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Points Based System changes
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The Home Office have today announced some changes to the Points Based System for Tier 4 students. In summary, the main changes are:
1. Transitional arrangements on maintenance are extended to 30 September 2009, meaning the applicant need only show the necessary money in their bank account at the date of application rather than for a period of 28 days prior to the application.
2. Letters about loans no longer need to include the account number.
3. Official financial sponsors can now sponsor dependants as well as the main applicant.
4. The higher financial requirements for London students now apply only to those studying in inner London.
5. The date of application inside the UK is now taken to be the date of posting or in case of use of couriers the date of delivery. Out of country, it is the date the fee is paid.
The extension of the transitional maintenance arrangements is most welcome, but is no consolation to those struggling with the three month requirement for Tier 1 and Tier 2 at the moment. The loans letter change was necessary because, as with other aspects of the scheme, the Home Office had made up the requirement without checking that it was possible to fulfil. The third and fourth changes above are probably due to lobbying pressure by educational institutions.
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5 responses
Hooray – Jacqui Smith is going from the HO.
Let’s hope she gets replaced by some-one of the callibre of John Reid.
I wasn’t terribly impressed by Reid either, I have to say. Smith didn’t seem to do a lot wrong as Home Secretary, although she didn’t do a lot right either. A bit of a nonentity on immigration but poor on general civil liberties issues. She didn’t do the silly tought talking of Reid, Blunkett and Straw, though.
FM
You are probably right about John Reid when he was Home Secretary, but I referred to his calibre generally. He impressed me as Health Secretary, although I disagreed with his NHS philosophy.
Jacqui Smith’s dying speech yesterday talked about the new bill (she managed to squeeze something in on immigration after all). Many on-line articles talk about removing applicants when they fail to get Naturalised. For Adults, isn’t this twaddle, as I thought all adult Naturalisation applications had ILR as a pre-requisite? I think the net effect of denying Naturalisation is to stop more people leaving the UK, else after 2 years they could lose their ILR.
4. The higher financial requirements for London students now apply only to those studying in inner London.
This is actually the same as before as London (now inner London) has been defined by a list of London boroughs, which has not changed
5. The date of application inside the UK is now taken to be the date of posting or in case of use of couriers the date of delivery. Out of country, it is the date the fee is paid.
This was previously the case, but may not have been explicitly stated.
Thank you Martin – serves me right for not double-checking!