Processing Times calculation?

[apcmwh]

Apologies in advance for what is almost certainly a pedantic question, but does anyone have any idea how the Processing Times on the CIC site are calculated? In particular:

1) If an application reaches the CIC while processing times were 68 days and processing times later change to 74 days, would the expected processing time be "locked in" at 68 days or would it change every time the processing times get updated on the website?

2) I had thought that the "working on" date provided would be linked to the number of days on the date the information is revised. So, if processing times are now 74 days, and the last update was 25 January 2012, the CIC would be working on applications received 74 days before 25 January 2012 which would be 12 November 2011, according to Excel. This does not seem to tally up with the posted "working on" date of 22 November 2011. Anyone have any ideas why this discrepancy would exist?

Processing times have jumped since submitting our application at the end of December, so we're getting pretty nervous. It wouldn't surprise me if the process for calculating processing times isn't that scientific, but I thought I'd throw the question out there.

[scylla]

1) No the application wouldn't be locked it. Its processing time would change as the processing time is updated on the website.

2) I believe the "working on" information is updated daily (although I may be wrong). In that case I believe it would make sense that they are currently working on applications from November 22nd.

[ocanadaguy]

Where you see the processing days.... that's updated once a week... it said there before that it's Usually on Tuesdays... however the last few weeks... it's been updated Wednesday afternoon/early evening-ish...  The processing time for the Embassy's... that's done every 3 months.. and it was just updated last Friday.

[HBENZ]

great

[MandyUK]

When we were waiting for our sponsoship approval, the processing time would keep going up, I think at one point it reached 80 days, mostly it was updated on a tuesday like its supposed to be, but some weeks it would be a wednesday or a thurdsay a couple of times. They always seemed to be processing applications about 4-5 days after the actual date that they said on the website.
I think that they do this because they know you can call them once you have reached the 74 days wait, so they put that they are working on say the 12th November, but in reality they are working on the ones from around the 17th or so.

This seemed consistent, so firmly believe that they are working ahead of what they are posting to stop people contacting them once they reach the timeline.