News update Tues. November 15th 2011:
The UKBA has today agreed to go largely back to the old rules on compliance which were in effect prior to their latest change (October). This U-turn only applies to sponsors in the creative sector (Tier 5). We should now be back to where we started; sponsors only have to keep the entry stamps and contact details etc for the duration they have a non-EU act in the UK under sponsorship. It would have been better for all if the UKBA had thought about this before they changed the rules, but it's a welcome move.
News update November 9th 2011
Entertainment sponsors now have even greater record-keeping responsibilities (Oct 2011)
On 27 October the UKBA chose to announce that it had increased the record-keeping duties for sponsors (Appendix D). http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/employersandsponsors/pbsguidance/guidancefrom31mar09/appendix-d.pdf?view=Binary
update: this has since been reversed (Nov 16th 2011), after we kicked up a fuss.
Some may ask: "What's the problem with entertainment companies complying with the same rules as hospitals or IT companies?"
Unlike IT companies or hospitals booking agents, promoters and record labels don't hire the members of an American band or their crew. They don't hold interviews, check qualifications etc, and when the bands come here to tour they are not taking a job away from anyone. The bands don't work at the sponsor's office. They might not even meet any employees of the sponsor.
Imagine you are a booking agency and you issue Certificates of Sponsorship to an American band who are coming here to do a couple of gigs. Your office is in London, but the band enters the UK in Glasgow and then moves to Manchester the following day, before leaving the UK. At no time do they come within 200 miles of your office. How do you get sight of their entry stamps?
What’s the point of this anyway? The band had Certificates before they entered – you know they have permission to do the shows!
It was previously the case that these copies had to be kept for the duration of sponsorship only (update: we're now back to this rule after the sector complained).
There was an exemption on keeping these stamps where a band or entertainer was only working here for a day or less. That has been removed.
______________________________________________________________________
LOST IN THE WHEELS OF CONFUSION
(Oct 28th 2011)
What do you when the government that makes the rules on immigration doesn’t know what the rules actually are?
This is the situation we found ourselves in recently. A client was going to promote a sports event featuring 2 non-EU sports teams playing each other (an exhibition match, in effect, but the players were being paid). This seems to fall between the rules for sports visitors and sports workers / entertainers, so we called the UK Border Agency’s sponsor helpline for advice. They said all non-EU sportspeople coming to compete here needed Certificates of Sponsorship (CoS). We said their own rules on their website said a non-EU boxer coming here for a fight wouldn't need a CoS, and that the site gives similar examples such as Wimbledon or the British Open golf tournament. The guy said any sportsperson being paid needs a CoS, seeming to contradict what the website says. We thanked him and hung up, more confused than ever.
I was convinced this advice was nonsense. I know for a fact that when, for instance, Barcelona come to play a British club their non-EU players don't need Certificates of Sponsorship to play the match. If they did need a CoS who would issue it? They have no employer here. If an event promoter was to issue CoS to sportspeople would they have to follow a code of practice? What if they’re not registered with the sport’s governing body? This was all very confusing.
So we called the Home Office’s headquarters in Croydon and asked the same question. They said they could not give out that advice and that the sports players would have to speak to the British consulate in New York. We pointed out that the British consulate does not make the rules – you do. They stuck to their guns. We pointed out that the British consulate does not take phone calls, instead palming people off to an outside agency, who (again) do not decide on policy matters. They remained intractable.
So, we got 2 conflicting, unhelpful and totally incorrect answers within half an hour. It’s not often we have to seek advice on policy but when we do we expect a proper and correct answer, not a guess. This leads on to a similar issue that a national TV broadcaster had recently. They asked the UKBA whether they should cover a band’s entourage when they issue CoS for the band to perform on one of their shows. The UKBA said “No – you just need to cover the performers. The entourage can come in as entertainer visitors”. This led to the entourages sometimes being stopped at immigration.
When a record company client told us the broadcaster’s policy was not to issue certificates to assistants, choreographers, technicians and so on, we queried why. When we pointed out that the policy was against the rules they said “But the UKBA told us to do this”. The UKBA later admitted the advice given to the broadcaster was incorrect. The broadcaster now issues to the whole working entourage with foreign stars directly because of our intervention.
A recent article in the New York Times was highly critical of the current UK immigration system’s treatment of the arts sector. Whilst the article was somewhat inaccurate in some of its points I do have to say that there is a lot of confusion in the sector – and most of it stems from the UKBA not having a clue what it is talking about. This does not instil confidence. The referee is supposed to know the rules.
- Steve
On August 3 2011 Steve attended a meeting in Glasgow with UKBA sponsor management officers.
