The Fresh Talent Initiative is a Scottish Government policy framework to encourage people to settle in Scotland. The initiative was launched in February 2004 by then First Minister, Jack McConnell as a way of countering the 'biggest challenge facing Scotland' of its falling population.
Since immigration is a matter reserved to the UK parliament in the legislation that established the Scottish parliament in 1999 (the Scotland Act 1998), agreement had to be obtained from the Home Office for a key part of the initiative: to allow overseas graduates from Scottish universities, who express the intention of living and working in Scotland, to stay on for two years following graduation to seek employment. The Fresh Talent: Working in Scotland Scheme was up and running by summer 2005, applying to those who graduated that year.
Opposition towards the scheme was voiced by some English universities which felt that the scheme gave Scottish universities a competitive advantage in terms of attracting students from overseas.
The Fresh Talent: Working in Scotland Scheme was subsumed into the UK immigration system on 29th June, 2008 when the UK government brought in a new points based immigration scheme.
Famous quotes containing the words fresh, talent and/or initiative:
“Rise and put on your foliage, and be seen
To come forth, like the springtime, fresh and green,”
—Robert Herrick (1591–1674)
“If a man has a talent and cannot use it, he has failed. If he has a talent and uses only half of it, he has partly failed. If he has a talent and learns somehow to use the whole of it, he has gloriously succeeded, and won a satisfaction and a triumph few men ever know.”
—Thomas Wolfe (1900–1938)
“I am firmly opposed to the government entering into any business the major purpose of which is competition with our citizens ... for the Federal Government deliberately to go out to build up and expand ... a power and manufacturing business is to break down the initiative and enterprise of the American people; it is the destruction of equality of opportunity amongst our people, it is the negation of the ideals upon which our civilization has been based.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)