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I just don't quite get why some take months and months and others are so fast. Have we found a pattern?

Assuming an application has come from the NCS, which most on this forum have, then that means that all the paperwork is in order and the criteria are met. I know there are some checks that need to be done, such as criminal ones and whatnot, but once that is done (which I guess would take about the same about of time for most people), what delays an application? Surely if somebody meets all the requirements, regardless of the way they meet them, every application is decently 'straightforward' - the requirements have been met and all is in order, so what is left?

The only thing I could think of is if extra checks are done for 'high risk' countries, but it seems recently anyway that people from all over, including other EU countries, are having applications take a good long time.

Any thoughts?

Julian11 wrote: Any thoughts?

Yes, one. You have way too much free time on your hands buddy

Julian11 wrote:I just don't quite get why some take months and months and others are so fast. Have we found a pattern?

From just this forum, there is an obvious pattern of applicants who assume their application is 'straightforward', and then later drop a little bomb of information as to what actually might be holding things up.

Julian11 wrote:Assuming an application has come from the NCS, which most on this forum have,

This is not a valid assumption. In fact, I would probably assume the opposite. Several of the most recent timeline threads have an excel sheet that a contributor (bless you) has put together. I know for sure the March 2014 thread does. You could go through these to get a general idea of the actual percentage, assuming ofcourse that people who post here are a fair representation.

Julian11 wrote:then that means that all the paperwork is in order and the criteria are met.

Actually this is where things would seem to fall over, if/when the details do ever come out on this forum. Typically a case worker will come across a document whose validity, for whatever reason, is in question. Even if everything is just fine and checks out later on, I suspect this shoves that application right to back of the queue, if not an entirely different queue altogether. One common thing tripping people up recently is the new stricter language requirements in combination with the Home Office crackdown on English certificate factories.

Julian11 wrote:I know there are some checks that need to be done, such as criminal ones and whatnot, but once that is done (which I guess would take about the same about of time for most people), what delays an application?

'...and whatnot...' can be a surprisingly robust set of circumstances, including questionable residency, identity problems (multiple name changes, poor quality documents, and so on...), problems with referees, suspect criminal/social behavior that did not necessarily involve a conviction/caution, etc, etc...

Julian11 wrote:Surely if somebody meets all the requirements, regardless of the way they meet them, every application is decently 'straightforward' - the requirements have been met and all is in order, so what is left?

It is safest to assume that no application, not your own, not anybody's, is 'straightforward'. Because really, only a case worker will feel that way personally. I don't think there is a professional standard. There are just too many variables.

Julian11 wrote:The only thing I could think of is if extra checks are done for 'high risk' countries, but it seems recently anyway that people from all over, including other EU countries, are having applications take a good long time.

Any thoughts?

Well this last point is very specific. There are a lot of things that can stutter an otherwise genuine eventually successful application. On this particular point though, it is not so much high risk countries as much as questionable behavior. Let's say you have multiple arrests in the last few years for public drunkenness and disorderly conduct, but you are never convicted or even given a caution. This is likely to draw extra scrutiny irrespective what any of us might feel about the matter. If you have friends who are known terrorists, despite the fact that you yourself are not such a person or was even aware that they were involved in those activities, and your name has been mentioned by them to some authority or you've mentioned knowing them in any immigration related interview ever, it could take years to clear that up.

I also suspect (although without evidence) that BC processing staff may have been seconded to reduce the huge backlog of passport applications. After all, they had to come from somewhere!

Interesting comments everyone!

One thing I thought maybe could result in delays is if the home office contacts your original country. But then I thought - 200k applications a year, I can't imagine they'd do that, if only for the fact that many of the other countries would probably take months, or not cooperate/bother answering at all, etc. I don't imagine too many would want to use up their time and resources to help the UK with its own nationality decisions.

Julian11 wrote:I don't imagine too many would want to use up their time and resources to help the UK with its own nationality decisions.

Agreed, although most countries will cooperate with each other on issues regarding capital crimes, crimes against the government, crimes against humanity, and terrorism. Also, if there are questions about military service (there are some restrictions for when/if you can apply in this case), I could see the UK delaying an application until they got feedback from a foreign government no matter how long they had to wait.

Just out of curiosity since that one is new to me, what are the military service thing? All I remember seeing in the guidance is that you may still have to do it if you retain your other citizenship and they require it, but nothing beyond that.

