tobidan

I just joined this group today and have spent most of the morning reading through all the mails...very enlightening.

Myself and family have been researching Australia Immigration since March-2002. I am a Britich citizen currently living and working in Nigeria, my wife is nigerian and our 2 children have Birtish passports. We plan to migrate from Nigeria to AUS. I was just about to put my application in the post today, when alot of points raised here begin to concern me. Please help clarify these so I can sleep again at night.

Work Experience

I have been skills assessed with ACS as 2231-79 (IT Technical Support Officer), valid until 4th July, 2003. It states in the assessment letter that my work experience has been calculated as
* 01/97 - 03/00 Academic/Programmer
* 03/00 - 04/02 Technical Support Officer

I have stayed in the same job till present day and will start a new 2 year contract with the same company as MIS Technical Support Specialist.

All the agencies such as LIVEIN Australia.COM have evaluated me as qualifying. I note from the discussions on proving "Work Experience" and "Specific Work Experience (10 points)" that for IT you need around 6 + 1 years ?

My CV states that I have been working in IT since 1986, but ACS only 'deemed??' work experience from 01/97. Am I really going to qualify for IT now ?

Police check

I have my UK police certificate dated March 2003. It seems I shouldn't have done this yet, since the time to enter AUS is based on 12 months after the expiry of the earliest police or medical check. Should I not include this in my application for now?

Certifying Documents

I have had all my documents certified by a British Solicitor Shentons, UK. I noted something about 'statuatory declaration' etc ? The ACS application assessment was done with all documents certified with Shentons also, surely it will also be acceptable to DIMIA ?

Thanks

Jaj

1. It looks like you applied to ACS under the pre October 2002 rules.
What formal qualifications in IT do you have?

2. An ACS deeming date is something like 'I would judge that this
level of attainment could be inferred from [date]'

3. Deeming dates only became universal on ACS assessments from late
2002. Prior to then, some ACS assessments had deeming dates, others
did not.

4. If your ACS assessment has a deeming date, you cannot count as
skilled any work experience before that date.

5. DIMIA only look back 4 years in assessing how much skilled work
experience you have.

6. You must apply to DIMIA before the validity of your ACS skill
assessment expires (and the application needs to have been received in
Adelaide by this date).

7. You should use a reliable courier service to make the delivery -
don't trust the regular post.

8. Send your UK police check, but be prepared to re-do it later if
asked for it again.

9. The certification of your documents sounds ok.

10. Keep a copy of everything you send to DIMIA.

11. Slightly off topic, if your children were born in Nigeria, then
they are probably British by descent. Under current UK law, British
citizenship for their own children (ie your future grandchildren) born
in Australia or elsewhere outside the UK will not automatically be
British.

Jeremy

    >On Wed, 30 Apr 2003 10:35:04 +0000, tobidan wrote:
    >I just joined this group today and have spent most of the morning
    >reading through all the mails...very enlightening.
    >Myself and family have been researching Australia Immigration since
    >March-2002. I am a Britich citizen currently living and working in
    >Nigeria, my wife is nigerian and our 2 children have Birtish passports.
    >We plan to migrate from Nigeria to AUS. I was just about to put my
    >application in the post today, when alot of points raised here begin to
    >concern me. Please help clarify these so I can sleep again at night.
    >Work Experience
    >I have been skills assessed with ACS as 2231-79 (IT Technical Support
    >Officer), valid until 4th July, 2003. It states in the assessment letter
    >that my work experience has been calculated as
    >* 01/97 - 03/00 Academic/Programmer
    >* 03/00 - 04/02 Technical Support Officer
    >I have stayed in the same job till present day and will start a new 2
    >year contract with the same company as MIS Technical Support Specialist.
    >All the agencies such as LIVEIN Australia.COM have evaluated me as
    >qualifying. I note from the discussions on proving "Work Experience"
    >and "Specific Work Experience (10 points)" that for IT you need around
    >6 + 1 years ?
    >My CV states that I have been working in IT since 1986, but ACS only
    >'deemed??' work experience from 01/97. Am I really going to qualify
    >for IT now ?
    >Police check
    >I have my UK police certificate dated March 2003. It seems I shouldn't
    >have done this yet, since the time to enter AUS is based on 12 months
    >after the expiry of the earliest police or medical check. Should I not
    >include this in my application for now?
    >Certifying Documents
    >I have had all my documents certified by a British Solicitor Shentons,
    >UK. I noted something about 'statuatory declaration' etc ? The ACS
    >application assessment was done with all documents certified with
    >Shentons also, surely it will also be acceptable to DIMIA ?
    >Thanks
    >--
    >Posted via http://britishexpats.com

This is not intended to be legal advice in any jurisdiction

Jaj

ACS deeming dates are in a specific format. They say something like
'I would judge that this level of attainment could be inferred from
[date]'

If you applied to to ACS before October 2002, you may not have a
deeming date - especially if you have a degree in IT.

