The Department for Transport is to make a plea for transport planners and traffic engineers to remain on the list of occupations that cannot be filled by resident workers.
Immigration minister Liam Byrne, receiving the Migration Advisory Committee’s proposed ‘tough new shortage occupation list’, welcomed the fact it had ‘reduced the number of jobs open to migrants from 1M to 700,000’.
But the advisory committee was unable to come to a decision on transport planners and traffic engineers, because Project Brunel, the DfT/Transport for London research project to identify the skills gaps has not yet reported.
The DfT ordered the work to quantify the shortages after claims from the Home Office agency Work Permits UK that there was no hard evidence to justify the continued inclusion of the occupations on the list.
The Migration Advisory Committee received evidence that there are continuing difficulties in recruiting transport planners and traffic engineers, and this reflected the growth in transport planning.
The committee was also told that there is ‘little opportunity’ for replacing those retiring from the sector from within the UK, given the ‘relatively small number of UK students studying full-time for transport masters courses’. Despite this, it concluded it was ‘prudent’ to examine the findings of the Project Brunel report before considering further whether to include the occupations on the list. It will not review the list until six months after it is finalised.
Byrne said he will now ‘pressure test’ the committee’s conclusions – a process that will provide an opportunity for the DfT to make representations – before he comes to a final decision next month.
The potential closing down of one route for filling posts was slammed by employers, who view the ability to recruit from English-speaking countries such as Australia as important.
Martin Richards, chair of the employers forum the University Transport Partnership, said that the committee’s recommendations on which occupations had a shortage of UK applicants ‘ignored Government objectives’.
‘Transport planners and traffic engineers are crucial to the delivery of Government policy, ballet dancers and jockeys are not.’ The advice was also ‘completely inconsistent,’ in that railway engineers had been added to the list, despite also being part of Project Brunel.
Sue Stevens, the Institution of Highways & Transportation director of education, said the timing of the decision was ‘very unfortunate’. ‘I understand why the Government wants to encourage a home-grown pool of talent, and as an industry, that’s what we’re working to achieve, but this will necessarily take time.’
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