Slower visa processing in UK

Just wondering, why VISA processing from UK is 100% slower than most of the countries?. Is it due to slow work culture of UK?. Or UKBA (UK border agency) is lazy? or they have strict quota per month/week which they are required process every month/week?. Any answers/ reason

GB09 wrote:Just wondering, why VISA processing from UK is 100% slower than most of the countries?. Is it due to slow work culture of UK?. Or UKBA (UK border agency) is lazy? or they have strict quota per month/week which they are required process every month/week?. Any answers/ reason

Honestly, it is a million dollar question that is difficult to answer. One would have thought when in-UK-visa-application fees were introduced 8 years ago, service standards would improve drastically.

GB09, let say the UKBA is suffering from bureaucracillia. Where on earth have you seen an efficient bureaucracy?

Actually they are in very bad financial crisis and don't want any Non-EU to enter UK, as they think that 'immigration' and 'illegal workers' are 2 of the biggest reasons behind this crisis.

But at another side of the picture, at the moment, the major thing which is giving some Spam to dying British economy is 'Visa', as their is a big contribution of visa fee and overseas people spending in UK economic cycle.

So actually they got confused on every application. If they allow somebody, either immigration or visitor, it may be an increase to work force, either legal or illegal, and if they reject visa application they will lose a major business.

derlin wrote:

GB09 wrote:Just wondering, why VISA processing from UK is 100% slower than most of the countries?. Is it due to slow work culture of UK?. Or UKBA (UK border agency) is lazy? or they have strict quota per month/week which they are required process every month/week?. Any answers/ reason

Honestly, it is a million dollar question that is difficult to answer. One would have thought when in-UK-visa-application fees were introduced 8 years ago, service standards would improve drastically.

GB09, let say the UKBA is suffering from bureaucracillia. Where on earth have you seen an efficient bureaucracy?

Visa processing from uk ia laughable':lol:' . I sometimes wonder, is this a joke! . 2 weeks to wait for biometric processing and after that 14 weeks wait to get passport back from so called UKBA. Total 16 weeks or more to get passport back. The above facts are so called normal by UKBA, it could also take more time. More people are stuck within uk with uncertainty than outside to get in UK. Thanks to UKBA.

GB09 wrote:

derlin wrote:

GB09 wrote:Just wondering, why VISA processing from UK is 100% slower than most of the countries?. Is it due to slow work culture of UK?. Or UKBA (UK border agency) is lazy? or they have strict quota per month/week which they are required process every month/week?. Any answers/ reason

Honestly, it is a million dollar question that is difficult to answer. One would have thought when in-UK-visa-application fees were introduced 8 years ago, service standards would improve drastically.

GB09, let say the UKBA is suffering from bureaucracillia. Where on earth have you seen an efficient bureaucracy?

Visa processing from uk ia laughable':lol:' . I sometimes wonder, is this a joke! . 2 weeks to wait for biometric processing and after that 14 weeks wait to get passport back from so called UKBA. Total 16 weeks or more to get passport back. The above facts are so called normal by UKBA, it could also take more time. More people are stuck within uk with uncertainty than outside to get in UK. Thanks to UKBA.

Very Well said . I am stucked here and cant move although i need to urgently go back home for something imp . And they dont even give any status or if they require something they can alway ask but never heard from anyone .

applelover wrote:

GB09 wrote:

derlin wrote:

GB09 wrote:Just wondering, why VISA processing from UK is 100% slower than most of the countries?. Is it due to slow work culture of UK?. Or UKBA (UK border agency) is lazy? or they have strict quota per month/week which they are required process every month/week?. Any answers/ reason

Honestly, it is a million dollar question that is difficult to answer. One would have thought when in-UK-visa-application fees were introduced 8 years ago, service standards would improve drastically.

GB09, let say the UKBA is suffering from bureaucracillia. Where on earth have you seen an efficient bureaucracy?

Visa processing from uk ia laughable':lol:' . I sometimes wonder, is this a joke! . 2 weeks to wait for biometric processing and after that 14 weeks wait to get passport back from so called UKBA. Total 16 weeks or more to get passport back. The above facts are so called normal by UKBA, it could also take more time. More people are stuck within uk with uncertainty than outside to get in UK. Thanks to UKBA.

Very Well said . I am stucked here and cant move although i need to urgently go back home for something imp . And they dont even give any status or if they require something they can alway ask but never heard from anyone .

Lots of people like you have been waiting for decision on their application for a long time. Unfortunately, unlike in other countries where the visa processing is sub-contracted to private company, within uk, the UKBA which is part of UK govt. directly processes all visa applications. Well, what more could you expect from a govt. agency. There are always lots of reasons to delay things, red-tape, paper works, interferences of their political masters. So the work standard of the agency is not that great.

Have patience. Hope for the positive outcome. All the best!.

Thanks everyone for the answer. The whole process took little less than 2 months. Congrats to those who get their passport back and good luck to those who made their application and have not heard from Bigboss yet.

GB09 wrote: Thanks everyone for the answer. The whole process took little less than 2 months. Congrats to those who get their passport back and good luck to those who made their application and have not heard from Bigboss yet.

I have applied in Oct , did my Biomatrics on 2/11/2011 . Its been more than 3 months i havent heard anything form UKBA,
I wrote to them , i wrote to MP , etc in the end they just send me a letter that they will forward my request to the relavent department etc
I told my college but they said that they cannot write to UKBA because it is not legal .
Can u kindly suggest me what really should i do as i really need some advice as i need my passport and documents back soon ...

thank you

applelover wrote:

GB09 wrote: Thanks everyone for the answer. The whole process took little less than 2 months. Congrats to those who get their passport back and good luck to those who made their application and have not heard from Bigboss yet.

