UKVI service standards + Nationality processing times

Hello all,

It seems that the processing of citizenship applications has slowed significantly since the middle of June, affecting mostly applicants from the middle of May onwards. However, some applicants from earlier in the year are still waiting almost six months after making their applications. I just wanted to draw everyone's attention to the UKVI service standards. These appear to have changed on the first of January 2014 and should apply to all applications made after this date. The service standards can be found here https://www.gov.uk/government/organisat ... r-services.

Note that the wording is quite strong and clearly states that if your application for citizenship is straightforward (for example they don't need to request extra information from you), then your application will be processed within six months. You will also note that if there is a problem with your application or it is not straightforward such that it will not be processed within six months, then you should have received a letter dated no later than 12 weeks after your application was made informing you of this fact. One might infer that if your application has been with the UKVI for more than 12 weeks and you have not received such a letter then you should be guaranteed to have it processed within the 6 month standard.

I recall when I applied for ILR the service standard was to process 95% of applications within six months - which gave them some wiggle room to argue that you were one of the unlucky 5%. Unfortunately this was a standard which they certainly did not meet around the time I applied for ILR (I obtained evidence to prove this via a number of freedom of information requests). These new service standards do not provide any wiggle room at all as they clearly state that all applications will be processed within six months. The concern which I have now is that there doesn't appear to be an effective mechanism which we can use to ensure that these service standards will be met and that, similar to when I applied for ILR, if your application does end up falling outside the service standard then all you can do is (1) lodge a complaint (you can do that here complaints@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk) and (2) get your MP to complain on your behalf and step in to speed you application up. I think it is important that if the service standards are not being met that people complain through the correct channels to draw attention to this. Drawing the attention of MPs and UKVI management to such a situation is the most effective thing which applicants can probably do. Remember, they are making a very large "profit" off every citizenship application and I don't think it is unreasonable for our applications to be treated with a corresponding level of service (i.e. they keep their promise to process the application within 6 months).

This clearly isn't a significant problem yet, but I thought it might be useful for people to be aware of this just in case.

Also, I note that the passport backlog does seem to be getting under control - according to this article (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/peopl ... 44276.html) "there are currently (article date is 2/8/2014) 360,000 passports being processed, down from a peak of 508,000 at the end of June". Hopefully, things will be back to normal soon and we won't be making any complaints...

Finally, I've compiled a list of information which you might be able to use to infer what the situation is at the UKVI:

(1) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... tions.html

This article contains a letter reassigning staff from UKVI to the passport office. Note that the letter states that this is a short term arrangement, but contains no dates defining 'short term'. Note that the decision to reassign staff was made by home office executive management board.

(2) http://data.parliament.uk/writteneviden ... /11313.pdf

This transcript contains a statement by Paul Pugh confirming that the introduction of 600 extra staff into the passport office (which I assume includes the reassigned nationality caseworkers) will last for the "summer period" after which they will be gradually stepped down (response to Q245).

(3) Forum post by KNUT in MAY 2014 - Naturalisation Application Timeline on Mon Jul 28, 2014 9:27 am

Conversation by the poster with an NCS staff member indicated that citizenship applications are being adjudicated by a skeleton team of caseworkers. The NCS worker apparently implied that citizenship applications were being slowed up partially to reduce subsequent passport applications by new citizens.

(4) Forum post by Marie1981 in MAY 2014 - Naturalisation Application Timeline on Thu Jun 26, 2014 2:40 pm

Conversation by the poster with an NCS staff member revealed that a significant number of caseworkers had just been reassigned for next 8 weeks. This is probably the most useful information which we have had to date and would mean that these staff will move back to UKVI towards the end of the month (provided they aren't asked to stay on).

Hello all. More reason to be optimistic! According to this article (http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/Late- ... story.html) the passport "backlog" (I assume this means passports being processed) was down to 300000 sometime last week (4-8th of August). If this is accurate, then the backlog is reducing at a pretty rapid rate. I will be keeping my fingers crossed that the backlog continues to plummet and that citizenship applications start getting priority again.

Note that the Leicester Mercury article which I linked below quoted Keith Vaz. I have found another article which was written by Keith Vaz (http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/keith-v ... 58439.html dated 7/8/2014) in the Huffington post. Keith states/writes that as of last Friday (1st of August) the "backlog" was "over 300000".

I also tracked down passport application statistics for the last few years (http://www.parliament.uk/documents/comm ... -stats.pdf). This data appears to have been collated by the home office as part of Paul Pugh's evidence submitted to the Home Affairs Select Committee. Although this year has been somewhat exceptional, it does appear that passport applications from previous years drop off significantly from August onwards. The reduction from July to August is usually of the order of 150000. Assuming the passport office retains its capacity from the summer period, one would assume that they should be able to process an additional ~150000 passports per month from August onwards.

I realise a lot of this is speculation, but I think there is good reason to be optimistic that the passport backlog will be under control soon - which should be good news for us.