Naturalisation application processing timelines (only)

GrandBang wrote:FINALLY !!!!!

Eligibility criteria: 5 YEARS + 3YEAR ILR
Language criteria met: Life in The UK+B1 English
Method of application: NCS (Hammersmith and Fulham)
Date of application: 12/12/2014
Payment method: Credit Card
Date of receipt by UKBA: 19/12/2014
Date of acknowlegment: 19/12/2014
Date of debit or clearance of fees: 22/12/2014
Date approval received: 17/04/2015 (dated 11/04/2015)
Date of ceremony: Waiting


My journey with you guys ends here. I truly and sincerely hope all the very best to everyone.

Congrates GrandBang!

It looks like HO is clearing the backlog before doing April cases at the moment.

waiz89k wrote:

Maliksahb wrote:

waiz89k wrote:Please have a look at this following letter from an immigrant lady to all politicians.
Exactly my point.

http://m.huffpost.com/uk/entry/7066334#

This is excellent letter but it should be on right place to pass through everyone?

what do u suggest should be the right place? I am not talking about this forum only but This needs to be seen everywhere in UK.

I think social media etc

Eligibility criteria: 5 Year + ILR (Tier 1 General)
Language criteria met: Life in the UK Test (pre Oct 28, 2013) & PBS Printout for English requirement (non UK degree)
Current nationality: Indian
Method of application:Royal Mail
Council name if NCS used: n/a
Date of application: 27/03/2015
Payment method: DC
Date of receipt by UKBA: 30/03/2015
Date of acknowledgment: 18/04/2015 (letter dated 15/04/2015) , by post only, no email received(Update #2
Date of fee deducted: 15/04/2015 (Update #1)
Date approval received:
Date of ceremony:

APPROVED

Eligibility Criteria: 10 Long residence + 1 year ILR
Language Criteria Met: Life in UK + UK University certificate
Method of Application: NCS (Carlton, Notts)
Date of Application: 3rd December 2014
Date of Receipt by Home Office: Waiting
Date of Debit of Fees: Credit Card - 11/12/2014
Date of Receipt of Acknowledgement: 17/12/2014
Date of Receipt of Approval: 18/04/2015 (Letter dated 15/04/2015)
Date of Ceremony: Waiting

Time Taken: 4 months 18 days roughly
HO requested my passport mid March 2015 for the duration covering from 2009 till 2011. Posted it right away.
Best of luck to all December 2014 applicants as these seems to be coming through now.

Application Timeline :
Eligibility criteria: 5 yrs (Tier 1) + 1 yr ILR
Method of application: Postal
Date of Application: 26 March 2015 Postal(Reached 27th March Liverpool)
Date of receipt by UKBA: 27 March 2015
Date of debit of fees: 14 April 2015
Date of receipt of acknowledgement: 17 April 2015
Date of receipt of approval: no
Date of Ceremony: no

Application Timeline
Eligibility criteria: EEA National ( Romania ) exercising treaty rights (4 yrs student + 2 1/2 yrs work) , no PR card
Language criteria met: Life in the UK Test & UK Bachelor's degree certificate
Method of application: NCS Southwark
Date of Application: 29th Jan 15
Date of receipt by UKBA: don't know
Date of debit of fees: 2nd Feb 15
Date of receipt of acknowledgement: not completely sure, around 6th Feb
Date of receipt of approval: 16th April 15 (letter dated 13th April)
Date of Ceremony: 26th May 15 (was offered closer dates but wasn't available for them)

I also got a letter 24th Feb asking for extra proof of comprehensive health insurance while I was a student. I had only sent them a UK Ehic card as per the NCS's instructions. I further sent back the extra proof on 11th March. So maybe having all documents might have sped things up, but still good enough time I think at 2 months and a half.

Have applied at the same time with my fiance but on separate single applications, but all communication from Home Office came in just one letter for both of us.

Just wanted to thank everyone who posted here as I've been following the thread quite closely sometimes, and hope that my info might be helpful to someone else!