All UK regions were represented. I was the only non-civil servant at the meeting. I was there to put the entertainment industry's concerns about "compliance visits" forward. These concerns are mainly to do with the fact that when the UKBA has visited entertainment sponsors in the past they have often asked for irrelevant things, not understood the industry, not understood the concept that foreign acts here on tour are not employees of the sponsor, and in several cases have penalised the sponsors for supposed failings we considered unfair. I put the case for the industry, discussed ways to improve the system, and offered to help in going forward. The UKBA is to redraw its training programs and will work with the entertainment industry in making its visits more relevant.
UPDATE 28 Oct 2011 - Steve has been chosen to set the agenda for a UKBA Arts & Entertainment Taskforce meeting on the subject of sponsor visits, the paperwork sponsors are required to keep and so on. We are hoping this meeting will be in early December. It has become more relevant than ever now, thanks to the UKBA tightening the rules on what sponsors need to keep on file and how long they need to keep them. This has a significant and unfair impact on the live music sector in particular and goes totally against what the UKBA has been assuring the sector in public.
Sponsors now have to obtain the entry stamps from all the people they sponsor plus their contact details (address and phone for every day they are in the UK) and keep them on file until they have been seen at the sponsor's premises by a UKBA visiting officer. This could be 2 years or more. Previously you only had to keep these documents for the duration an act was here on tour.
Notes from the "Arts & Entertainment" Taskforce meeting on Friday 17th June 2011.
We remain the only representative on the panel for the recorded music industry - the live sector is quite well represented, as are film, dance, theatre etc.
The Taskforce is an interface between the entertainment industries and the UK immigration system. It is chaired by the UK Border Agency.
At the meeting the UKBA seemed to have forgotten the outstanding action point from previous meetings; that they were supposed to give an answer to my proposal made 2 meetings ago (which was that sponsors in the entertainment sector who issue short-term CoS to non-visa nationals find it impossible to collect all the entry stamps from the acts they sponsor, so they should be exempted from this requirement or the requirement should be loosened). The UKBA agreed to provide an answer by Tuesday June 21, but failed to do so. It has up 'til now been the UKBA's policy to demand sponsors keep all entry stamps unless an act is here for less than 24 hours - we want them to increase this 24-hour exemption to at least a week - preferably more. Our view is that these people (who don't require entry visas) are no threat to the UK and are not employees of the sponsor, so the UKBA's point about "prevention of illegal working" is moot. The panel members representing the live music sector agree with us on this. We await a response from the UKBA.
Agenda points:
Highly Trusted Sponsors
This is a proposal (in consultation only) that some sponsors should be allowed to apply for an elevated status that allows them to get a dedicated helpline, speedier resolution of SMS updates, and that those they sponsor would have to provide fewer documents when they apply for an entry visa. The sponsor would have to issue a lot of Certificates to be considered and would have to have an excellent record of compliance with the system. My view is that this is mainly aimed at Tier 2 sponsors who employ lots of foreign nationals - its only benefit to the entertainment sector might be in the dedicated helpline and speeding up the handling of SMS system requests (such as changing the Authorising Officer or asking for a larger allocation of CoS). But because most touring entertainment personnel don't need entry visas (and those who do don't need to prove qualifications or pay rates) a reduction in visa application documents won't be of much use to the sector.
Update 28 Oct 2011 - the name has been changed to "Premium sponsor". The fee would be either £8,000 or £20,000 per annum depending on the size of the company (SMEs get the lower rate). This cost would vastly outweigh any benefit for the entertainment sector so we told the UKBA this would be no use to the sector.
Restricting the right to settlement
The UKBA is consulting on whether to restrict various routes to settlement (permanent right to live and work in the UK). This was only really relevant to other sectors (domestic workers with foreign diplomats posted here, religious workers etc).
Online visa applications
People who need entry visas mostly already do the main application form online, but in some countries the application process is still paper-based. This will change by late 2012 and all applications will be made online. The only issues the music sector raised about this were that some countries' internet access was still likely to be very bad / very limited, and that a greater reliance on web applications does tend to mean that the consulates who deal with the applications don't have ANY face-to-face or even telephone enquiry services. Consulates that have gone over to online applications tend to be more difficult to contact when there is a query or an emergency. This leads to great frustration, especially for agencies dealing with acts from Africa, Asia etc., whose visa applications often take too long or are refused on technicalities. The UKBA agreed to talk with their colleagues at UK Visas with a view to working out a policy so that touring entertainers were maybe dealt with in a more streamlined way, because of the extremely time-sensitive nature of their visa applications.
