budababes

Hello Carol, what fantastic news!!! Think you have already had meds done so you will be raring to go eh? All the very best of luck and keep us posted of progress. Feel so excited for you! Linda

carol haycock

Hi everyone,
I wanted to share with you all that Sept, Oct and Nov 05 apps should all be receiving news very shortly after the close of June, my friends family (lodgement late Nov 05) have been told they should hear July/Aug hopefully for CO allocation.We did have meds done last month and the CO's contact today was to advise that my husband has been given a full medical clearance subject to the completion of a health undertaking within 4 weeks of arrival in Aus, he had pneumonia in 1972 which left scarring on his lung so he will probably have to undergo another X-ray to ensure no change. I have until mid July to return the forms to them so I am including our police checks also. So all in all we should be in the thick of it together the next few months as I don't think a CO picks up the file again until the date given to return the documents by. We will get there in the end, persistance always pays off.
We have someone keen on the house and coming Monday for a second viewing so who knows, many thanks again for your good wishes, I can't wait to hear how the rest of you react when you receive that white envelope with postmark Australia on, my heart was pounding and I had to have a stiff drink before I could open it!!!!!!
Kind Regards,
Carol

tabby

Hi

My inlaws (pinkme )have applied for this visa, With the front loading did you go to the panel doctsr and he had the forms, The reason I ask is that whenn we frontloaded in 2005 we just email Australia high commision in London and they sent forms in the postbut they do not do this any more and say the ones you can download on the site are only for application lodge through them

Thanks

Martin

DerekM

Great news again from Carol, its certainly more precise than the info I received via a relative via POPC. However things seem to be moving ...at long last. Now we have some idea of timescales again it makes the waiting more bearable!!!!!!!!!!!

pinkme

Hi Carol,
Thats very good news, it' really cheer me up. Hope you have you have luck with your house!!!! We sold ours & move out October, we are doing car boots present, seems the best time to do it now.
Best of luck Pauline

carol haycock

Hello Martin.
Our lodgement day was 21 Sept 05 so after



months waiting, my family in Perth contacted POPC who informed them that my file had actually been allocated to a CO but that all CO's had been asked to work on priority backlog cases until the end of the tax year (end of June) I had already sent for our police checks to be done a couple of weeks earlier so I decided to download both forms off the Australian High Commission website and booked to have our X-ray/medicals with the recommended panel doctor in our area giving them our appl file number and they were forwarded to POPC by end of May as the blood tests results take approx one week following your medical.
The CO then made contact with us due to the medical result.
Hope this helps you,
Kind regards,
Carol

Gnut Kracker

Hi Carol

Thanks for all the detailed info you have provided. It really is a huge help in letting the rest of us know what to expect and (hopefully) when.

I just have a quick question if you can spare any time. Do the CO's at the POPC actually write "Case Officer" after their names? The reason I ask is because we had an acknowledgement letter from the POPC in the usual way, signed by Mrs X who styled herself Position Number 123456. Then the MOC wanted further medical info, and the letter about that came from Mrs Y, Position Number 654321. Neither of them said they are a CO. They just gave us these Position Numbers, which mean nothing to us.

My impression is that the two ladies whom we have heard from so far are unlikely to be senior enough to be CO's with the authority to decide whether to grant these visas or not. I suspect that the POPC works along typical Civil Service lines, with one group of staff in a pigeon-hole marked "Acknowledgements Unit" another group marked "Meds Processing Unit" a third group marked "Police Processing Unit" and so on, and that once the application has been through this Pass The Parcel routine, the file eventually gets given to a CO for final processing, but even that might not be right. There could be an "AoS Processing Unit" followed by a "2nd VAC Unit" and that the CO actually only gets directly involved if a legal problem crops up, and that in the absence of any real queries, the CO might be a shadowy sort of figure who merely decides whether or not to grant the visa after reading the complete file.

I don't know, but I would be interested to know whether it is definitely possible to tell whether the person who has contacted you is actually a Case Office and not a member of the support team instead?

Hoping that you might be able to give me a clearer idea about this.

