Citizenship Ceremony cancelled due to Covid-19

[rayyfar]

Thankyou so much

[beaujam90]

Hi ! I just called my council, they said the HO has again stopped sending certificates until further notice.
Mine was due to arrive this week.

[BoyTed]

Not a long post today...
Just pure appreciation.
Finally, I'm British.

Thank you all.
From the bottom of my heart.

Congrats Mr Iyamu happy for you.

[BoyTed]

Hi ! I just called my council, they said the HO has again stopped sending certificates until further notice.
Mine was due to arrive this week.

thats sad news.
I guess if that's the case then October is out of reach.
I think we will be extremely lucky to get through this especially now the country is seeing cv19 cases rise it's everyone's guess things can get out of hand and we can go in lockdown.

[Ade1111]

Afternoon All,

My ceremony letter also just arrived! It went to my solicitor and it was dated 10th September and HO sent it out with 2nd class post which added to the delay. Anyway, I have called up my council (Richmond Upon Thames) and they are very efficient. My ceremony is now booked for next Tuesday on Microsoft TEAMS.

My timeline is applied 17th March and approved via email on 21st May.

Good luck to everyone still waiting!

[nnn15]

Hi ! I just called my council, they said the HO has again stopped sending certificates until further notice.
Mine was due to arrive this week.

thats sad news.
I guess if that's the case then October is out of reach.
I think we will be extremely lucky to get through this especially now the country is seeing cv19 cases rise it's everyone's guess things can get out of hand and we can go in lockdown.

That was expected though. I'm sad that the alternative way (virtual ceremonies) doesn't seem to work and that several months available weren't used to send all the certificates such that the councils could deal with it.

[baybars1]

Afternoon All,

My ceremony letter also just arrived! It went to my solicitor and it was dated 10th September and HO sent it out with 2nd class post which added to the delay. Anyway, I have called up my council (Richmond Upon Thames) and they are very efficient. My ceremony is now booked for next Tuesday on Microsoft TEAMS.

My timeline is applied 17th March and approved via email on 21st May.

Good luck to everyone still waiting!

Thanks for the heads up. Updated my model with this and no material changes, your info is in line with other May approvals I have seen on this threads.

Approval Date - Letter date - - - Letter arrives
08/06/2020 - - - 19/09/2020 - - - 09/10/2020
15/06/2020 - - - 23/09/2020 - - - 13/10/2020
22/06/2020 - - - 28/09/2020 - - - 18/10/2020
01/07/2020 - - - 01/10/2020 - - - 21/10/2020
08/07/2020 - - - 06/10/2020 - - - 26/10/2020
15/07/2020 - - - 08/10/2020 - - - 28/10/2020
22/07/2020 - - - 13/10/2020 - - - 02/11/2020
29/07/2020 - - - 16/10/2020 - - - 05/11/2020
01/08/2020 - - - 19/10/2020 - - - 08/11/2020
08/08/2020 - - - 21/10/2020 - - - 10/11/2020
15/08/2020 - - - 26/10/2020 - - - 15/11/2020
22/08/2020 - - - 28/10/2020 - - - 17/11/2020
29/08/2020 - - - 02/11/2020 - - - 22/11/2020
01/09/2020 - - - 03/11/2020 - - - 23/11/2020
08/09/2020 - - - 06/11/2020 - - - 26/11/2020
15/09/2020 - - - 10/11/2020 - - - 30/11/2020
22/09/2020 - - - 14/11/2020 - - - 04/12/2020
29/09/2020 - - - 17/11/2020 - - - 07/12/2020
31/10/2020 - - - 03/12/2020 - - - 23/12/2020
30/11/2020 - - - 19/12/2020 - - - 08/01/2021
31/12/2020 - - - 05/01/2021 - - - 25/01/2021

[mdiqbal]

UPDATE - fixed the formula in B6 to refer to correct rows

A quick and simple Excel model for approval-ceremony date relationship. Disclaimer: this is only as good as the data and assumptions underpinning it

If I've followed these instructions correctly then approval date via letter was 14th July and that has brought out a date of 8th October so shoudl expect to receive end of October.

Hi mo12,
Which council are you from?

[baybars1]

Hi ! I just called my council, they said the HO has again stopped sending certificates until further notice.
Mine was due to arrive this week.

thats sad news.
I guess if that's the case then October is out of reach.
I think we will be extremely lucky to get through this especially now the country is seeing cv19 cases rise it's everyone's guess things can get out of hand and we can go in lockdown.

That was expected though. I'm sad that the alternative way (virtual ceremonies) doesn't seem to work and that several months available weren't used to send all the certificates such that the councils could deal with it.

