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Which council for NCS?

Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 9:39 am
by rnr79
I will be applying for my naturalisation in next few weeks. I have been following this forum for months now. There were diffrerent opinions that some councils are faster and efficient and others are bit slow.

I live in London, so any advice on which London council to use would be of great help...

thanks in advance

Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 1:25 pm
by ukpl
I'd go and check councils websites and compare the prices as you may find some are a lot cheaper than the others (for family 2+2 Southwark was the cheapest a few weeks ago).
I wouldn't care about time efficciency and so on as you can't compare individual cases and whether your application is processed by your NCS 1 or 2 days longer doesn't change a thing as you are not in a sprint contest.
Then you also may consider applying by post directly if you have all paperwork done and are eligible as UKBA fees are going to increase significantly in April (the most probably scenario).
Good Luck

Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 3:47 pm
by rnr79
Thanks ukpl.

Yes I am checking most websites to see which one is cheaper :) . I will be eligible at the start of May so unfortunately i will have to pay increased fees.I travel a lot for work so I can not afford to send my passport and send postal application. So I have to apply throguh NCS.

I remember some body on the forum said that for citizenship ceremoney you have to go to same council thoguh which you applied using NCS. Is this right?

Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 3:55 pm
by geriatrix
Form AN -> Q1.21 wrote:If your application is approved, you will need to take part in a citizenship ceremony. The venue will normally be within a local authority area near where you live. If you want to have your ceremony in another area you should give us details of the local authority location below.
Some councils may charge you to attend a citizenship ceremony at their venue if you are not resident within the council's jurisdiction.

Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 11:16 am
by ukpl
rnr79 wrote:I remember some body on the forum said that for citizenship ceremoney you have to go to same council thoguh which you applied using NCS. Is this right?
No. You are expected to attend ceremony in your local council register office.
However, you may opt to use another council - you have to specify which one on application form. But people reported that very often UKBA takes no notice about your wish and send papers to your local council regardless.
Anyway, you will receive letter from UKBA stating which council you will need to contact to arrange ceremony.

Re: Which council for NCS?

Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2011 11:06 pm
by Christophe
rnr79 wrote:I will be applying for my naturalisation in next few weeks. I have been following this forum for months now. There were diffrerent opinions that some councils are faster and efficient and others are bit slow.

I live in London, so any advice on which London council to use would be of great help...

thanks in advance
I think that the only differences that you could (possibly) detect between councils would be the charge levied for the NCS service and how quickly you can get an appointment for the NCS check. Other than that, it can't make much difference: even if one council sent off the applications more quickly than another, that's only going to be a matter of a day or two, which hardly signifies in the overall process.

I think that, in ordinary circumstances, you would attend a ceremony in the council area in which you live, so you can't influence that end of the process (except by moving house, which seems a bit extreme...).

Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 1:02 pm
by kamalin10
Well I tried to book appointment at Crawley, spend half an hour with them on the phone, giving all my details etc only to be told that they “will be in contactâ€

Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2011 3:02 am
by ukpl
kamalin10 wrote:one problem though – they won’t give availability dates over email, have to spend time on the phone which is just inconvenient for me.
Wandsworth council has online booking system - available timeslots are bolded, you select exact date on the screen, then exact hour, then you pay and receive confirmation email.
And they are cheaper than my local council which offer only telephone booking.