Feedback from sponsor "compliance visits"
Panel members from the music sector have expressed concerns about visits by UKBA officers. These officers tend to expect that the sponsor is actually employing those they issue CoS to, and that the people are filling a vacancy in the UK. They ask for things like employment contracts, NI numbers, proof of recruitment efforts, qualifications, and so on. Most of this is irrelevant for internationally famous recording artists and their entourages. The main point is that touring acts are NOT employees of their sponsor. I have made these points again and again. At the meeting I told the panel that some large, and very reputable, booking agents had been visited by the UKBA and been penalised for not having employment contracts with all their artists, and not being able to prove what recruitment methods they used before "employing" foreign bands. The panel agreed this was inappropriate. I have now (since the meeting) had a teleconference with the UKBA officer who is drawing up new guidelines for visits to entertainment companies. He has taken on board most of my suggestions. Hopefully this will lead to more relevant visits. There are some abuses of the immigration system within the entertainment sector, but very few; and those that do exist are not being caught by the current system because the officers don't really know what to look for. Hopefully that will improve when the new guidelines come out.
The "exceptional talent" visa route was discussed briefly. It was due to be in place some months ago but has been delayed while the UKBA tinkers with the criteria a little. In essence around 300 visas per year will be available to "exceptionally talented" people from outside the EU to come and work here without the need for a sponsor. I pointed out that this pretty much replaces the "writer/composer/artist" route that was taken away in 2008 - with the only difference being that the people will have to be endorsed by the Arts Council. The UKBA is due to release details of the criteria and application process within the next couple of months.
T&S made 2 formal requests for changes to the SMS in the next IT update; that the term "expiry date" be changed on all CoS to read "use-by date" instead. This is because at the moment most people misinterpret the expiry date as being the date they can work until. This is foolish because the expiry date is hard-wired at 3 months from the issue date, regardless of how long the work has been approved for. This has led to people's passports being stamped for too long or too short a time. It has led to some people being denied entry and some working illegally past their passport stamp.
We also requested that the system be changed to allow work dates to start on the date of issue. At the moment the system will not let you start a CoS today, you must start it tomorrow or later. That's no use when an act needs CoS the same day for a show that night. This led to several problems for acts when they got to the UK - some immigration officers were refusing to admit them until tomorrow - which would mean they'd have to cancel their gig.
Update 28 Oct 2011 - both requests have been approved and will be incorporated in an IT update in April 2012. This is welcome change.
The UKBA has today agreed to go largely back to the old rules on compliance which were in effect prior to their latest change (October). This U-turn only applies to sponsors in the creative sector (Tier 5). We should now be back to where we started; sponsors only have to keep the entry stamps and contact details etc for the duration they have a non-EU act in the UK under sponsorship. It would have been better for all if the UKBA had thought about this before they changed the rules, but it's a welcome move.
News update November 9th 2011
Entertainment sponsors now have even greater record-keeping responsibilities (Oct 2011)
On 27 October the UKBA chose to announce that it had increased the record-keeping duties for sponsors (Appendix D). http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/employersandsponsors/pbsguidance/guidancefrom31mar09/appendix-d.pdf?view=Binary
update: this has since been reversed (Nov 16th 2011), after we kicked up a fuss.
Some may ask: "What's the problem with entertainment companies complying with the same rules as hospitals or IT companies?"
Unlike IT companies or hospitals booking agents, promoters and record labels don't hire the members of an American band or their crew. They don't hold interviews, check qualifications etc, and when the bands come here to tour they are not taking a job away from anyone. The bands don't work at the sponsor's office. They might not even meet any employees of the sponsor.
Imagine you are a booking agency and you issue Certificates of Sponsorship to an American band who are coming here to do a couple of gigs. Your office is in London, but the band enters the UK in Glasgow and then moves to Manchester the following day, before leaving the UK. At no time do they come within 200 miles of your office. How do you get sight of their entry stamps?
What’s the point of this anyway? The band had Certificates before they entered – you know they have permission to do the shows!
It was previously the case that these copies had to be kept for the duration of sponsorship only (update: we're now back to this rule after the sector complained).
There was an exemption on keeping these stamps where a band or entertainer was only working here for a day or less. That has been removed.
______________________________________________________________________
LOST IN THE WHEELS OF CONFUSION
(Oct 28th 2011)
What do you when the government that makes the rules on immigration doesn’t know what the rules actually are?
This is the situation we found ourselves in recently. A client was going to promote a sports event featuring 2 non-EU sports teams playing each other (an exhibition match, in effect, but the players were being paid). This seems to fall between the rules for sports visitors and sports workers / entertainers, so we called the UK Border Agency’s sponsor helpline for advice. They said all non-EU sportspeople coming to compete here needed Certificates of Sponsorship (CoS). We said their own rules on their website said a non-EU boxer coming here for a fight wouldn't need a CoS, and that the site gives similar examples such as Wimbledon or the British Open golf tournament. The guy said any sportsperson being paid needs a CoS, seeming to contradict what the website says. We thanked him and hung up, more confused than ever.
