Visa for work permit holder and spouse questions!!!

Anyone that received a work permit and your spouse was then dependent on your permit- I need your guidance!

I was just offered a job in Scotland to work as a Children and Families social worker.  My recruitment agency told me that the Home office should have received the work permit application on Wed. Aug 9th. Social workers are still on the shortage list, so typically how long does it take to get your work permit in hand for shortage occupations?  Also, I have a US citizen spouse, does the spouse then complete the work permit dependent application for the entry clearance visa?  We are trying to get everything together for the time when I receive the work permit.  If so, what supporting documents did you and your spouse provide?  Were you able to send in your visa applications together with the same set of supporting documents?  I am hoping that I don't need to send my stuff in, get approved and then have to wait for my passport/visa comes back before sending his application in. 

Several questions that I just really need answered.  If anyone can help out, that would be great!  Thank you in advance! 

Yes, this is a fairly common situation.

First you get your work permit and then you apply for Entry Clearance based on your work permit.  Both of you will apply for and fill out the VAF1, one being the spouse of a Work Permit Holder and one being a Work Permit Holder.  You can both apply at the same time.  The information supplied is pretty standard.  You send it all in at once, including passports and the work permit, but you will have to pay two application fees.  It should be about a 1-2 week turnaround, unless you apply in person and it would be same day.

Visa4UK at http://www.visa4uk.fco.gov.uk/ will provide you will all the information you need, including allowing you to apply online.

Thank you for the information.  Do we need to send in two copies of each in the same envelope or do we just send in one?  It just seems logical that we could send in one set and they can approve and review them at the same time, but as I have learned sometime things just don't work logically at times.  We will apply online and then send everything in.  Pretty safe way to do this? We'll probably include a copy of our online app just to be safe and so they can match up our documents.  Any further help would be great.

Thank you

One set of documents should suffice, though the documents are slightly different between the two.  For example a work permit for yours and your marriage certificate for your spouses, etc...  I would send them in the same envelope at the same time for sure.

Everyone here, as far as I know, who has mailed their applications has not had an issue.  Of course I would send them some sort of trackable way (e.g. FedEx) and they post back the information via FedEx.

The on line process will tell you what you have to print out of the on line application which includes a reference number that will match up to the electronic version of your application.

That sounds good.  We were hoping we could just send it all together.  Thank you for the info!