Government Authorised Exchange useful to bring emerging talent to the UK

It’s one of the least well-known visa routes but it’s proving popular with a number of our clients post-Brexit, across all sectors of industry, so we thought we’d cover it in a programme for you and raise awareness of it. It’s the Government Authorised Exchange, or Temporary Worker Visa and it’s cheap and relatively straightforward to use. We’ll speak to an immigration expert about why a number of his clients are turning to it. 

Previously known as the Tier 5 Temporary Worker Visa, the GAE is a route that offers visas for temporary workers and is designed for ‘individuals coming to the UK to share knowledge, experience and best practice in roles that are ‘supernumerary’, that’s to say, above normal staffing levels. So, it’s not about facilitating the supply of labour and filling vacancies, rather it is designed for things like temporary seasonal work, work-experience, research, internships and the like. It means employers can bring overseas talent into the country to work without having to make a long-term commitment.

The route is different to skilled worker and student visa routes because, in general, an overarching sponsor is needed. Under the skilled worker or student route, the employer or education provider sponsors the individual directly. The overarching sponsor is typically a government agency or umbrella body for a particular profession. The list of overarching sponsors is contained in Appendix Government Authorised Exchange schemes of the immigration rules. When the route first launched there were around 60 schemes but in recent times it has been reduced to around 40 schemes. 

So, this is a useful route which can help when others are out of reach because, perhaps, an individual can’t meet certain requirements such as English language for example. So, let’s hear more about it. Alex Wright is an immigration specialist and earlier he joined me by video-link from Manchester to discuss it.

Alex Wright: “Government Authorised Exchange used to be known as Temporary Worker and it's not a route that's necessarily very well known or utilised as well as it could be. What we've seen in a post-Brexit environment is a lot of particularly European-wide countries not being aware that they can continue to bring interns to the UK to bring people short term. So, obviously under free movement if you had European trainees and you wanted to bring them to the UK for a brief period of time, or you'd spotted some emerging talent and you wanted to offer an internship that was very easy to do - you could just do that under free movement provisions. What the Government Authorised Exchange is, is a series of approved providers who work alongside UK employers to offer opportunities for emerging talent to come to the UK.”

Joe Glavina: “How easy it is, Alex?”

Alex Wright: “It's actually not that difficult at all if an employer is familiar with sponsoring skilled workers. It’s a little bit like that, except instead of operating alongside the Home Office as your arbitrator, you're operating alongside an approved government authorised exchange provider. There are about 30 different providers within the UK, some of them are sector specific, some of them are region specific, some of them are bespoke schemes created by certain employers. So, employers can work alongside these schemes to identify the most appropriate routes and then they will assist them in going through the usual process of obtaining certificates of sponsorship and then the employer retains those sort of obligations and making sure they know where their intern is, what they're doing, ensuring they've got appropriate maintenance, and obviously making reports to the to the exchange provider if there are any issues so those can be flagged with the Home Office. But that procedure should be fairly familiar to most employers who sponsor workers generally.”

Joe Glavina: “I notice it’s a cheap option - just £259 - and it does sound useful, so why has it flown under the radar for many businesses do you think?”  

Alex Wright: “I think post-Brexit there's been this sort of idea that any movement to the UK, certainly short term, is just too difficult to justify the costs and time that go into it. What I would say about Government Authorised Exchange is it's actually not too taxing, a lot of the work is done for you by the by the exchange scheme who operated on your behalf and, essentially, all you've got to do is act as a responsible employer. I don't think there's been a huge amount of awareness about it but, certainly, I am seeing more and more employers asking about bringing in interns, looking at emerging talent, and the scheme this scheme is coming up more and more frequently, which is why I think it's important to flag its potential.”

Joe Glavina: “Aside from this route Alex, are there any other options for bringing emerging talent into the UK?

Alex Wright: “Yes, there are several other really useful options if you're looking to get young emerging talent into the UK. One is the Graduate Training option which is a tier that can be added to an existing sponsor licence. So, if your company have a training scheme that operates over multiple jurisdictions and that trainee has been with you for at least three months, it is possible to ask them to come and do one of their sessions in the UK, so to come and do a placement here, so that's definitely an option. So, if someone's on an existing formalised training course then that's probably a better option than, for example, Government Authorised Exchange. There's also a relatively new option called a High Potential Individual which is for graduates of top international universities to be given a brief period of time to come to the UK for a couple of years. That’s also a really great option as well.”

All the details you need to know about this route are set out on the government’s website, including eligibility, the documentation and the application process. We’ve put a link to it in the transcript of this programme for you.  

LINKS
- Link to government’s website on ‘Government Authorised Exchange’ visa

It’s one of the least well-known visa routes but it’s proving popular with a number of our clients post-Brexit, across all sectors of industry, so we thought we’d cover it in a programme for you and raise awareness of it. It’s the Government Authorised Exchange, or Temporary Worker Visa and it’s cheap and relatively straightforward to use. We’ll speak to an immigration expert about why a number of his clients are turning to it. 

Previously known as the Tier 5 Temporary Worker Visa, the GAE is a route that offers visas for temporary workers and is designed for ‘individuals coming to the UK to share knowledge, experience and best practice in roles that are ‘supernumerary’, that’s to say, above normal staffing levels. So, it’s not about facilitating the supply of labour and filling vacancies, rather it is designed for things like temporary seasonal work, work-experience, research, internships and the like. It means employers can bring overseas talent into the country to work without having to make a long-term commitment.

The route is different to skilled worker and student visa routes because, in general, an overarching sponsor is needed. Under the skilled worker or student route, the employer or education provider sponsors the individual directly. The overarching sponsor is typically a government agency or umbrella body for a particular profession. The list of overarching sponsors is contained in Appendix Government Authorised Exchange schemes of the immigration rules. When the route first launched there were around 60 schemes but in recent times it has been reduced to around 40 schemes. 

So, this is a useful route which can help when others are out of reach because, perhaps, an individual can’t meet certain requirements such as English language for example. So, let’s hear more about it. Alex Wright is an immigration specialist and earlier he joined me by video-link from Manchester to discuss it.