Have called today to check the status of my application. The lady at the other end kindly refused because it is less than 6 months since I applied.
I also called today to try to ask about my husbands application.
I called 15 times, each time I spent at least 5 minutes on the phone as it rang and rang with intermittent annoncements to be patient as lines were busy then suddenly a messege said something along the lines of (your call has been disconnected). Can I just say my manager was agast at this and said if she was running the call centre she would seriously look into what the heck was going on. On the 16th attempt I got through after 7 minutes and the woman refused to tell me anything as it has not been 6 months. I asked her why my husbands claim was still waiting approval when others who applied 2 months after him were approved and asked why they did not process on date recieved.
She told me that they were supposed to work by date recieved but some applications were very complicated. I explained that my husbands was straightforward, no criminal record, spouse visa, no excess trips outside etc and she could not tell me why so many get stuck in the system. I then raised the issue of the fact I had sent two emails from my government email address to the home office and yet had not even recieved the normal email acknowledgment. (when you email any government department it sends out an automated messege directly telling you thanks for email and they have a certain length of time to reply). She apologised for this and could not understand why especially as it was government organisation to government organisation email.
I just find the whole system totally disorganised. One member of staff will give details before 6 months, one will not. Some get processed before others while some wait almost a year for no reason. If naturalisation was a free service then you would be in no position to complain about the length of time or way they do things but you pay a large fee and at least you should expect consistant service, to be able to at least know where your application is at and not made to feel nervous at picking up the phone.
Maybe working for a government department myself where we have strict deadlines, process on basis of date recieved, have to give information out even if we clearly notify people there is a length of time that things will be dealt with. In my own job one of the expected times of processing something for one department is 3 months however if anyone calls we understand their worry and we give what ever information we can see on the computer system without giving the member of public a telling off and making them call back at the end of the 3 months.
Mistakes do happen and without people calling to check on progress those mistakes do not come to light. Just this week I have found 2 cases that were obviously lost in the system and was able to rectify it, but I would not have known this unless the person called after the 3 months was up.
As I said I am raising these issues with my MP in the hope he can liase with the Minister of Immigration. Without complaints about how the system is run then it will continue to run in a disorganised manner. I am not asking for applications to be quickly processed but what I would like to see is that applicants can at least get updates before the 6 months is up. It takes just a few seconds to access someones application and quickly give an update.
