Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what mechanisms are in place to review indefinite leave to remain applications that have been outstanding for more than 12 months where no formal processing service standard applies; and what steps her Department takes to communicate with affected applicants about the reasons for delays.

All Indefinite Leave to Remain visa routes are subject to a Service Level Agreement (SLA).

The service level agreements for settlement applications are published on gov.uk and can be found here - Settlement: customer service standards - GOV.UK

A non-exhaustive list of scenarios where an application may take longer to process than the published SLA can be found here - Visa processing times: applications inside the UK - GOV.UK

If any application is set to fall outside the published SLA, the customer is informed of this via email outlining that their application still remains under consideration and gives examples of scenarios which may have incurred the delay. If the delay is related to further input being required from the customer this is also highlighted to them.

Where a case cannot be decided within the published service standard, it is kept under regular review to support its progression and ensure a decision is made as soon as possible.