Feuds and turf wars put Fresh Talent plan in jeopardy Flagship

Sunday Herald, The ,  Oct 30, 2005   by Paul Hutcheon Scottish Political Editor

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JACK McConnell's flagship scheme to attract migrants to Scotland is being undermined by feuding agencies, poor communication and turf wars.

The Sunday Herald can reveal that the Fresh Talent (FT) initiative is being poorly implemented by blundering officials, who refer to the University of "Sterling" and British "three-year degrees".

The First Minister's radical policy is also being jeopardised by poor strategy, Home Office incompetence and petty rows.

News of the infighting comes days after the First Minister presented Fresh Talent, which allows foreign students to stay in Scotland for two years after graduation, to audiences in North America.

The rows were revealed in a dossier of files released under freedom of information legislation by the British Council (BC), a key player in the drive to attract Fresh Talent to Scotland.

McConnell's policy, which he announced last year, depends on education bodies working together to lure foreign students to Scotland.

But e-mail exchanges and other documents show that a number of key Foreign Office outposts had not received information on the policy.

A minute of a February meeting of Education UK Scotland's China Working Group, a body set up to monitor the policy's introduction, shows one attendee saying that consular staff in Beijing "had no knowledge of Fresh Talent".

In March, the senior international officer at Stirling University, Neil Christie, complained to the British Council of a "frightening lack of knowledge" in the Shanghai Consulate.

The lack of awareness is a blow for the Executive because China has been identified as one of the key Fresh Talent markets, an approach bolstered by a number of ministerial visits to the Far East.

But even these trips have been criticised. One Executive civil servant offered a "frank account" of these trips, claiming there had been a "mixed view on the strategy of the visit".

Communications show that the Executive's focus on India has also faltered, with an official in British Council India complaining to a colleague in Scotland about rogue individuals misrepresenting Fresh Talent. A minute of an Education UK Scotland meeting in March said: "It was raised that agents seem to be giving misleading information on the FT working in Scotland scheme to students in India, implying they can receive guaranteed jobs, houses etc."

The same official complained in February this year to Michael Bird, the director of British Council Scotland, that he had not received "answers to some fairly crucial questions" about Fresh Talent, noting that the British High Commission in India had been "similarly in the dark".

In response, Bird appeared to blame the Executive for the lack of guidance on the policy: "I've been aware - early on of colleagues in India's misgivings about the quality and relevance of background information from the Executive."

This remark seemed to back up Professor Anthony Cohen's criticisms around the same time, when he said that British Council representatives in India were getting little information on Fresh Talent, a statement described by McConnell as a "disgraceful slur". An e-mail from the British Council's office in America also revealed a dearth of knowledge about Scotland.

Renne Stowell, an official based in the States, referred repeatedly to the University of "Sterling" and spoke approvingly of Charles Rennie "McIntosh".

More damagingly, the documents reveal a series of rows between the bodies that are supposed to be implementing Fresh Talent. In February this year, the British Council clashed with an Executive official who did not want Fresh Talent promoted inside the UK pavilion at an education fair in China.

E-mails show the mandarin saying that "we did not expect to participate in your pavilion or even know that it existed", adding that he would proceed with the "original plans" to promote Fresh Talent outside the UK tent.

But a British Council official hit back by demanding that the Executive drop its plan to market its policy separately:

"I still feel strongly that if SE are going to be at the event, their stand should be situated within the UK Pavilion. Scotland has to be seen as part of the UK and we need to be coordinated and think carefully about what we want to promote and how best to do it."

Another row came to the surface when the British Council said to the Executive in October last year that the performance of the Home Office and one of its quangos could jeopardise Fresh Talent.

"We are receiving dreadful service this year from Work Permits (UK) and the Home Office;

I know they are under enormous pressure, but the service level is so poor that it should be a real cause for concern for the implementation of FT also."

The rows are the latest glitches to a policy that was launched as a way of stemming Scotland's declining population.

McConnell believes that the policy will encourage more students to study north of the Border.

However, the Sunday Herald revealed earlier this year that the UK Government, which had to approve Fresh Talent, watered it down because it conflicted with aims of restricting immigration to the UK.