I've called the Home Office and, apparently, they are still sticking with the deadline of the end of this month for clearing the backlog of approvals granted prior to 7 August 2020. This is broadly consistent with my model, so I am not binning it just yet.

On a separate note, I doubt that a full lockdown, like the one imposed in March, is going to be introduced in the coming months because it would badly hurt the already weakened economy. They are more likely to further restrict people's freedom to hang out with those from different households than go and close all non-essential shops and public services, where social distancing and wearing of masks has reduced the risk of infection anyway.

While citizenship ceremonies are hardly a priority for this Government, they could consider outsourcing virtual ceremonies to a commercial provider, i.e. take councils out of the equation and send certificates to citizens directly, upon completion of the ceremony, much like printed passport booklets are sent directly to the applicants, not their respective local councils. Besides, I am sure that there are service providers who would do a five-minute video call for the juicy fee of £100+ per applicant. They had already outsourced acquisition of biometric data, where fees tend to be £100+ for paid in-person appointments, and doing something similar for citizenship ceremonies would be a logical (and, better still, a socially-distanced) application of an established practice.

[uuee6543]

I've called the Home Office and, apparently, they are still sticking with the deadline of the end of this month for clearing the backlog of approvals granted prior to 7 August 2020. This is broadly consistent with my model, so I am not binning it just yet.

On a separate note, I doubt that a full lockdown, like the one imposed in March, is going to be introduced in the coming months because it would badly hurt the already weakened economy. They are more likely to further restrict people's freedom to hang out with those from different households than go and close all non-essential shops and public services, where social distancing and wearing of masks has reduced the risk of infection anyway.

While citizenship ceremonies are hardly a priority for this Government, they could consider outsourcing virtual ceremonies to a commercial provider, i.e. take councils out of the equation and send certificates to citizens directly, upon completion of the ceremony, much like printed passport booklets are sent directly to the applicants, not their respective local councils. Besides, I am sure that there are service providers who would do a five-minute video call for the juicy fee of £100+ per applicant. They had already outsourced acquisition of biometric data, where fees tend to be £100+ for paid in-person appointments, and doing something similar for citizenship ceremonies would be a logical (and, better still, a socially-distanced) application of an established practice.

I also got worried so I sent a very detailed email to a few registrar officers at my local Camden council asking them to clarify this. They confirmed almost immediately (replied to my email within 15 mins) that the certificates are still being sent. They also said they receive the certificates every 2 weeks, which doesn’t seem to fit in with your model. They also told me Home Office has informed them that the next batch which will arrive ‘early next week’ will ‘include invitations for those approved in June 2020’ (which includes myself hopefully given I was approved in early June).

Incidentally while your model is fairly accurate I think you might be wrongly assuming that the certificate print date is synonymous with Home Office sending the certificate. Often they keep certificates for a long long time after printing them before they are sent. On this very forum there were people approved in April for example that got sent certificates recently with April/May/June print dates on them. I also don’t think it takes 9-20 days for a second class mail to arrive. It often arrives within 1-2 days and I think Post Office advertises up to 4 working days (including Saturdays). So the delay between print date and send date is probably due to them holding onto the certificates for some unknown reason.

[axeman85]

So out of curiosity I called HO just now and i spoke to a lady who said they have just started sending out invites and certificates to council from the 7th of August.

So 8-12 weeks from the 7th of August will be around 30th of October.

So fingers crossed...

[baybars1]

I also got worried so I sent a very detailed email to a few registrar officers at my local Camden council asking them to clarify this. They confirmed almost immediately (replied to my email within 15 mins) that the certificates are still being sent. They also said they receive the certificates every 2 weeks, which doesn’t seem to fit in with your model. They also told me Home Office has informed them that the next batch which will arrive ‘early next week’ will ‘include invitations for those approved in June 2020’ (which includes myself hopefully given I was approved in early June).

Incidentally while your model is fairly accurate I think you might be wrongly assuming that the certificate print date is synonymous with Home Office sending the certificate. Often they keep certificates for a long long time after printing them before they are sent. On this very forum there were people approved in April for example that got sent certificates recently with April/May/June print dates on them. I also don’t think it takes 9-20 days for a second class mail to arrive. It often arrives within 1-2 days and I think Post Office advertises up to 4 working days (including Saturdays). So the delay between print date and send date is probably due to them holding onto the certificates for some unknown reason.

Thanks for sharing the info. It makes sense that certificates are sent to councils in batches and I agree that accounting for that would simplify the model. You could well be right about the reason for the delay between when an invite is printed and when it finally reaches the recipient.

So, if as of 1 October they are sending out invites for those approved in June, August approvals should be cleared on 15 October and September approvals on 1 November. October approvals would be cleared on 15 November and November approvals on 1 December, i.e. they would fully catch up a month sooner than suggested by the model, which is all the better.