Application Timeline
Eligibility criteria: Initially on Ancestry Visa, ILR since 2006 (Been in UK for 13 years, just didn't get around to applying til now)
Language criteria met: Life in the UK Test & Australian Citizenship
Method of application: NCS Bedford
Date of Application: 15th Jan 15
Date of receipt by UKBA: 22 Jan 15
Date of debit of fees: don't remember
Date of receipt of acknowledgement: don't remember
Date of receipt of approval: letter dated 30 January 2015
Date of Ceremony: 5 March 2015

Whole thing was obviously pretty fast for me. I'm wondering if the following things made it easier to approve me?
* Same address for last 10 years and on electoral role the whole period (Commonwealth citizens who are resident can enrol to vote)
* Same employer for last 12.5 years, with self-assessment tax submitted every year. Also, I'm required as working in the NHS to have three yearly Criminal record checks, so I guess there's the history of all that somewhere as well which might have reduced the amount of checks required?
* No name changes

Who knows? Good luck to others - hope it's as easy as I found it.

GrandBang wrote:FINALLY !!!!!

Eligibility criteria: 5 YEARS + 3YEAR ILR
Language criteria met: Life in The UK+B1 English
Method of application: NCS (Hammersmith and Fulham)
Date of application: 12/12/2014
Payment method: Credit Card
Date of receipt by UKBA: 19/12/2014
Date of acknowlegment: 19/12/2014
Date of debit or clearance of fees: 22/12/2014
Date approval received: 17/04/2015 (dated 11/04/2015)
Date of ceremony: Waiting

My journey with you guys ends here. I truly and sincerely hope all the very best to everyone.

congratulations GrandBang, well done.
My acknowledgement letter date is 23rd DEC, i applied 17th or 18th dec by post.
May be my one is on its way too.

huqqapani wrote:APPROVED

Eligibility Criteria: 10 Long residence + 1 year ILR
Language Criteria Met: Life in UK + UK University certificate
Method of Application: NCS (Carlton, Notts)
Date of Application: 3rd December 2014
Date of Receipt by Home Office: Waiting
Date of Debit of Fees: Credit Card - 11/12/2014
Date of Receipt of Acknowledgement: 17/12/2014
Date of Receipt of Approval: 18/04/2015 (Letter dated 15/04/2015)
Date of Ceremony: Waiting

Time Taken: 4 months 18 days roughly
HO requested my passport mid March 2015 for the duration covering from 2009 till 2011. Posted it right away.
Best of luck to all December 2014 applicants as these seems to be coming through now.

congratulations, well done
looks like they start touching DEC applications

Eligibility Criteria: UKM
Method of Application: Courier to UKVI Liverpool
Date of Sending Application: 20/04/2015
Date of Application Delivery: Waiting
Date of Receipt by Home Office: Waiting
Date of Debit of Fees: Waiting
Date of Receipt of Acknowledgement: Waiting
Date of Receipt of Approval: Waiting
Date of Ceremony: Waiting

[quote="scbanu"]Eligibility Criteria : Married to a British Citizen (ILR obtained based on Tier 1 General)
Language criteria : Life in the UK test + Degree recognized on PBS
Method of application: NCS Redbridge
Date of application: 13 Jan 2015
Payment method: Credit Card
Date of receipt by UKBA: 15 Jan 2015 (Tracked via Royal Mail website)
Date of debit or clearance of fees: 21-Jan-2015
Date of acknowledgment: 30-Jan-2015
Date approval received: 08-Apr-2015
Date of ceremony: 16-Apr-2015

There are only 106 case workers who deal with thousands of applications received every month.

Eligibility Criteria: UKM
Method of Application: Courier to UKVI Liverpool
Date of Sending Application: 20/04/2015
Date of Application Delivery: 21/04/2105 (Signed for at Mail Room)
Date of Receipt by Home Office: Waiting
Date of Debit of Fees: Waiting
Date of Receipt of Acknowledgement: Waiting
Date of Receipt of Approval: Waiting
Date of Ceremony: Waiting

Assuming 7000 applications per month, that's 3 per day per person. Seems like a reasonable number of employees.

JamesBrodie wrote:Assuming 7000 applications per month, that's 3 per day per person. Seems like a reasonable number of employees.

Just in December they received more than 9000 applications. If they really had reasonable number of employees then people should not have been waiting for longer than 6 months.

Given that my application was approved within a couple of weeks, the six month wait in some cases doesn't seem to be simply about a backlog issue (unless they have an initial screen and deal with simple applications quickly and shelve the complicated ones to a big waiting pile maybe?)