Jeremy

    >On Thu, 01 May 2003 12:45:31 +0000, tobidan wrote:
    >Just to add, is my deeming date then :-
    >01/97 or 04/02 ???
    >--
    >Posted via http://britishexpats.com

This is not intended to be legal advice in any jurisdiction

rapitts

From what I can hear, your work experience is from after the deeming date.

So you calculate your work experience from 1997-2003 = 6 Years !!!!

Unelse someone else replies with further info !!!

Note: If you submitted your ACS assessment before Oct 2002 then the deeming date doesnt count.

tobidan

Yes, since I have been working in IT from 1986 I am not sure why they decided to set it from 01/97, misses out 10 years of work experience! Mind you that was all based at a UK University and maybe they didn't regard that as real work?

Anyway ACS submission date on my acceptance letter is 6-JUN-2002 and it seems, as you state, that the deeming rule doesn't apply. Even if it does, it seems I qualify anyway as you calculate yourself. And I will likely have 7 years by the time we are granted the visa.

Thanks so much for the reassurance.

rapitts

I would submit your application asap since your assesment is only valid for a year.

If the ASPC take 1.5 months to open your application then your assessment is invalid and will need redoing again and this time your assessment will include the deeming date.

Hans de Visser

I think - professionals, please correct me if I'm wrong - that both these remarks are irrelevant. ASPC stamps a date on your application the day it arrives there, they take some details right away, such a payment details and then put it on the big pile. The date of arrival at ASPC is the only date that matters, everything will be assessed against that date.
So, no, in the eyes of ASPC you will not have 7 but 6 years of experience by the time they grant it; and no, your assessment will not be rejected, it wasn't expired on the date of arrival.
Police and medicals are different, their expiry date determines the latest date for your first arrival in Aus after the visa has been granted. If they expire before the visa is granted, the visa simply won't be granted until more recent clearances are obtained.

Hans de Visser

Hmmm, not sure. If the assessment is dated 6/2002, won't ASPC say: 01/97 - 06/02 = 5.5 years ?!

tobidan

Help! It seems this is a very unclear area of the application. I assumed that since I had been postively assessed by ACS that was all that was required for work experience.

But in order to claim the 10 points for Specific Work Experience do I need an additional 3 years work experience on top of that ? I.e. from 06/02-06/05 ??? But by this time the skills assessment would have expired ? I really am getting confused about all this...sorry!

I have read alot of the previous posts but am still not totally sure of this ?

tobidan

Just to add, is my deeming date then :-

01/97 or 04/02 ???

tobidan

Jeremy,

Just saw this earlier reply from you. Some answers :-

1. It looks like you applied to ACS under the pre October 2002 rules. What formal qualifications in IT do you have?
* ND, HNC and HND in Computing from UK.

2. An ACS deeming date is something like 'I would judge that this
level of attainment could be inferred from [date]'.
* This is NOT stated on my assessment. Does that meen no deeming date ?

11. Slightly off topic, if your children were born in Nigeria, then
they are probably British by descent. Under current UK law, British
citizenship for their own children (ie your future grandchildren) born in Australia or elsewhere outside the UK will not automatically be British.
* Thanks for this, this is very interesting news I will have to research this a bit more in the future. One is 3 and a half, the other only 9 months old, so I have some time left yet :-)

ige

I'm a Nigrian migrating from Europe to AUS too...
I think since you don't have a deeming date....(And even if u have u have more than 4 yer exp) i guess you are ok since you applied before Oct 2002 to ACS.

mika24me

Hi

I can only answer two of your questions I'm afraid

Include the police check as it will do no harm to your application. If need be you can apply for new ones towards the end of your application if it seems that your entry date will be too soon.

However it is worth checking on the DIMIA website if you will need a new UK police certificate at all since you are not currently living in the UK. It may be a Nigerian one which will determine your entry date.

I believe that Statuatory Declerations are only required for de facto relationship applications, although perhaps someone can correct me on this.

Good luck

with your application

Mel