Finally, would you be ok to share the name of the council that gave you this useful intel?

[axeman85]

I've called the Home Office and, apparently, they are still sticking with the deadline of the end of this month for clearing the backlog of approvals granted prior to 7 August 2020. This is broadly consistent with my model, so I am not binning it just yet.

I also got worried so I sent a very detailed email to a few registrar officers at my local Camden council asking them to clarify this. They confirmed almost immediately (replied to my email within 15 mins) that the certificates are still being sent. They also said they receive the certificates every 2 weeks, which doesn’t seem to fit in with your model. They also told me Home Office has informed them that the next batch which will arrive ‘early next week’ will ‘include invitations for those approved in June 2020’ (which includes myself hopefully given I was approved in early June).

Incidentally while your model is fairly accurate I think you might be wrongly assuming that the certificate print date is synonymous with Home Office sending the certificate. Often they keep certificates for a long long time after printing them before they are sent. On this very forum there were people approved in April for example that got sent certificates recently with April/May/June print dates on them. I also don’t think it takes 9-20 days for a second class mail to arrive. It often arrives within 1-2 days and I think Post Office advertises up to 4 working days (including Saturdays). So the delay between print date and send date is probably due to them holding onto the certificates for some unknown reason.

The above makes sense. Because if by what I was also told by the HO when I called this afternoon.

She said 8 - 12 weeks from the 7th of August which would take us to the end of October to clear the backlog.

As I am approved 31st July 2020

[baybars1]

I also got worried so I sent a very detailed email to a few registrar officers at my local Camden council asking them to clarify this. They confirmed almost immediately (replied to my email within 15 mins) that the certificates are still being sent. They also said they receive the certificates every 2 weeks, which doesn’t seem to fit in with your model. They also told me Home Office has informed them that the next batch which will arrive ‘early next week’ will ‘include invitations for those approved in June 2020’ (which includes myself hopefully given I was approved in early June).

Apologies, I just noticed that it was the Camden council. I am not surprised that they are so helpful at Camden because they were great when I was going through the application process and the citizenship ceremony ten years ago. Good stuff.

[uuee6543]

I also got worried so I sent a very detailed email to a few registrar officers at my local Camden council asking them to clarify this. They confirmed almost immediately (replied to my email within 15 mins) that the certificates are still being sent. They also said they receive the certificates every 2 weeks, which doesn’t seem to fit in with your model. They also told me Home Office has informed them that the next batch which will arrive ‘early next week’ will ‘include invitations for those approved in June 2020’ (which includes myself hopefully given I was approved in early June).

Apologies, I just noticed that it was the Camden council. I am not surprised that they are so helpful at Camden because they were great when I was going through the application process and the citizenship ceremony ten years ago. Good stuff.

It’s funny you say this because I have been complaining about them to a certain extent hehe. I guess it’s different by email than over the phone though. By email I got replied to by an actual person (they replied from their email rather than the general CRS email address) eventually and a few people CCed. So I finally had someone knowledgeable to contact. Over the phone I didn’t have much luck I must say and those who replied were usually poorly informed.

[baybars1]

Apologies, I just noticed that it was the Camden council. I am not surprised that they are so helpful at Camden because they were great when I was going through the application process and the citizenship ceremony ten years ago. Good stuff.

It’s funny you say this because I have been complaining about them to a certain extent hehe. I guess it’s different by email than over the phone though. By email I got replied to by an actual person (they replied from their email rather than the general CRS email address) eventually and a few people CCed. So I finally had someone knowledgeable to contact. Over the phone I didn’t have much luck I must say and those who replied were usually poorly informed.

Good to know.

[secret.simon]

It is again worth remembering that the Home Office call centre is outsourced and that the person answering the phone may not have a complete or up-to-date knowledge of developments on this front. Various parts of the Home Office may be working at different speeds, especially with a large part working from home.

My compliments to @baybars1 for developing a model based on the data that we know and that was gathered from this site.

It is also worth remembering that it is just that, a model, an approximation based on data. It can change and will not be exact. But at the very least, it gives a broad (not precise) picture to set an expectation of when the certificates will be released.

I think he deserves our appreciation and our thanks for his selfless work.

[BoyTed]

It is again worth remembering that the Home Office call centre is outsourced and that the person answering the phone may not have a complete or up-to-date knowledge of developments on this front. Various parts of the Home Office may be working at different speeds, especially with a large part working from home.

My compliments to @baybars1 for developing a model based on the data that we know and that was gathered from this site.

It is also worth remembering that it is just that, a model, an approximation based on data. It can change and will not be exact. But at the very least, it gives a broad (not precise) picture to set an expectation of when the certificates will be released.

