An out-of-sync email format of a message from the Home Office which comes with their standard warning in a frighteningly large front, no doubt designed to instil fear and command the absolute obedience of sponsors literally spells out dramatic warning that "if you fail to comply with your responsibilities as a sponsor" then they'll come after you for three generations to come... make you wish you'd never been a sponsor. ever. in. your. life. 

I screen-captured this initially because I was tickled by the delicious marriage between the UKVI's Judge-Dredd-esque obtuseness and the accident of my email format, but really, we're living in sad times, our laws and enforcements doing their best to defy the high ideals of Britishness that so many of us around the world have come to admire.  

The Home Office took some time to get back to my request from April 2017, but at least they are here! Hear ye, hear ye, all Entrepreneurs in the Tech World, these are the stats. 

All self-explanatory, but thought I'd explain a few things. 

1. This bar chart shows you the (%) rate of successful applicants to Tech City UK for endorsement. These figures should include applications for Tech North since they both fall under the same visa and sub-discipline category.
2. The numbers along the X axis (the vertical line on the left) shows the no. of applications.
3. Exceptional Talent and Promise figures appear in separate bars. Where there is no bar shown, there is - apparently - no data or '0' entry. 
4. Bearing in mind the 150 allocations given to Tech City UK each year (split into 2 chunks, April - Sept, then Oct - (following year) April), the graph above is intended to show a trend (if any) of the time of the year when applications tend to be concentrated. 
5. 'Undecided applications' means applications still being considered for a determination at the time the stats were collected.  
6. A general observation is that the total number of applicants for both Talent and Promise category to Tech City UK is increasing each year with no rejected applications! 
7. Those that are neither successful nor rejected fall into the other category of either 'undecided' or 'Not Endorsed'. No precise definition of 'Not Endorsed' is given by the Home Office yet but one could conjecture these to be applications where further information was needed but never received, or where the applicant just abandons the application. 
8. Despite the increase in the number of applications each year, success rate remains optimistically high. Also, the trend of fewer applicants than there are allocations seem to continue, meaning you still would stand an excellent chance of being considered, and achieving success in your application - at any time of the allocation year!

More details are coming soon! Watch this space. 

If you are interested in getting your case assessed for an application, contact me for a consultation. 

A burning question from all applicants - Is my art covered by this visa?

The more creative and esoteric or pioneering a discipline you pursue, the more pertinent this questions will be for you. For example, considering my cultural proximity to Korea and K-Pop, I receive these questions often. I've finally received a response - of a kind - from Arts Council England this month.

As suspected, the areas of art assessed by the Council appears to be rather 'traditional' e.g. for Dance = Ballet, Music = traditional instrumentalist, but do read on and draw your own impression/ conclusion.

I've shared both my questions and their response below as they were received.

1.      Specifically please could you confirm whether the following Visual Arts disciplines are assessed by ACE for endorsement:

a.     ceramics, 

b.    drawing, 

c.     painting, 

d.    sculpture, 

e.     printmaking, 

f.      Book Arts,

g.     Textile design, 

h.       crafts, 

i.       photography, 

j.       architecture,

k.     industrial design, 

l.       graphic design, 

m.     fashion design, 

n.    interior design,

o.     decorative art,

For Visual Arts we assess a wide variety of disciplines. From the list of disciplines provided most of these (apart from industrial design, *most areas of fashion design, **some areas of graphic design, architecture and interior design) are assessed by Arts Council England.

Ceramics, Textile design and Crafts (*including some areas that could be classified as fashion design) would need to be items specifically made for exhibition and not for commercial purposes. For example – ‘The making of notionally functional or decorative crafted objects. A crafted object is one which has been made by hand, not manufactured (although it may include limited production runs using automated or semi-automated processes eg printing on textiles). It has often been made by the hand of the product's designer, and shows their skill and creativity. Crafts include traditional/heritage crafts which use skills and techniques that have been passed down from generation to generation and contemporary crafts using characterised by innovative techniques and use of materials.’

**Some areas of graphic design, architecture and interior design can be considered however, this cannot be commercial, must be specifically related to the arts and cannot include production or construction of items/buildings.

As there is not an exhaustive list of every discipline that we assess, we advise applicants in our published eligibility guidance that applicants should contact us if they require advice on what disciplines we do or do not assess.

  4. Specifically please could you confirm whether the following Music disciplines are assessed by ACE for endorsement under Tier 1 Exceptional Talent/ Promise:

a.        K-Pop (Korean Pop) music performers (singers, group members)

b.        K-pop concert designers, concert/ music video producers and directors, musicians,

c.         Contemporary music band members (heavy metal, rock, indie genre), alternatively, a list of musical genres covered by ACE

For Music we assess a wide variety of disciplines. From the list provided we could consider all of the disciplines listed. In general for music we support:

Classical, Baroque, Early Music, Chamber, Orchestral, Choral, Choirs, Vocal Ensembles, Gospel, Brass bands, Opera, Popular (pop, rock, soul, country, funk, hip-hop, r&b, urban, blues, singer-songwriters, electronic music), Jazz, Experimental, Swing, Big Band, Folk (traditional music and song indigenous to the British Isles), World Music (music primarily associated with a specific nation outside of the British Isles)

Members of bands or groups will need to apply separately and provide evidence that proves their individual promise/talent – in accordance with the eligibility criteria.

As there is not an exhaustive list of every discipline that we assess, we advise applicants in our published eligibility guidance that applicants should contact us if they require advice on what disciplines we do or do not assess.

5.     Finally, The composition of the decision-making panel at ACE.

Arts Council England are not the decision makers for Tier 1 Visas. The application and decision-making process is undertaken by the Home Office. Arts Council England's role is to provide an assessment of an application against the published criteria for Exceptional Talent/Promise – which is carried out by one of our pool of artform specialists from our teams across the country – which is then moderated and signed off by a Senior Manager who checks that guidance has been followed appropriately before returning the recommendation to the Home Office.

As usual, my thoughts on any potential applicants for endorsement is that an endorsement application is infinitely worth a try (rather than not). A refusal from this application does not prejudice any future visa application and unlike a visa application, it does not require you to surrender your passport for assessment. Ultimately the more esoteric your discipline, the stronger the case for making an application for Art Council to assess. Therefore, the only way to 'find out' your chances of success is to prepare and submit an application straight away. 

If you would like to start an assessment of your application, please contact me here.

I had these stats from 2015 but didn't publish them at the time - didn't seem significant. Tech City (or Tech Nation) endorsement statistics for foreign Tech Start Ups are in. From 2015. 

N.B. I have made a new request this month and the results are expected in the next 40 days. Will be updating my post then.

As with all Tier 1 Exceptional Talent endorsements, these are lesser known and rarely explored visa routes in general. The application threshold is not necessarily high but they are specialised to the route you are taking (e.g. artists, tech start up with C Suite roles, business operation and management to IPO stage etc.).  For Tech City applicants, endorsement letters from the industry mentors is also useful so a general tip would be to get yourself, and your business, known to as many influential people as possible, and build your network. Easier said than done of course, but hey, you've come this far, set up your startup, managed to get your ideas realised into operation. You can do it!

The 2017 stats from Arts Council England is in.

I've been requesting the stats from Arts Council since around 2015. A quick comparison of applicants for the 'Artist Visa' looks like this. A few comments:

1. Bearing in mind that Arts Council England is allocated 250 endorsements each year - 125 between 6 April to 30 September, then the remaining 125 + whatever remains from the first period between 1 October - 5 April, the total annual number of applicants do not come close to the maximum endorsement of 250 allocated to Arts Council.
2. The total number of applications, especially for Tier 1 Exceptional Promise category has increased in 2016 (from 106 in 2015 to 209 in 2016 = circa. a whopping %51 increase). This is still a lesser known category of visa but the reason for the increase could be as a result of something small like my workshop provided for the Korean Cultural Centre in London towards the end of 2016 *smugface*
3. The figure for 2017 could be from Jan 2017 onward which may not give us the most accurate picture of the competition (see para. 1 above - 250 allocation is divided in to two chunks throughout the year, ending and starting in April and October). Nevertheless, this figure includes applications received and decided up to and including 13 April 2017, which was the date of my request to the Council. It would be fairly safe to assume that the current 2017 figures don't yet take into account any applications received from the new year of allocation which began on 6 April 2017.
4. Despite the increase in the no. of applications, success rate still remains high.
5. If you want to see where your application would stand, get in touch for an initial assessment/ consultation. Go to Book Consultation.  

My FOI request to the Royal Academy of Engineers came back at Easter.

It was a bit disappointing to see that the numbers were bunched up together between 2015 - 13 April 2017, because the Royal Academy of Engineers were allocated a finite number of endorsements each year (150 per year, split into two periods, i.e. 75 between 6 April - 30 September and 75 + whatever is left over from the first period between 1 October - 5 April). But still incredibly useful statistics nevertheless. Between some 2.5 years (2015 - April 2017), the Royal Academy would have been allocated over 300 endorsement by the UKVI but only 56 applicants (representing circa. 19% of all available endorsement) even attempted the application for endorsement. (Exceptional Talent categories tend to be fewer because of the high threshold so that's normal). Both Exp Talent and Exp Promise categories, more than a majority of the applicants succeeded (72% avrg.). Finally, there doesn't appear to be the Academy-own production of leaflets or information sheet on this visa route. They refer to the UKVI guidance only.

1. Still too few are applying for endorsement under the category (19% of all available endorsements).
2. Once you do apply, the success rate is fairly high (72% on average across both categories).
3. Perhaps information on Tier 1 Exceptional Talent/ Promise is not so widely known or available. Well, fear not! Solicitor Cho shall be posting updates and further information on this throughout the year.
4. Conclusion? It's definitely worth a try!

Incidentally, I loved the RA's politeness and speedy response. Much appreciated and it was a pleasure dealing with the Academy.