22 October 2021
45 Pipitea Street, Wel ington 6011
Phone +64 4 495 7200
dia.govt.nz
Sukhwinder Deol
fyi-request-16490-
[email address]
Tēnā koe Sukhwinder
Official Information Act 1982 request 2021-0276 – Citizenship processing timeframes
Thank you for your Official Information Act (Act) request received by the Department of Internal
Affairs (Department) on 26 September 2021.
You requested –
1. Can you provide some further details like which month of paper applications are under
process at Wellington office?
2. In appendix file from last response it is not clear which month actual applications were
submitted, are you able to provide any information on that?
3. How many paper applications are in backlog until June 2021 to be assigned to a case
officer?
In response to your request I can provide you with the fol owing information.
Questions one and three
There are 6037 paper applications submitted prior to 1 July 2021, that are yet to be assigned to
a Life and Identity Services Officer for processing. The oldest unassigned paper application in the
Wellington office was received on 4 November 2020.
Question two
Appendix A, that was included in response to your request OIA 2122-0169, provides you with
the number of applications received, the number of applications that have begun processing,
and the number of applications that have had an outcome for each month.
This means that the number in the ‘Application Received’ column does not correlate to the
‘Applications Started Processing’ or ‘Application had an outcome’ columns. The data is only a
snap shot of how many applications are in what stage of the citizenship process for each month
and does not capture the journey of an application i.e. the number that have been received,
how many of those received have begun being processed and then completed.
As this information may be of interest to other members of the public, the Department has
decided to proactively release a copy of this response on the DIA website. Al requestor data
including your name and contact details, will be removed prior to release. The released
response will be made available here: www.dia.govt.nz/Official-Information-Act-Requests-2.
You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of this decision.
Information about how to make a complaint is available at www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or
freephone 0800 802 602.
Ngā mihi
Julia Taylor
Manager Operational Policy and Official Correspondence
Service Delivery and Operation
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