I think he deserves our appreciation and our thanks for his selfless work.

Hi secret.simon,
Appreciate your input and agree in regards to baybars1 who has helped us all and we thank him for the effort.
we need to Appreciate anyone who contributes to this forum so i want to start to thank all those who are here to help us starting from Moderators,those who got certificates but still here helping and those who constantly update us on all new updates and updates they get.

[baybars1]

It is again worth remembering that the Home Office call centre is outsourced and that the person answering the phone may not have a complete or up-to-date knowledge of developments on this front. Various parts of the Home Office may be working at different speeds, especially with a large part working from home.

My compliments to @baybars1 for developing a model based on the data that we know and that was gathered from this site.

It is also worth remembering that it is just that, a model, an approximation based on data. It can change and will not be exact. But at the very least, it gives a broad (not precise) picture to set an expectation of when the certificates will be released.

I think he deserves our appreciation and our thanks for his selfless work.

Many thanks for your kind words.

I just with the Home Office hadn't dropped the ball so badly on this issue. They should have migrated the oath/affirmation and the pledge online, just like they had done with the application form itself. That way, people could have become citizens at the point of approval and be presented with a digital certificate that can be used to apply for the first British passport, which can already be done online anyway. It is what it is...

[JanisZiemelis]

I was able to extract the following information from my council, in Birmingham, when asked if they could advise what months certificates they have received last (as I'm trying to figure out how long of a wait I'm in for, having been approved at the start of July):

Hello Janis,

We have had a recent update from the Home Office which states:

"National Panel for Registration colleagues have been advised that the June citizenship certificates will be issued this coming Friday 2nd October and should be with the local registration service on Monday/Tuesday next week. Invitation letters to prospective citizens will also be dispatched a couple of days after the certificates are issued."

As you can see from the statement form the Home Office, they are slowly getting through the back log.

As soon as we have your file we will be back in touch.

Kind regards,

The information provided, more specifically the quote, looks to be straight from the Home Office, and likely applies to all councils ("National Panel for Registration colleagues").

If so, hopefully this might give you guys a better idea on when to expect to receive these certificates. I'm guessing July's will come later in October, as others have highlighted here.

[BoyTed]

I was able to extract the following information from my council, in Birmingham, when asked if they could advise what months certificates they have received last (as I'm trying to figure out how long of a wait I'm in for, having been approved at the start of July):

Hello Janis,

We have had a recent update from the Home Office which states:

"National Panel for Registration colleagues have been advised that the June citizenship certificates will be issued this coming Friday 2nd October and should be with the local registration service on Monday/Tuesday next week. Invitation letters to prospective citizens will also be dispatched a couple of days after the certificates are issued."

As you can see from the statement form the Home Office, they are slowly getting through the back log.

As soon as we have your file we will be back in touch.

Kind regards,

The information provided, more specifically the quote, looks to be straight from the Home Office, and likely applies to all councils ("National Panel for Registration colleagues").

If so, hopefully this might give you guys a better idea on when to expect to receive these certificates. I'm guessing July's will come later in October, as others have highlighted here.

Morning Janis,
This is good news indeed thanks for sharing with us.

[askmeplz82]

Guys i got an email from Home Office that my application has been succesful. Do i have to wait for another email for invitation ? My council is open but can i book ceremony without invitation email ?

[fanta]

Guys i got an email from Home Office that my application has been succesful. Do i have to wait for another email for invitation ? My council is open but can i book ceremony without invitation email ?

You have received an approval email. You will need to wait for an invitation letter in the post.

Normally you won't be able to book a ceremony unless you have received the invitation letter but it depends on the council. You will definitely not be able to book it if your council hasn't received your certificate as they will have nothing to provide you.

Currently, there is a huge backlog (read the last few posts) and people still are waiting who got the approval email in June. So it is going to be a good few weeks or months before you receive your invitation. Be prepared to wait, mate.

[omarwan]

I received the confirmation from the Home Office that my application for naturalization has been successful on 10th July and I have not received the invitation letter to book a ceremony with my local authority yet. I have contacted my local council and they confirmed for me that the ceremony for naturalization has been resumed and they can book me in, but they can't process the booking without the invitation letter from the Home Office. Any advice, please

[baybars1]

I received the confirmation from the Home Office that my application for naturalization has been successful on 10th July and I have not received the invitation letter to book a ceremony with my local authority yet. I have contacted my local council and they confirmed for me that the ceremony for naturalization has been resumed and they can book me in, but they can't process the booking without the invitation letter from the Home Office. Any advice, please

It's a tough one. You may want to book in advance, but out of courtesy, call them again at least two days beforehand, potentially to postpone in case that your certificate has not arrived at that point, to avoid wasting a slot.