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John Vine, the retiring Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, has issued a scathing report on the Home Office's handling of citizenship applications. He has broadly suggested that the "good character" requirement for citizenship is not being applied rigourously enough.

Given that it is an election year and that immigration is high on the public agenda, there is a good chance that "good character" requirements will be considerably tightened in the New Year. His recommendations include citizenship interviews and getting a police report from the home country of the applicant.

The full report is available to read at http://icinspector.independent.gov.uk/w ... rt-web.pdf. Page 7 lists the recommendations, which look highly likely to be accepted.

The press have gone to town on this report.

Daily Mail - Revealed: Hundreds of thousands of immigrants 'waved through' UK border with no checks... including convicted KILLERS
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... LLERS.html

The Telegraph - The 'unacceptable' mistakes made by border officials http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... crats.html

As an aside, page 9 of the report above has this extremely revealing paragraph

3.6 In the calendar year 2013, Nationality Casework had an income target of £127m and achieved in actual income of £152m. Due to the value of British citizenship to the successful applicant, the application fee (£906) was significantly higher than the associated administrative costs to the Home Office (£144). This also helped to reduce fees for other application types, to support wider government objectives.

No need to guess what is highly to be accepted, and what is not, because the HO has already responded:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... sework.pdf

Personally I do not see much new in this report, except that the people who fit the home office risk profile will need to wait quite a bit longer for the decision on their application, because HO they will want to check HMRC, DWP and credit agencies for them.

I posted BBC link this morning, kind of explains sudden halt in approvals.

fwd079 wrote:I posted BBC link this morning, kind of explains sudden halt in approvals.

The report was completed and sent to the Home Office three and half months ago. No need to over-analyze this really.

ukswus wrote:

fwd079 wrote:I posted BBC link this morning, kind of explains sudden halt in approvals.

The report was completed and sent to the Home Office three and half months ago. No need to over-analyze this really.

Easier said than done but okay thanks for that information.

I don't actually agree with above statement that approvals have stopped. Someone posted yesterday in NOV timeline who had received approval in 3 weeks :_)

akhurshid wrote:I don't actually agree with above statement that approvals have stopped. Someone posted yesterday in NOV timeline who had received approval in 3 weeks :_)

Yes I agreed I perhaps was over analyzing it.

ukswus wrote:No need to guess what is highly to be accepted, and what is not, because the HO has already responded:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... sework.pdf

Personally I do not see much new in this report, except that the people who fit the home office risk profile will need to wait quite a bit longer for the decision on their application, because HO they will want to check HMRC, DWP and credit agencies for them.

Many thanks ukswus and secret.simon for letting members of this forum know about this report and the HO response.
I have submitted my family application yesterday and unfortunately heard in the evening news about this report and to be honest had a very bad night thinking how this news affect our application! ( I am desperate to get BC and a passport for my son who his passport expired last April ) . Although we are highly skilled professional without any criminal convictions or financial problems , we are worried about the new rules related to people came from overseas.
I would be grateful if you could shed some light on the recommendations which HO accepted such as no. 4 produce CRD from overseas and others which will have an impact on our application..and do you think we still have a chance to get approval within 6 months as told at the NCS!
Thanks in advance

summer08, I wouldn't worry. If they make a requirement for applicants to produce police certificates from their countries, I don't think it will affect already submitted applications. But for others who apply later (especially those who lived abroad in a number of countries), that may be a real pain in the a$$. Especially if this will require them to travel to obtain these records. It may be an unanticipated cost of thousand of pounds, and months of extra waiting But the worst case scenario is if these records are denied to them for whatever reason. I hate thinking about this...

PS In my view, it makes no sense to require this certificates many years after people left their home countries, just before they apply for citizenship. I mean, yes, if you plan to emigrate permanently to Canada, Australia, NZ, you are required to show this. However, they ask for this information BEFORE you are even approved to enter their country. That makes sense, no? But requiring this 6-11 years after people had moved to the UK, makes no sense to me whatsoever...

ukswus wrote:summer08, I wouldn't worry. If they make a requirement for applicants to produce police certificates from their countries, I don't think it will affect already submitted applications. But for others who apply later (especially those who lived abroad in a number of countries), that may be a real pain in the a$$. Especially if this will require them to travel to obtain these records. It may be an unanticipated cost of thousand of pounds, and months of extra waiting But the worst case scenario is if these records are denied to them for whatever reason. I hate thinking about this...

PS In my view, it makes no sense to require this certificates many years after people left their home countries, just before they apply for citizenship. I mean, yes, if you plan to emigrate permanently to Canada, Australia, NZ, you are required to show this. However, they ask for this information BEFORE you are even approved to enter their country. That makes sense, no? But requiring this 6-11 years after people had moved to the UK, makes no sense to me whatsoever...

Thank you for your reply.You are absolutely right as that what we have done when emigrated to Canada, they asked for good conduct certificates BEFORE getting the visa and landing in 2006 then we got PR cards. I still keep the expired cards !

fwd079 wrote:I posted BBC link this morning, kind of explains sudden halt in approvals.

Can you please paste the link here. thanks

It was probably this link:

Citizenship checks missed criminal records, report finds

t123456789 wrote:It was probably this link:

Citizenship checks missed criminal records, report finds

Cheers t, yes that was the link.