Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Relocating’ Category

Although we’ve been quite busy trying to get settled back into life in the UK in the last month or so we’ve not been able to say much about it thanks to a lack of broadband access until today so there’s a heap of catching up to be done on the blog!

One of the more taxing aspects has proved to be the business of getting us back into the health system.

We figured that this would be really simple as we already had national health numbers and were going to be signing up with the same doctor as we’d had five years ago but it wasn’t quite so simple as that as it turned out and we’ve still not quite completed the formalities even after a month of trying!

Getting treated is very easy and we’ve been catching up with missed vaccinations for the kids and suchlike over the last month. However, the business of actually registering with the doctor was where the problems started. To begin with we started off with the normal forms for re-registering all of us except John who was born in France and therefore hadn’t been registered here before. It turns out that in fact since we’d all been living overseas we all had to fill in the form we’d initially put him on and also to provide birth certificates for everyone as well which is fair enough in some ways as an ID requirement.

Completing the “from overseas” forms wasn’t quite so simple though. For one thing, if you’re not currently paying National Insurance contributions (which we aren’t) then you need to be claiming Job Seekers Allowance so that in turn meant a trip to the local Job Seekers office to sign on for that. One complication with that is that I don’t think I’m entitled to Job Seekers Allowance as I’m on a career break but I’ll see about that when I finally get the interview for it this Friday.

A week or so later we received an “interesting” phone call from the Central Services Agency (CSA) who are the people who deal with the back office handling of putting you on the register for the doctor. Despite me writing on the form that Wendy (Australian) didn’t need a visa or work permit because she was entitled to a European Residence Permit, they phoned up asking for the visa and work permit to be sent. Seeing as we don’t need them and can’t get them for her (because we can’t be required to have them) they were a bit put out and had to call us back after checking with their supervisor. That second conversation was even more interesting as it was obvious that they haven’t a clue how they are legally required to assess the right of residence for anyone in even the simplest of cases…

1. If you’re French they register you with no further proof than your passport. Actually, the French (along with all other Europeans except the Irish) need to have a job (or to get one within three months) to gain a right of residence (excluding special cases).
2. If you’re Bulgarian they require all kinds of documents. In fact, as of January 2008 they are required to treat Bulgarians in the same way as other Europeans (except the Irish).
3. If you’re not European they require a visa and work permit. Well, normally that would be the case but seeing as Wendy and I have been together for quite a few years now she’s entitled to a European Residence Permit and had one when we were here last time. With said permit they are required to treat her as though she were British and had always been British and are therefore required to register her for medical care. Actually, since we were last here we found out that although she’s eligible for that permit she’s not required to get it but the authorities are required to treat her as though she did have it.

Why “except the Irish”? Well, the UK and Ireland are in what’s called the Common Travel Area which means that there’s no passport control between the two countries and that citizens of either have the right to move to the other (with or without working). That predates the formation of Europe by many decades and means that Irish citizens must be treated differently than other Europeans in many respects notably the absence of a requirement to have work to enable them to live in the UK.

Slightly separately from that, courtesy of the Good Friday Agreement most Northern Ireland people (it’s defined in a peculiar way but basically means anyone that’s British or Irish and has been born in Northern Ireland) have the right to be treated as British or Irish or both as and when they choose. Apparently the CSA aren’t aware that I can insist on them treating me as Irish exclusively should I wish to do so and for the purposes of Wendy’s eligibility for the European Residence Permit I need to be able to require people to treat me as Irish.

However, the most laughable comments were when I said that she had these rights courtesy of Freedom of Movement legislation… in their mind that was freedom to move around Europe, not actually to stay anywhere. In fact, the whole point of the freedom of movement legislation was to allow people to move around and live anywhere they wanted to in Europe. She then went on to say that European law didn’t apply in Northern Ireland. That was on a day when the farmers were queuing up to claim their European payments which are obviously issued under European law!

We’re still waiting to hear back from them.

There’s been somewhat of a death in posting activity over the past few weeks, not because we’ve not had loads to say but rather because the ADSL line still hasn’t been installed yet (supposedly it’s another week or so away). Anyway, that delay has given me the excuse to buy one of those really neat little mobile broadband gadgets which has always been on the “would love to have but just can’t justify it” list. However, whilst it’s been on said list the prices have been dropping dramatically….

