The Decline and Fall of Commonsense

I am sure that Nanny is becoming a tad senile in her old age.

Doubtless this senility has been brought about by the avalanche of laws that she has swamped Britain with, over the past few years.

Anyhoo, it seems that even her "mighty" brain may now have become a little confused by it all.

In particular, I would like to draw your attention to the following daftness that goes on in Nanny's immigration service.

The basic rules for non EU immigrants, wishing to work in the UK, is that they need to obtain a National Insurance (NI) number prior to getting a job.

Nanny's Home Office & Immigration website explains that if employers wish to avoid the possibility of prosecution, for employing "illegals", then they should provide evidence that they had checked that their potential employee has the right to work in the UK.

The key check that they must make is to ensure that prospective employees have national insurance numbers.

The Home Office website says that national insurance numbers are accepted by the government, and the courts, of evidence of the fact that the employer has checked out the immigrant's right to work.

The Home Office assume that the process of obtaining an NI number includes checking whether someone has the right to work or not.

But does it?

Now here is where it all goes rather pear shaped.

In order to obtain an NI number, if you are a non EU immigrant, you first need to be employed, and you bring your payslip along with you to the NI application office!

Now the astute readers amongst you will notice that this is a bit of a Catch 22 situation; you can't work without an NI number, yet you cannot obtain an NI number without working!

Don't worry, Nanny has thought of that, the applicant can still obtain an NI number if:

• The applicant had three written job refusals, showing they were seeking work



• The applicant has a written job offer yet to be taken up, which may for example be subject to the granting of an NI number

Now, there are a few problems with this approach:

• How many employers, not wishing to hire someone for a non professional post, will actually write a "refusal letter" in order to aid the acquisition of an NI number?



• In order to obtain an interview with Nanny's lackeys in the NI registration office, the hapless applicant has to have; a payslip, a job offer or three refusals to hand. That's quite a bundle!



• The average wait time for an interview in the NI registration office is two to three months. Therefore if an employer concludes that he will employ the immigrant, after they have an NI number, the employer and potential employee still have to wait two months or more for a decision on whether or not the employee will be given one!

The astute readers will doubtless have concluded that the whole system is bollocks. I suspect that Nanny knows this as well.

For you see dear readers, there is a further way around this "bureaucratic bungle". Nanny's lackeys, so I am told, make the tacit assumption that the job offer letters or refusal letters they see are in fact forged.

In fact so convinced is Nanny of the fact that they are forged, that she does not even bother to check them!

Indeed, Nanny's chums in the Home Office don't even bother to check as to whether the applicant has the right to work in the UK or not.

Living and working in Nanny's Britain is now a farce. The ridiculous system in place encourages people to work on the black market, and to forge their applications.

I fear that it will get worse!