jobs with employers unable or unwilling to pay the new “going rate” salary required to renew their Work Permits.

Under Immigration Minister Liam Byrne’s recent revised transitional arrangement, Work Permit holders can now switch jobs (without meeting the new skills criteria) provided the employer pays the “going rate” of £7.02 per hour.

Special 12 month extensions, at their current salary, may now be granted for pre-2004 permit holders to enable them to reach the qualification period for ‘Indefinite Leave to Remain’.

Senior Carers in ‘non-going rate’ jobs are now in a desperate search for employers willing to pay £7.02 per hour and sponsor their Work Permit applications.

BISON MANAGEMENT UK HAS THE JOBS

Immigration advisers and healthcare recruitment specialists Bison UK have been flooded with enquiries from Senior Carers, mostly from the larger groups, desperate to transfer to an employer paying the going rate before their Work Permits expire.

Bison UK has helped thousands of people come to the UK and is in the unique position of being both OISC registered Immigration Advisers and a CSCI registered Nursing and Recruitment Agency.

Recruitment Manager and Immigration Adviser Cynthia Barker said:

“Because we have been recruiting overseas care workers for the last 10 years we have close links with hundreds of employers all over the UK.

“In one recent case our recruitment division had to find a job for a senior care worker, who had just 1 day left on her visa! Our immigration team had to pull out all the stops to get the Work Permit and FLR forms drafted, signed and sent to the BIA by the end of that day.”

Bison Management UK got the job done and Cynthia, co author of the book “How 2 Come to the UK” is proud of her team and convinced that no other firm in the country could have saved this client.

“Clients come to us because they know we can not only arrange Work Permits and Visas, but can also find the jobs, fast!”

Bison UK welcomes enquiries from Senior Carers in need of help in finding a new employer and is running special Senior Carer seminars every Tuesday afternoon at 2.00pm at their offices in Borehamwood (20 minutes from Central London).

The dilemma faced by workers not in possession of a 5 year Work Permit is if they remain loyal to their ‘below £7.02 an hour’ employer, they could eventually be forced to leave the country.

Worse still, any employer renewing a Work Permit from September will do so under the Points-Based System, which heavily favours highly skilled and highly paid migrants.

Based on published information on the Australian-style immigration system, Senior Carers will not gain sufficient points to extend their stay.

The BIA has made it clear that approvals of new Senior Carer Work Permits will be “extremely rare”, and this is unlikely to alter under the tough new regime.

The BIA will continue the current transitional arrangement until the introduction of Tier 2, but has not put in place any measures to help the many thousands of workers who will be renewing their Work Permits after the points system comes on line in a few months time.

This appeared to be confirmed by the following BIA announcement yesterday:

“The criteria for the points-based system are under development and will be announced in due course. It is likely that, as under the work permit arrangements, senior care worker positions that meet the requirements of the tier 2 (skilled) category will be extremely rare. The Migration Advisory Committee will advise Government on where migration can sensibly fill gaps in the United Kingdom economy, including whether any special provision is required for the social care sector.”

As things stand any Work Permit holder (even those with a “going rate” employer) with less than 5 years’ visa stamped in their passport may be forced to change jobs before September in order to secure their stay until they eventually qualify for Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR).

Because the BIA does not allow employers to renew Work Permits more than three months before expiry, workers have no choice but to move jobs to obtain a longer permit.

Bison Management UK calls on Liam Byrne to end the misery for Senior Carers by taking the following action:

1. Ring fence all existing Work Permit holders from future policy changes. 
2. Allow Senior Carers and other Work Permit holders to extend their permits visas regardless of the stringent criteria about to be introduced under Tier 2 of points based system. 
3. Grant migrant workers the ‘Indefinite Leave to Remain’ status they would have obtained had the goal posts not been moved, in other words once they have achieved four years continuous work. 

DON’T GIVE UP HOPE EVEN IF YOUR VISA HAS EXPIRED

There is some good news for those people whose visas have expired. The BIA’s staff have been given “discretion” to consider special cases where people were unable to apply for further leave because of the transitional measures.

“Applicants whose work permits have already expired should apply for extensions as soon as possible. However, we are aware that because of these transitional measures some applicants have been unable to apply for further leave to remain within the time limit. Our staff can use their discretion to consider applications made outside the time limit and will do this when an application has been submitted within six months of the person's previous leave running out”.