I have applied in Oct , did my Biomatrics on 2/11/2011 . Its been more than 3 months i havent heard anything form UKBA,
I wrote to them , i wrote to MP , etc in the end they just send me a letter that they will forward my request to the relavent department etc
I told my college but they said that they cannot write to UKBA because it is not legal .
Can u kindly suggest me what really should i do as i really need some advice as i need my passport and documents back soon ...

thank you

You have done the right things so far. I'm afraid there's very little you can do apart from waiting.

The only thing left is hunger-strike at Hyde Park or Trafalgar Square.

Hi all,
Even I'm in the same situation..I applied for student extension in august but got back as invalid as ukba could not able to take fees...so again I send it back within 3 days with confirmation letter from bank....this was in September....then in October they send me BRP letter...finished the process...nd nt heard anything since then....now I hot my degree nd eligible for PSW

On jan 5th I wrote letter to MP ...they had send letter to ukba on my behalf(I have copy of the letter)...nd on 2nd feb ukba gave reply to them saying that "appli is valid and it is under process with the case worker" nd did not tell how long it is going to take....

I think they may hold all the applications who applied for extension and send them back to students after April probably, so that who ever is waiting to apply for PSW cannot do it ....I think they are playing a game with students in this way.....
Waiting waiting waiting ...... Pls post if I can do anything more ...I'm ready for hunger strike...

The longest wait for a visa was for applicants to go to the USA from Vietnam to join their family members..........

27 years!

Cannot find that list at the moment but here is a link that says that people from one country are currently waiting for 11 years and others longer.

http://www.travel.state.gov/pdf/WaitingListItem.pdf

Rose6363 wrote:Hi all,
Even I'm in the same situation..I applied for student extension in august but got back as invalid as ukba could not able to take fees...so again I send it back within 3 days with confirmation letter from bank....this was in September....then in October they send me BRP letter...finished the process...nd nt heard anything since then....now I hot my degree nd eligible for PSW

On jan 5th I wrote letter to MP ...they had send letter to ukba on my behalf(I have copy of the letter)...nd on 2nd feb ukba gave reply to them saying that "appli is valid and it is under process with the case worker" nd did not tell how long it is going to take....

I think they may hold all the applications who applied for extension and send them back to students after April probably, so that who ever is waiting to apply for PSW cannot do it ....I think they are playing a game with students in this way.....
Waiting waiting waiting ...... Pls post if I can do anything more ...I'm ready for hunger strike...

Rose6363,
I understand your agonising wait. In my opinion, UKBA don't care a bit about the needs of applicants.

U may be correct....but those countries are not changing the timeline whenever they want just to throw away the migrants from their country.....as Uk doing it nw..from minimum 3months time to issue visa to 6months and also not responding to any of the enquireis abt the progress of appli...and some students are even waiting for more than 6 months which is ukba timeline for today....dnt knw they may even Change it by 2nrw morning from 6months to 1yr....

I'm sorry if I'm wrong...

Last post...@ paper pusher

@derlin

I know but...it's too painful to wait like this..to be frank..... daily I'm waiting for postman if he could get anything from ukba...

.....no one can predit it future except if you are God.

1 Go back to ur country
2 Wait
3 will return passport to the owner. No government nor anyone wants foreign passport except if you are secret agent or top secret = =

Rose6363 wrote:U may be correct....but those countries are not changing the timeline whenever they want just to throw away the migrants from their country.....as Uk doing it nw..from minimum 3months time to issue visa to 6months and also not responding to any of the enquireis abt the progress of appli...and some students are even waiting for more than 6 months which is ukba timeline for today....dnt knw they may even Change it by 2nrw morning from 6months to 1yr....

I'm sorry if I'm wrong...

i applied for the visa on 28 Sep 2011, i am still waiting, i send them couple of letter but no any response, i called them they saying under process..
even the saying we are not sure when it will complete.
Now they saying their is no any time limit to process the application in the UK

sabir111 wrote:i applied for the visa on 28 Sep 2011, i am still waiting, i send them couple of letter but no any response, i called them they saying under process..
even the saying we are not sure when it will complete.
Now they saying their is no any time limit to process the application in the UK

What visa did you apply for?

I think it is not slow comparing to other countries.

In USA it often takes longer.

In UK, it is sometimes slow, sometimes fast.

I noticed when conservatives won election it was very fast for first year, then it's getting slower and slower. Probably because of cuts.

I think it is slow in all countries. And immigration laws get stricter. Generally it becomes easier to travel for citizens of developed countries but harder for citizens of developing (or undeveloped?) countries.

GB09 wrote:Just wondering, why VISA processing from UK is 100% slower than most of the countries?. Is it due to slow work culture of UK?. Or UKBA (UK border agency) is lazy? or they have strict quota per month/week which they are required process every month/week?. Any answers/ reason

Do you have any evidence for this, or it just looks that way to you? I haven't applied anywhere else so I would also like to know.

To those who requires Tier 4 extension. I can only advise them to apply through their corresponding University visa processing batch scheme. In that way, the university literally check your application before they send your application to UKBA. Try to use this facility wherever you can. Also get postal order from post office to pay for the application fee, you may spend few hours at the post office to get postal order, but that would save you weeks of processing from UKBA. Basically, as i have heard, UKBA start processing on the same day if you pay application fee by postal order. And the last and most important thing is; hope for the best and the best thing would happen to you. Relax and enjoy the process.