In that my mobile surfing will almost certainly be limited in duration the ideal plan for me is very much T-mobiles daily one. All of £2 a day on those days which I use it which means that the non-use charge is effectively £4 a year as you’ve to use it at least once every six months. Although most of the time such a deal seems sure to be a ripoff in fact you can change the topups on this one to a monthly £20 which is little more than “normal” mobile broadband charges these days and, for me, will be substantially cheaper.

On other fronts, we’re now in a minor battle with the Central Services Agency (CSA) over registering Wendy for healthcare. It appears that they have a rather flakey grasp on how residency rights actually work in Europe so they issue health numbers to any French that arrive when they should be requiring proof that they’re eligible to live here (European citizens generally need a job to gain the right to live in other European countries) and they’ve been insisting on all kinds of documentation from Bulgarians when they’ve been in Europe for about six years now and have the same documentation requirements as would the French. Wendy, as always, is unique as, despite the CSA insisting that she provide a visa and/or residence permit, she doesn’t have to provide anything other than her passport thanks to changes in European freedom of movement legislation over the last five years. Oh, and the CSA think that “freedom of movement” is just that: you can move, not actually live: in fact it’s both!

Anyway, all being well they will reject her application as the current rate of awards for such discrimination is over £20,000.

We figured that getting back into the UK health system would be a doddle and so it seemed to be initially. However, several days after handing in the simple “signing up to a doctor” form to our former doctor, we were told that in fact we need to fill in the slightly more complicated one for people coming from overseas and to provide birth certificates for everybody too.

In our case, the form isn’t quite so simple to complete as it might be in that when it asks if I’m making National Insurance contributions I’m not sure what the correct answer should be. OK, right now I’m not contributing in that we’ve just arrived here a few weeks ago but on the other hand chances are that I will be contributing by the time they get around to processing the form.

That “non-contribution” aspect prompted us to think about signing on for unemployment benefit (Jobseekers Allowance as it’s now called). So, starting out from the premise that all we really needed was access to the health system we now find ourselves making a claim for unemployment benefits that we’d not otherwise have bothered with. Silly, or what?

Still, at least it’ll give us some kind of proof to the French authorities that we’re not in their system anymore.

With our previous problems of settling into France at the start we thought that we’d make an early start on getting into the education, tax, social security, etc. systems.

On the education front, we were anticipating problems in that whilst there have been oodles of new immigrants to Northern Ireland and lots of new houses have been built, there haven’t been any new schools built. It turns out that this isn’t a problem in the primary schools but is very much a problem in secondary education depending on what area you’re looking at. As always, immigrants start off settling near the capital ie Belfast and further out there don’t seem to be the problems.

One interesting contrast with France is that it’s the state owned schools here that have the extra resources to deal with special needs kids like James rather than the private schools. “Special needs”? Well, thanks to him not really being educated at his school in France he can’t read or write properly and, of course, not in English thus he’s going to need some extra tutoring to get him back on track.

Obviously we’re still getting tax and social security bills from France so stopping them and getting ourselves into the corresponding systems in the UK is going to be our next priority.

Whilst the trip out to France seemed like a rather long trek at the time, the trip back was considerably shorter thanks to rethinking of the route and being able to be more organised before our departure.

Thanks to the courtyard we were able to space out the packing of the trailer over a week or so and managed to fit so much stuff into it that we’re still trying to find places to put it all over here! Funnily enough, the trailer wasn’t nearly as heavy as I’d been expecting that it would be which in turn meant that we were able to make much better progress on the motorway than expected.

This time around we’d one stopped at Clermont-Ferrand which was around the half-way mark and not quite so far along as we’d planned initially (thanks to a very, very late departure). The second day it was straight on to the ferry at Le Havre for a reasonable crossing to Rosslare. Compared to the alternative of driving all the way up England and then across Scotland this was definitely by far the most relaxing way to go and with a fairly quick Rosslare to Belfast drive at the other end it was overall an easy trip to do.