Post
by Vadrar » Tue Feb 06, 2024 12:00 am
You should have got, or will get, an automated email with a reference number. At some point (3 months or so) you may - or may not- get another email saying your application has started processing. As I say you may or may not get the second email, it isn’t clear this is done for everyone but it won’t affect your application if you don’t get it.
The next step is likely evetting. You could wait up to 2 years for this, that would be entirely normal. Or it may come within 6 months. No-one can predict it, and the timeline for other applications means nothing for yours- they vary wildly for no good reason.
Processing time (to decision) is still given as 19 months. Invitation to ceremony and receipt of certificate can be another 6 or 9 months beyond that. Or it could be just two months- it’s totally erratic.
You could get a request for additional documents at any point. Evetting does not mean your application has been reviewed for sufficient documents. Additional docs requests can add 6 months on to common processing times.
All that said, we are hoping that improvements to the processing will see quicker processing times than above, but we haven’t seen it yet. The department is still dealing with backlog including applications from 2021. Any process improvements will be stifled until they’ve sufficiently caught up and they process at least as many in a year as they receive. At the moment they are still processing fewer than they receive but there is hope that will change this year.