Thanks very much

Gnut

FRAYNE

Hi Carol great news for you we are still undecided as to front loading our medicals I want to get them done now hubby says wait but we will be cutting things fine if we want to be out there in November for the wedding and not have to come back Patience was never my strong point.
regards Janet

DerekM

************************************************
I understand that the meds and pcc are valid for 12 months so if you anticipate that you will be dealt with within the 12 months there should be no problem. Plus also if you are checked early you can resolve any problems in advance.
Derek

carol haycock

Hi Gnut,
Depression has now set in after reading your reply, oh dear! what confusion. After POPC contact last month informing my family that my case had actually been allocated to a CO I presumed that my letter with name and position number was our CO----from what you have said, obviously NOT. Thanks to everyone anyway for their good wishes, back to how we were....waiting.

Yes Janet, the medical forms must be the correct ones as ours have been processed, because we had mid May dated police checks done I went ahead with the medicals too due to visa validation dates going from whichever was the earliest police or medical. Only you can make the decision as most of our concerns are guessing POPC timelines for this visa and whether we have health issues that take extra time to resolve. March 2007 is 18 months from my lodgement of this visa and POPC are still saying they are trying to keep as close to the 12 months as possible by trying to increase their staffing levels, 15 months ish if related problems. If you are in good health medicals don't take long to book and process. If we keep each-other informed on progress everyone will be helped along, after this zombie like state of waiting and hoping we are all in, will be all cope with the rush of the final few months????
Speak soon,
Carol

Gnut Kracker

Morning Carol

Sit tight, stay calm and don't be depressed. I don't know how these people work. If Position Number means "Case Officer" (which it does with the tourist visas issued in London, for sure) then we've had dealings with about 4 different POPC CO's so far.

The website states unequivocally that once the application is received, a CO is appointed and the impression given is that this person holds one's hand from beginning to end of the process. I thought "How very civilised and how very sensible" when I read it, because it makes vastly more sense than the usual Civil Service nonsense of passing an applicant round 25 people like that child's game with the parcel. My impression now is that the website describes Utopia, but that Utopia is not actually going on in that office.

We can soon get to the bottom of how to identify a CO. I will find out what the POPC's practice is and post a message as soon as I have done so.

It is a good thing that you frontloaded the meds when you did, because as Derek has said, it has built in some time in which to get the Meds query sorted out without its being likely to have a significant (if any) impact on the overall time-scale.

Try not to worry, and as soon as I have defo information, I'll let you know.

Best wishes

Gnut

pinkme

Thanks Gnut for having look at things, there seems to be mountains all the way to getting this visa!!!! My daughter,s look all the time & were just feeling good that that things were going start moving. My daughter has her baby this week, we would much lice to be there for Christmas!!! I think all of as on Expats are xxxx their fingers now, lets hope next week brings joy to some of us.
Thanks Pauline

Nico

Can't believe how much has been happening on this thread while I've been out of touch over the weekend (daughter over from Sydney, fat chance of getting on the computer at home!). It's up one moment, down the next, isn't it? I had to smile when my agent tried to tell me she'd heard there were some delays on these visa applications...she has a bit of catching up to do, methinks.
Anyway, all news is useful and I hope everyone continues to grit their teeth and not give up.

Nico

carol haycock

Thanks Gnut, any info would be appreciated, I am remaining calm and hopeful, I presumed that was my CO-at least it was contact from POPC and gave us reassurance on the medical front, much better to hear something than the long silence of waiting, checking e-mails and daily post.
Good luck Pauline, bet you are so excited this week on awaiting the baby, and enjoy your time together with your daughter Nico, we will all be back close with our families soon,
Carol

Gnut Kracker

Hi Carol

I wouldn't worry about the health undertaking. I really wouldn't. That is only a precaution. And it means that your visa is DEFINITELY on its way. They always allow plenty of time for offshore applicants to get forms etc back to then, but the sooner you can do that, the sooner the POPC can move towards finally granting your visas.

As long as they are taking steps in the right direction, which they obviously are now doing with you, as far as I am concerned the POPC staff can call themselves Mousetrapper if they want to by way of their job-descriptions! So don't get too hung up on what they put after their names. Also, if we all have to deal with several different staff-members before these wretched visas are eventually granted, we can all live with that too. Once you are where you want to be, you'll soon forget this current period of anxious uncertainty. We all will.

Cheers

Gnut