Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Letters

by Personnel Today 30 Oct 2001
by Personnel Today 30 Oct 2001

This
week’s letters

Skills
database makes sense

I
am fully supportive of your demand for a skills database in your Refugees in
Employment campaign. The provision of skills to meet operational needs is a
fundamental HR task.

Limiting
entry to the database to refugees/foreign nationals is missing an opportunity.
Forget statistics on unemployment, there are thousands of people who are able
to contribute in a variety of ways but who are locked into our benefits system.

Your
proposal must include equality of opportunity to help these people return to
work. This readily accessible source of talent form the target audience for a
number of the skills we so badly need, but appear to be largely forgotten or
discounted.

Nick
Clarke
Via e-mail

PT
campaign is shaping policy  

Personnel
Today is to be congratulated for its support of refugee employment rights.

This
campaign is even more relevant in light of the commitment given by Home
Secretary David Blunkett to review immigration and refugee policy with a view
to creating channels for legitimate economic migration.

Hopefully,
the issues raised in your campaign will be taken into account in the
anticipated new policy and that progress will be made towards integrating
refugees and asylum-seekers into the labour force.

Your
magazine’s involvement in the recent seminar on immigration policy and the
needs of business, organised by the UK Race and Europe Network was timely for
organisations concerned with the development of immigration policy.

Alongside
the commitment of the Home Office to consider the needs of UK employers when
formulating future policy, there is also a pressing need for business groups to
take into account EU developments, particularly in proposed new directives on
freedom of movement for long-term residents, and admission rights for migrant
workers and service providers.

An
agenda is being put together on economic migration issues. The UK Race and
Europe Network seminar has shown that there are good prospects for a
constructive dialogue between business organisations and NGOs in tackling this
important area of policy, and ensuring the interests of migrant workers and
their employers are taken into account in future policy.

Personnel
Today has provided a concrete example of how this might be done in the form of
your refugee campaign.

Don
Flynn
Immigration project co-ordinator    

HE
benefits from permit scheme

I
refer to the news article, "Work permit reform to tackle UK skills
crisis" (News, 9 October) on Blunkett’s aim to allow overseas students who
graduate here to stay while a prospective employer applies for a work permit.

For
those of us in HR in higher education, this is what already happens and in the
case of Southampton University we have little or no difficulty in obtaining
work permits for former students (and visitors) as long as we satisfy the other
criteria specified by the DfEE.

The
old system which required former students to leave the country while a work
permit application was submitted was discontinued some time ago. Certainly from
my point of view the current system is working well and the turnaround time for
applications is the shortest I can remember.

Fraser
Watson
Senior personnel officer

Economy
slump is sidelining HR     

Surely
the trend for outsourcing continues because of the economic climate (Analysis,
9 October). A main driver for change is the pressing need for efficiency gains
which affect the bottom line.

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

OptOut
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

This,
if anything, would accelerate the process, not impede it. The main worry is
that the HR function could slip away from the strategic heart of the
organisation. How long until our accountancy colleagues face the same problem?

Jake
Kydd
Senior lecturer, School of Management Studies, West Suffolk College

Personnel Today

Personnel Today articles are written by an expert team of award-winning journalists who have been covering HR and L&D for many years. Some of our content is attributed to "Personnel Today" for a number of reasons, including: when numerous authors are associated with writing or editing a piece; or when the author is unknown (particularly for older articles).

previous post
Lack of training holds UK firms back
next post
Sept 11 sparks culture change

You may also like

Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders receive 400% pay rise

4 Jul 2025

FCA to extend misconduct rules beyond banks

2 Jul 2025

‘Decisive action’ needed to boost workers’ pensions

2 Jul 2025

Business leaders’ drop in confidence impacts headcount

2 Jul 2025

Why we need to rethink soft skills in...

1 Jul 2025

Five misconceptions about hiring refugees

20 Jun 2025

Forward features list 2025 – submitting content to...

23 Nov 2024

Features list 2021 – submitting content to Personnel...

1 Sep 2020

Large firms have no plans to bring all...

26 Aug 2020

A typical work-from-home lunch: crisps

24 Aug 2020

  • Empowering working parents and productivity during the summer holidays SPONSORED | Businesses play a...Read more
  • AI is here. Your workforce should be ready. SPONSORED | From content creation...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2025

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2025 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+