By Caroline Breeds
Caroline Breeds - Cbreeds@acs-schools.com
Last week we were delighted to invite guests to our Egham campus for our relocation event, it was hugely successful with many relocation professionals in attendance.
Our guests were given the opportunity to hear some of our grade 5 choir sing a couple of their favourite songs that they will be performing at the 02. We also had the opportunity to a watch a snippet from our drama students - a puppet show about bullying from different perspectives.
Many guests had the opportunity to tour the campus, comments from our guests were that they were impressed by our fabulous art facilities and the wonderful nature of the students, as well as the choir being utterly adorable!
Look out for more information regarding our next relocation event that will take place next year.
Brexit continues to dominate many of the recent networking events that I have attended. British American Business presented a very informative panel to discuss UK Migration System Post-Brexit: Securing the People You Need consisting of -
The morning's discussion was around the different scenarios following the vote on 11th December, as well as the MAC report’s recommendations. Claire also shared her thoughts regarding the ‘talent crunch’, mentioning that the UK will not be the only country to see the talent crunch in the coming years. The conclusion to the morning's discussion was that we continue to live with uncertainty and tension, we will have more information on 11th December, however, it is unlikely that the vote will go smoothly for the Prime Minister.
ACS have recently become members of the Immigration Industry Association (IIA), providing benefits and support to Immigration Industry members and the wider migrant and expat community around the world.
The IIA is a forum for the immigration community to network, share ideas, information, research and experiences. ACS looks forward to becoming more involved with the IIA over the next 12 months, including attending the first IIA conference in the UK.
The latest IIA event was held at Five Paper Chambers, where there was a short presentation on the topic of ‘What the UK’s immigration system for work, business and investment may look like after Brexit’. The Five Paper Chamber updated us about the suspension of the tier 1 visa. Due to concerns of money laundering and mis-use of the scheme, the Tier 1 Investor route will be suspended from midnight on Friday 7 December 2018 until new rules are introduced in 2019. The proposed new scheme will require applicants to provide comprehensive audits of their financial and business interests and to show that the applicant has had control of the funds for a minimum of two years.
ARP Christmas Lunch
This year prior to the annual Christmas lunch we were invited to attend a seminar regarding Brexit. Marco Previero of R3Location gave an overview on the rental market in London, which we were informed relies heavily on the financial market. London has recently lost its top spot as the financial ranking number one to New York. London has been at the top for a number of years and only time will tell what impact this may have moving forward.
The second speaker was Jonathan Bell of Stanhope Capital looking at the wider issues around Brexit. We learnt that statistically, there has been very little impact on the overall immigration figures coming to the UK, a slight fall but nothing significant. When you break it down further, you see that there has been a significant dip regarding EU citizens coming to the UK and a significant rise in non-EU citizens arriving in the UK. The two nationalities who appear to be leaving the UK are Polish and French nationals. We then heard in more detail the different options that might develop over the coming weeks. The outcome? more uncertainty. No one actually knows what will happen leading up to Friday 29th March 2019.
Following the very informative session, we then networked with relocation professionals and enjoyed a lovely Christmas lunch. We were promised last year that this year’s quiz wouldn’t be so difficult, I don’t agree, it was equally as difficult! Fingers crossed next year’s will be easier!
Looking ahead
We are excited to be hosting a coffee morning for a large destination service provider in the UK at our Cobham campus in 2019. We look forward to touring the campus and learning more about how we can work together in ensuring that families enjoy a smooth transition when relocating to the UK.
In February I look forward to attending the Worldwide ERC conference that will take place in Frankfurt. I am looking forward to making new connections as well as keeping up to date with important developments within the Global Mobility industry. If you are going to be attending and would like to find out more information about ACS please do let me know.
We will also be exhibiting at the Global HR Conference in London and are looking forward to meeting with many corporate clients at this event. If you work in Global Mobility, then please do contact me if you would like to attend this popular event.
The first Immigration Industry Association conference will be taking place at the beginning of March on ‘Future of Global Immigration’. The conference will focus on developing a core understanding of the future of the immigration environment. Looking forward to finding out more about the guest speakers!
As always, please do contact me if you or any of your team have not recently attended one of our relocation events or enjoyed a visit to one of campuses.
I look forward to seeing many of you in the New Year, however in the meantime I would like to wish you a very merry Christmas and a peaceful 2019.