Develop:North – OTB’s insights: What happens if you get laid off in turbulent times?
In the last article, we wrote about how the failure of Concord highlights fragility of business within the video game industry and what this means for sponsors when times get tough. This week we’re looking at it from the other side of the coin, the workers.
For the purpose of this article we are looking at scenarios where you have been made redundant as this is where you would be subject to the most risk.
Curtailment
Your employer is required to make a report of you leaving the business within 10 working days of your exit. The good news is that they cannot make this report until you have actually left the business meaning that, if you have forewarning of your redundancy, you can get a head start.
Once this report has been made the Home Office will issue a letter of curtailment. A letter of curtailment gives you 60 days to either apply for a new visa or leave the UK from the date on the letter.
There are a couple of important points here. The first is that this is a letter and not an email. It will be sent to the last known address the Home Office have on file for you. You have a responsibility to keep the Home Office updated of your current residential address so, if you have not done this and the letter is sent to an old address, it will be deemed correctly served and you risk becoming an overstayer without realising it.
The second point is that the curtailment period begins from the date on the letter, not the date you leave employment. There have been periods where the Home Office has not been on top of getting these letters out which means you may have longer than 60 days to resolve your circumstances, however we always advise clients to assume that it will be sent immediately as this is the best way to protect your position.
Note on supplementary employment It is important to note that you will lose the right to undertake supplementary employment as soon as you have left your sponsored employment. The right to supplementary employment is conditional on undertaking the role you were sponsored to do. This highlights the importance of resolving your immigration status at the earliest opportunity.
What next – maintaining continuous residence
As a skilled worker you will have been building time towards settlement, we call this continuous residence. The amount of continuous residence you need for settlement is known as the qualifying period and, although the qualifying period varies depending on what visa you apply for settlement under, time spent on most work routes can be combined even if it’s not the exact same route.
However, unless you are applying for settlement under the 10 year route (which only applies to a very select few skilled workers, usually those who first arrived as students and studied both undergraduate and postgraduate courses here), time spent on non-work routes will reset your qualifying period, forcing you to start all over again. The same applies if you switch from skilled worker to dependant of a skilled worker or vice versa. The dependant and worker routes are distinct meaning you cannot combine time on them.
For that reason, it is important to consider carefully what application you make next.
Skilled worker
The most obvious here is the skilled worker visa. Finding another sponsor and making a change of employment application is almost always going to be the most straight forward approach, even though going through this process in 60 days is challenging.
Global talent
Depending on what role you’ve been undertaking, the video game sector is one of the better placed sectors when it comes to eligibility for global talent.
The Global Talent route is for those recognised as being future or current leaders in their field with the former being limited to those in the first five years of their career. Applicant’s must be endorsed by a relevant endorsing body in their field with the relevant ones for the games industry being the Arts Council (for artists and musicians) or Tech Nation (for those on the digital technology side).
The Arts Council focuses primarily on those who release Art under their own name rather than those who are employed to do so. For artists specifically that means the focus is on gallery and commission based work, for musicians it is performing musicians or writing music for others. However, if you have this experience alongside your work within the games industry, it is worth a consideration.
On the digital technology side of things, Tech Nation is looking for those who have done something particularly innovative or have had an impact on their field, rather than those who simply excel within a single role.
Those who secure a global talent visa can work without sponsorship, for any company they wish and even set up their own business. The qualifying period is three to five years depending on whether you are awarded talent or promise.
Innovator founder
Finally, there is the innovator founder visa for those who are looking to set up a business. This route is unlikely to apply to many in the games industry but for those in more niche parts of the scene who want to establish a business in their specialism, it could be worth a consideration.
Like the Global Talent visa this route requires endorsement, this time from one of three recognised endorsing bodies. These endorsing bodies are assessing your business plan to see whether the business meets the criteria of being innovative, scalable and viable. Innovative meaning doing something that cannot easily be replicated by another business in the UK. This can’t simply be a high street business with an app. Scalable means it needs to be able to grow from just you to employing settled workers and ideally have an international presence. Viable means you need to have both the skills and the financial resources to bring the businesses into reality.
You should keep in mind that this is a particularly slow and administratively heavy route. We often find that, unless people have their business ready to go, the process from first consultation meeting to endorsement can often take around six months. This is much longer than the curtailment period meaning that in many cases this might not be a viable short term solution.
There are other options available (such as dependant visas) but here we have focused on solutions that allow you to retain your continuous residence and cause the minimum disruption and cost to your life.
Get support
If you believe you have an application to make in one of the routes mentioned above and would like assistance making this application, then you can book a free consultation with us here: