FR.
We will, of course, be reporting your views on the secondment scheme to Ministers, and aim to do so later this week. But I would in the meantime be grateful for any immediate thoughts you may have on the proposals set out in the note attached.
There is one other, quite separate, point which I would like to raise, and that concerns the operation of the special circumstances points under the general allocation scheme. I believe that John Morris has been in touch with you about this. some uncertainty about whether such points should be allocated before or after the profile of candidates had been drawn up for the Steering Group. My understanding has been that some points at least, would be allocated afterwards once the Steering Group had had an opportunity to consider the profile and decide what factors might merit extra weighting. Presumably other points those based on a higher emigration rate for a particular sub-group within an occupational category, and any for outstanding individual achievement which fell within criteria which might be agreed in advance by the Steering Group, could be allocated before the profile was drawn up if that was wished. No doubt you are considering the options. My main concern at this stage is that where an applicant has some claim to points on the grounds of outstanding individual achievement those points should be allocated to him or her before he or she is ruled out on the basis of having insufficient points in comparison with other applicants. This seems only fair, and no doubt any proposals you put forward for the detailed allocation of special circumstance points will take this into account.
We both took away from last week's meeting a fair amount of further work. I hope yours is going well: no doubt we shall be in touch shortly.
Yours sincerely,
Liz
MRS E J GRIMSEY