Wise words indeed Arthur we have used that service at every stage using Worcester county council and it has served us well.

The UKBA however..............duly sent us our letter of invite to arrange a citizenship ceremony, so we phoned the council to arrange it and they replied that our names are not on their list and no nationality certificates exist for us! Further investigation reveals that the UKBA sent all the paperwork including the certificates to Wolverhampton council by mistake. I was assured that they were now in the post "recorded signed for" and a place was duly booked for us on the monthly ceremony service in ten days time.

Guess what? We both book time off work, I arrange to take the kids out of school for a few hours and the ten days pass us by and still no certificates have arrived.
Finally after two weeks they turn up. Turns out Wolverhampton council did post them but did not put a stamp on the letter!
In the meantime I complained to UKBA about possible fraudulent use of our certificates etc and that I had to pay £75 for a private service because we were planning to go abroad soon and could not wait till the next scheduled ceremony service. They replied that they were sorry etc but could not refund me the £75.

The private ceremony was good because there was no limit on the number of guests that could come, so a few of my wifes Filipino friends attended, a few of them still in the visa application process, so it was a good experience for them. Plus we got two glass paperweight gifts.

Further to this I then sent of my wife and step daughters passport application via the post office passport application checking sevice on a Saturday afternoon. I did not ask or pay for a premium service. On the following Wednesday morning my step daughters British passport came through the letterbox along with a first passport interview letter for my wife. That was done on the Friday and the following Monday morning her passport came through the letterbox.....So two working days for my step daughters passport and five for my wife including interview! Not bad!