I was convinced this advice was nonsense. I know for a fact that when, for instance, Barcelona come to play a British club their non-EU players don't need Certificates of Sponsorship to play the match. If they did need a CoS who would issue it? They have no employer here. If an event promoter was to issue CoS to sportspeople would they have to follow a code of practice? What if they’re not registered with the sport’s governing body? This was all very confusing.
So we called the Home Office’s headquarters in Croydon and asked the same question. They said they could not give out that advice and that the sports players would have to speak to the British consulate in New York. We pointed out that the British consulate does not make the rules – you do. They stuck to their guns. We pointed out that the British consulate does not take phone calls, instead palming people off to an outside agency, who (again) do not decide on policy matters. They remained intractable.
So, we got 2 conflicting, unhelpful and totally incorrect answers within half an hour. It’s not often we have to seek advice on policy but when we do we expect a proper and correct answer, not a guess. This leads on to a similar issue that a national TV broadcaster had recently. They asked the UKBA whether they should cover a band’s entourage when they issue CoS for the band to perform on one of their shows. The UKBA said “No – you just need to cover the performers. The entourage can come in as entertainer visitors”. This led to the entourages sometimes being stopped at immigration.
When a record company client told us the broadcaster’s policy was not to issue certificates to assistants, choreographers, technicians and so on, we queried why. When we pointed out that the policy was against the rules they said “But the UKBA told us to do this”. The UKBA later admitted the advice given to the broadcaster was incorrect. The broadcaster now issues to the whole working entourage with foreign stars directly because of our intervention.
A recent article in the New York Times was highly critical of the current UK immigration system’s treatment of the arts sector. Whilst the article was somewhat inaccurate in some of its points I do have to say that there is a lot of confusion in the sector – and most of it stems from the UKBA not having a clue what it is talking about. This does not instil confidence. The referee is supposed to know the rules.
- Steve
On August 3 2011 Steve attended a meeting in Glasgow with UKBA sponsor management officers.
All UK regions were represented. I was the only non-civil servant at the meeting. I was there to put the entertainment industry's concerns about "compliance visits" forward. These concerns are mainly to do with the fact that when the UKBA has visited entertainment sponsors in the past they have often asked for irrelevant things, not understood the industry, not understood the concept that foreign acts here on tour are not employees of the sponsor, and in several cases have penalised the sponsors for supposed failings we considered unfair. I put the case for the industry, discussed ways to improve the system, and offered to help in going forward. The UKBA is to redraw its training programs and will work with the entertainment industry in making its visits more relevant.
UPDATE 28 Oct 2011 - Steve has been chosen to set the agenda for a UKBA Arts & Entertainment Taskforce meeting on the subject of sponsor visits, the paperwork sponsors are required to keep and so on. We are hoping this meeting will be in early December. It has become more relevant than ever now, thanks to the UKBA tightening the rules on what sponsors need to keep on file and how long they need to keep them. This has a significant and unfair impact on the live music sector in particular and goes totally against what the UKBA has been assuring the sector in public.
Sponsors now have to obtain the entry stamps from all the people they sponsor plus their contact details (address and phone for every day they are in the UK) and keep them on file until they have been seen at the sponsor's premises by a UKBA visiting officer. This could be 2 years or more. Previously you only had to keep these documents for the duration an act was here on tour.
Notes from the "Arts & Entertainment" Taskforce meeting on Friday 17th June 2011.
We remain the only representative on the panel for the recorded music industry - the live sector is quite well represented, as are film, dance, theatre etc.
The Taskforce is an interface between the entertainment industries and the UK immigration system. It is chaired by the UK Border Agency.
At the meeting the UKBA seemed to have forgotten the outstanding action point from previous meetings; that they were supposed to give an answer to my proposal made 2 meetings ago (which was that sponsors in the entertainment sector who issue short-term CoS to non-visa nationals find it impossible to collect all the entry stamps from the acts they sponsor, so they should be exempted from this requirement or the requirement should be loosened). The UKBA agreed to provide an answer by Tuesday June 21, but failed to do so. It has up 'til now been the UKBA's policy to demand sponsors keep all entry stamps unless an act is here for less than 24 hours - we want them to increase this 24-hour exemption to at least a week - preferably more. Our view is that these people (who don't require entry visas) are no threat to the UK and are not employees of the sponsor, so the UKBA's point about "prevention of illegal working" is moot. The panel members representing the live music sector agree with us on this. We await a response from the UKBA.