I wonder if there's something about how long it takes to get relevant information from various other agencies/departments slowing them down? Maybe there's a difference in how efficient different staff are at tracking down and co-coordinating the range of information needed in more complicated applications.

I wonder if there would also be cases where legal opinion needs to be sought to make a decision and those cases are backlogged (having read through some of the trickier cases on here where there have been periods of illegal residency, complicated asylum/refugee status etc).

I have to say there are very few days I don't feel humbled and lucky to have been born into a first world country (Australia) with the right to live and work in the UK through ancestry initially. I wish all the best to any of you who have had to struggle through very tough conditions to try and establish a life in a relatively safe and prosperous country with education and health available to all. We're all citizens of the same planet, after all.

The reason why more recent applications are taking weeks, and older applications are taking months is so UKVI can skew the statistics in their favour to reach their "6 month" target. Im sure you can do the relevant maths to workout how this can benefit them, but for example if someone were to ask what was the averaging processing time for applications between july last year and march this year it'd probably come out as 2-3 months

Update

Application Timeline
Eligibility criteria: 6yr(WP/Tier 2) + 2yr ILR
Method of application: NCS Bracknell Borough
English qualification : Life in the UK & ESOL B3
Date of application : 16 March 2015
Date of receipt by UKBA: 18 March 2015 (from NCS postal services)
Date of debit of fees: CC - 24 March 2015
Date of receipt of acknowledgement: 25 March 2015 (email)
Date of receipt of approval: 15 April 2015 (by post)
Date of Ceremony: 20 May 2015 @ Reading

Hi all,

my appliciation got approved last week and I am waiting for citizenship ceremony invitation letter from HO. I called local council and their next ceremony date is in June.

I didn't specify any other authority in my naturalisation application so on that basis HO will chose my local council for ceremony. Does that mean that I Have to go to local council or can I go to a different council.

Eligibility criteria: Spouse of BC
Language criteria met (UK degree, exempt countries, PBS used documents, NARIC, or B1 test): Life in the UK , B1 Test.
Current nationality: Pakistani
Method of application: NCS
Council name if NCS used: Halifax.
Date of application: 03-03-2015
Payment method CC/DC, Personal cheque, Bankers cheque etc: DC
Date of receipt by UKBA: 5-03-2015
Date of acknowledgment: 13-03-2015 ( Letter dated 10-03-2015 )
Date of debit or clearance of fees: 11-03-2015
Date approval received: Waiting
Date of ceremony:

hi all
receive a letter from casework today request for my passport to be send to them by the given date, but I have already add all my passport pages fotocopes with my application, my question now is has anyone experience this before

bubu12 wrote:hi all
receive a letter from casework today request for my passport to be send to them by the given date, but I have already add all my passport pages fotocopes with my application, my question now is has anyone experience this before

Thats normal and a good sign, it means that ur case is with the case worker and probably will be decided soon after u send the documents requested.

bubu12 wrote:hi all
receive a letter from casework today request for my passport to be send to them by the given date, but I have already add all my passport pages fotocopes with my application, my question now is has anyone experience this before

If you sent the application yourself (not via NCS) and only sent photocopy of your passport then they need the original passport. It's on the list of required items I guess.

If you sent it via NCS then they shouldn't ask for original copy as the photocopies are certified by the NCS agent.

Good luck with your application and hope you get your approval soon after you send your passport.

waiz89k wrote:

bubu12 wrote:hi all
receive a letter from casework today request for my passport to be send to them by the given date, but I have already add all my passport pages fotocopes with my application, my question now is has anyone experience this before

Thats normal and a good sign, it means that ur case is with the case worker and probably will be decided soon after u send the documents requested.

Thanks to all of you, I've sent it off already finger Cross

bubu12 wrote:

waiz89k wrote:

bubu12 wrote:hi all
receive a letter from casework today request for my passport to be send to them by the given date, but I have already add all my passport pages fotocopes with my application, my question now is has anyone experience this before

Thats normal and a good sign, it means that ur case is with the case worker and probably will be decided soon after u send the documents requested.

Thanks to all of you, I've sent it off already finger Cross

When did u apply?