Good analysis Maria. In addition to the reasons you wrote about slowness of LVO, I would say that LVO is probably the biggest VO handling applications from over 15 countries i-e Bahrain, Channel Islands, Denmark, England, Falkland Islands, Faroe Islands, Finland, Gibraltar, Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, Kuwait, Northern Ireland, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Svalbard, Sweden, United Arab Emirates, UK, Wales, Yemen. Isn't it strange .................. So in addition to large number of applications they process, it is the diversified and much varying process for background checks for each country that may delay the process further.
GCMS notes shared by you people point that LVO hasn't yet started the security checks or any other evaluation .......... This shows that LVO (if not on strike) is still busy with clearing the backlog. But when I contacted two 2011 applicants from Pakistan (now in Canada), to my surprise both of them got their MR within 9 months of the initial application submission to CIO and got the visas in around 3-4 months of Medicals. This dilutes the thought LVO being busy with backlogs.
I second that we all must write to minister and the LVO itself for the delay in processing, with regular but polite follow-up as well. It will be good if we also request the mistier for introducing 2-3 VOs on urgent basis to handle the cases from the above countries which will eventually speed up the progress.