I don't think HO does any extraordinary checks on most applications for 2 reasons:

1) there are 200,000 a year of them, and the staff is limited. That's about 800 applications per working day!
2) More importantly, the unit costs for naturalization applications are surprisingly modest, at 144 pounds. For comparison, their cost to process a simple visitor's visa is only slightly less, 115 pounds. Strikingly, Tier 2 visa is more expensive: 173 pounds. Tier 1 general is 242 pounds, ILR is 248 pounds.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... l_2014.pdf

I think the main reason why naturalization applications take so long is staff shortages, especially after the passport backlog problems earlier this year.

Julian11 wrote:Just out of curiosity since that one is new to me, what are the military service thing? All I remember seeing in the guidance is that you may still have to do it if you retain your other citizenship and they require it, but nothing beyond that.

I can't find any official website on it. But on expat forums I lurk on, several posters have mentioned not being able to apply for citizenship until they reach the age of 40 because they previously served in the military. I suspect this wouldn't apply to people from countries where some form of military service is mandatory unless they extended that duty with voluntary service afterwords.

Ah, I see.

ouflak1 wrote:

Julian11 wrote:I don't imagine too many would want to use up their time and resources to help the UK with its own nationality decisions.

Agreed, although most countries will cooperate with each other on issues regarding capital crimes, crimes against the government, crimes against humanity, and terrorism.

Indeed - so I imagine that such contacts to other countries would be based on Britain's own intelligence and anything they find on interpol/europol. I imagine they check those databases! Beyond extreme cases like that, I guess it is reasonable to think that they don't waste time trying to contact other countries? Can see it as being expensive, time consuming, and not necessarily very informative.

ukswus wrote:I don't think HO does any extraordinary checks on most applications for 2 reasons:

1) there are 200,000 a year of them, and the staff is limited. That's about 800 applications per working day!
2) More importantly, the unit costs for naturalization applications are surprisingly modest, at 144 pounds. For comparison, their cost to process a simple visitor's visa is only slightly less, 115 pounds. Strikingly, Tier 2 visa is more expensive: 173 pounds. Tier 1 general is 242 pounds, ILR is 248 pounds.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... l_2014.pdf

I think the main reason why naturalization applications take so long is staff shortages, especially after the passport backlog problems earlier this year.

The cost thing is interesting. I wonder if it is because most people have gotten ILR beforehand though, and thus there maybe isn't as much to check at this stage? Though EU/EEA applicants that didn't go that route would cost more I guess, if they do then get more checks.

Hi,

In my opinion, the reason for delay could be shortage of staffs. This is logical as 6 - 8 months before, generally the approvals were received on an average 3 weeks time from the date of application and I believe home office must have been going through all the necessary checks same as of now. So my question is how all the necessary checks were earlier completed so fast within 3 weeks and now even 6 months is not enough?
Based on recent delays in naturalization and faster processing of passport, my assumption is possibly some of the naturalization staffs who might have gone for passport backlog clearance are still not back. Delaying in passport application processing means lot of inconvenience to the people generally related to travel and attracts criticism. Therefore, faster processing of passport application is more important than faster processing of naturalization. Moreover, the naturalization application has SLA of 6 months as well.
The frustrating part is that we do not know the ETA of application outcome apart from standard 6 months. There is no way to track the application and this let us feel frustrated. The call centre is also not much helpful as most of the time they deliver the same message to wait for 6 months as SLA is 6 months.
I can also understand that the case worker have to deal with many complex cases which we perceive as simple or straight foreword case. The applicant starts getting frustrated when they finds those people starts are getting outcome who had applied around the same time line. Under this situation applicant start getting impatient and starts querying about his application but unfortunately they do not receive much help from the available means.
Do not take me wrong but I am also in the same boat and may start getting the same situation in a month time and enter to frustration zone..

Here Home Office explicitly confirms the main reason for the delays is shortage of staff due to backlog in passport applications:

Applications for British citizenship rose by 3% to 192,705 in the year ending June 2014. A change in language requirements on 28 October 2013 led to an increase in applications before this change. Subsequently grants also increased in the fourth quarter of 2013 as these cases were decided. Grant levels reduced in the second quarter of 2014 as UKVI resources were used to assist HM Passport Office.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistic ... -june-2014