Agenda points:
Highly Trusted Sponsors
This is a proposal (in consultation only) that some sponsors should be allowed to apply for an elevated status that allows them to get a dedicated helpline, speedier resolution of SMS updates, and that those they sponsor would have to provide fewer documents when they apply for an entry visa. The sponsor would have to issue a lot of Certificates to be considered and would have to have an excellent record of compliance with the system. My view is that this is mainly aimed at Tier 2 sponsors who employ lots of foreign nationals - its only benefit to the entertainment sector might be in the dedicated helpline and speeding up the handling of SMS system requests (such as changing the Authorising Officer or asking for a larger allocation of CoS). But because most touring entertainment personnel don't need entry visas (and those who do don't need to prove qualifications or pay rates) a reduction in visa application documents won't be of much use to the sector.
Update 28 Oct 2011 - the name has been changed to "Premium sponsor". The fee would be either £8,000 or £20,000 per annum depending on the size of the company (SMEs get the lower rate). This cost would vastly outweigh any benefit for the entertainment sector so we told the UKBA this would be no use to the sector.
Restricting the right to settlement
The UKBA is consulting on whether to restrict various routes to settlement (permanent right to live and work in the UK). This was only really relevant to other sectors (domestic workers with foreign diplomats posted here, religious workers etc).
Online visa applications
People who need entry visas mostly already do the main application form online, but in some countries the application process is still paper-based. This will change by late 2012 and all applications will be made online. The only issues the music sector raised about this were that some countries' internet access was still likely to be very bad / very limited, and that a greater reliance on web applications does tend to mean that the consulates who deal with the applications don't have ANY face-to-face or even telephone enquiry services. Consulates that have gone over to online applications tend to be more difficult to contact when there is a query or an emergency. This leads to great frustration, especially for agencies dealing with acts from Africa, Asia etc., whose visa applications often take too long or are refused on technicalities. The UKBA agreed to talk with their colleagues at UK Visas with a view to working out a policy so that touring entertainers were maybe dealt with in a more streamlined way, because of the extremely time-sensitive nature of their visa applications.
Feedback from sponsor "compliance visits"
Panel members from the music sector have expressed concerns about visits by UKBA officers. These officers tend to expect that the sponsor is actually employing those they issue CoS to, and that the people are filling a vacancy in the UK. They ask for things like employment contracts, NI numbers, proof of recruitment efforts, qualifications, and so on. Most of this is irrelevant for internationally famous recording artists and their entourages. The main point is that touring acts are NOT employees of their sponsor. I have made these points again and again. At the meeting I told the panel that some large, and very reputable, booking agents had been visited by the UKBA and been penalised for not having employment contracts with all their artists, and not being able to prove what recruitment methods they used before "employing" foreign bands. The panel agreed this was inappropriate. I have now (since the meeting) had a teleconference with the UKBA officer who is drawing up new guidelines for visits to entertainment companies. He has taken on board most of my suggestions. Hopefully this will lead to more relevant visits. There are some abuses of the immigration system within the entertainment sector, but very few; and those that do exist are not being caught by the current system because the officers don't really know what to look for. Hopefully that will improve when the new guidelines come out.
The "exceptional talent" visa route was discussed briefly. It was due to be in place some months ago but has been delayed while the UKBA tinkers with the criteria a little. In essence around 300 visas per year will be available to "exceptionally talented" people from outside the EU to come and work here without the need for a sponsor. I pointed out that this pretty much replaces the "writer/composer/artist" route that was taken away in 2008 - with the only difference being that the people will have to be endorsed by the Arts Council. The UKBA is due to release details of the criteria and application process within the next couple of months.
T&S made 2 formal requests for changes to the SMS in the next IT update; that the term "expiry date" be changed on all CoS to read "use-by date" instead. This is because at the moment most people misinterpret the expiry date as being the date they can work until. This is foolish because the expiry date is hard-wired at 3 months from the issue date, regardless of how long the work has been approved for. This has led to people's passports being stamped for too long or too short a time. It has led to some people being denied entry and some working illegally past their passport stamp.
We also requested that the system be changed to allow work dates to start on the date of issue. At the moment the system will not let you start a CoS today, you must start it tomorrow or later. That's no use when an act needs CoS the same day for a show that night. This led to several problems for acts when they got to the UK - some immigration officers were refusing to admit them until tomorrow - which would mean they'd have to cancel their gig.
Update 28 Oct 2011 - both requests have been approved and will be incorporated in an IT update in April 2012. This is welcome change.
