Child's Passport application going through standard checks

[Ekta_GD]

Hello forum members, we applied for my 2 year old daughter's naturalisation and passport(JCAP) on the 2nd of May 2017 via NCS Waltham Forest. She was born in UK and her dad got ILR in April this year. So her criteria in the MN1 form was 1(3). Her naturalisation decision was made on the 18th of September and we received her approval and registration certificate on the 23rd of September. From looking at the MN1 timelines here, I thought the passport will follow soon after that is in a day or two or at least within a week. It has been more than 2 weeks now and when we called them to find some info, all they say is 'application is undergoing standard checks.' Has anyone else here faced something similar? Her citizenship already took 5 months and we are really desperate to travel now. The passport office's non-committal replies are scaring me. Does anyone know how long these standard checks take for a 2 year old child born in the UK? This never ending wait for my daughter's passport is quite exhausting.

Thanks for any help.

[plabo]

See my post below, might be of help to you

british-citizenship/mn1-certificate-not ... l#p1512984

[Trabant]

The whole process is extremely interresting for me anyway. Forgive me that I do add this here but I am wondering for real what kind of checks do they run anyway for a 2 year old child. As you have menitoned - they did run something for few months during MN1 checks for a small child!!! What can you possibly check there? Parking tickets? Criminal records? .... especially when the child was born in the uk and it is 2 Y.O.!! I am awaiting a decision for my 2 small children and I am really wondering what can you check?! Does anyone have any ideas?

[JAJ]

Why kind of checks? Obviously- they need to check ID, that the person making the application is the same person as the person referred to on the documents. They need to verify that the applicant is a British citizen, or British national, as the case may be. There are other checks which vary case by case- ensuring that the name on the passport is consistent with any other passports held, verifying that the person has not renounced British nationality, checking that there is no bar on the individual holding a British passport, and so on.

The persons answering the phone may not have any information about actual processing of the application and "standard checks" may be a standard response to finish the call and get to the next call. Regarding processing time- even if all the checks work out, there is a process involved in making passports and there is scope for a possible delay at any stage.

[baddy]

Why kind of checks? Obviously- they need to check ID, that the person making the application is the same person as the person referred to on the documents. They need to verify that the applicant is a British citizen, or British national, as the case may be. There are other checks which vary case by case- ensuring that the name on the passport is consistent with any other passports held, verifying that the person has not renounced British nationality, checking that there is no bar on the individual holding a British passport, and so on.

The persons answering the phone may not have any information about actual processing of the application and "standard checks" may be a standard response to finish the call and get to the next call. Regarding processing time- even if all the checks work out, there is a process involved in making passports and there is scope for a possible delay at any stage.

I dont agree with any of your points at all. What checks are they doing that they have not done during the MN1 consideration? Isn't that the reason they said you dont have to get referees for your passport application when using JCAP? Some of these case workers/staff are just lazy and not doing the right thing at the right time.

[Ekta_GD]

Agree with most of the points above. Those were exactly the thoughts going through my head and frustrating me. I even tried to ask them what checks could you possibly be doing on a 2 year old that is taking so long. Criminal records? tax history? Which is why I felt the Standard checks reason is just a vague response they have. The whole helpline is so useless and they charge like 1.44 gbp per minute.

[Ekta_GD]

Why kind of checks? Obviously- they need to check ID, that the person making the application is the same person as the person referred to on the documents. They need to verify that the applicant is a British citizen, or British national, as the case may be. There are other checks which vary case by case- ensuring that the name on the passport is consistent with any other passports held, verifying that the person has not renounced British nationality, checking that there is no bar on the individual holding a British passport, and so on.

The persons answering the phone may not have any information about actual processing of the application and "standard checks" may be a standard response to finish the call and get to the next call. Regarding processing time- even if all the checks work out, there is a process involved in making passports and there is scope for a possible delay at any stage.

Wouldn't those checks be already done in the 5 months they took to process her citizenship application?

[Ekta_GD]

So latest update is this. I found a new number at the bottom of the customer support emails and decided to call that one yesterday(03001231973). Luckily for me the lady I spoke to this time was helpful and actually looked up the reference number and told me they haven't been informed by UKVI about her citizenship approval. Once UKVI approves the citizenship, they need to pass on that information to HM Passport Office to issue the passport. So we were asked to call UKVI and ask them to inform HMPO about the citizenship approval for my daughter so they could issue the passport. When we called UKVI they asked us to contact the NCS where we made the application from. So we contacted the lady at NCS with whom we had our JCAP appointment. She then contacted the UKVI directly and UKVI told her they had 'FORGOTTEN' to trigger the passport issuance process after the citizenship approval and asked her to send their apologies to us. They said they have now triggered the passport issue process and it should be with us in 3-4 days. So all this while being told to wait out the maximum period of 3 weeks before we even contacted them and then being told it is going through standard checks while they had simply 'FORGOTTEN' to do their job correctly while we wait anxiously for her passport and not being able to travel anywhere even when it was urgent.

[baddy]

You see! That confirmed what I said earlier. Laziness on the part of the case worker. Isn't triggeriing passport issuance part of the checklist they use in determining peoples' application? They forgot indeed! Only God knows how many people they have forgotten to treat their applications.

Welldone ma. Happy you sorted it out.

[JAJ]

Good that it was resolved. It does indicate that the JCAP process isn't failsafe. Although in fairness- 2 weeks after citizenship ceremony was not so far outside standard timescales.

[Ekta_GD]

Good that it was resolved. It does indicate that the JCAP process isn't failsafe. Although in fairness- 2 weeks after citizenship ceremony was not so far outside standard timescales.

She is a 2 year old. So she never had any ceremony and its not fair they ask us to wait out the maximum time allowed while they make a mistake internally. So we are losing time unnecessarily.