CO not allocated yet!

[Romain biette]

Hi all i wanted to know that how long does Hamilton branch take to assign a CO ? and what is the time frame for any one who got their residence?

Thanks

[JandM]

It varies, in any INZ office.

Everything at INZ works by managed queues. When your ITA was received, it would join the end of the queue of other ITAs, according to the date order. Each Case Officer has a certain workload - a number of cases that are theirs to deal with (80 - 90 at the moment, I hear). The newly arrived ITAs have to wait till one of the COs has finished with some of their cases, and can take on some more. When an ITA is eventually assigned to a CO, it will again join the back of THAT queue for the CO's attention, as s/he takes the top file, does what s/he can actively do, puts that file to the back, works everything s/he can on that case, goes to the next, and so on.

There is no way to tell how many other people's ITAs were in the queue to be assigned already, on the day yours arrived. There is no way to tell how easy or difficult the cases already being worked in the office are turning out to be, which affects the time passing until COs are ready to take more files into their personal allocation. There is no way to tell if three experienced COs in that office might leave and need to be replaced, with the new COs needing training. There is no way to tell if there could be a flu epidemic affecting the whole building.

There is no 'normal' timing, despite people asking one another how long their case took, and getting twitchy if theirs is not the same. It will take as long as it takes to check everything, which can well be up to a year. It will probably be less than that, but if you don't expect anything sooner, you won't be disappointed.

[Romain biette]

Thanks JandM for your reply. another question that i had in mind was my company is going to sell the restaurant where i work now in December and under same company we are opening another bistro/cafe in November. my question is, is it OK to move to the new bistro under the same company but different location and i will let the officer know about it. will it affect my file in any case?

[JandM]

If you will be at a different location within the same district, that will probably mean you need to ask for a variation of conditions on your present work visa. If it's outside the same district, there would need to be a new visa issued, although it's for the same employer. (Neither of these would be a difficulty.) And yes, you need to tell the CO for your SMC application that this has happened, but as long as your responsibilities at work remain the same, it won't affect anything about the working of your case.