30 June 2022
45 Pipitea Street, Wellington 6011
Phone +64 4 495 7200
dia.govt.nz
Daniel
fyi-request-16805-
[email address]
Tēnā koe Daniel
OIA request 21/22 0245 Request for information relating to citizenship processing timeframes
Thank you for your Official Information Act (Act) request received by the Department of Internal
Affairs (Department) on 20 September 2021.
You requested –
•
Can you please provide the data into a table form with column names (Left to Right)
(Note Please provide data for By grant applications only )
Month/Year (Oct 2020, Nov 2020 till Oct 2021), Application Received (Oct 2020, Nov
2020 till Oct 2021), Approved / Finished Applications for which month (example - in Oct
2020 case officers worked on June 2020 applications), Pending Applications (for each
month), Currently Working on which month applications (Sept - Oct 2021) Number of
Ceremonies Happened (Auckland, Aug 2020 -Oct 2021) Number of Planned ceremonies in
future (Oct 2021- Dec 2021)
Can you please provide the data table from November 2020 to October 2021?
As advised in our response of 18 October 2021, pursuant to section 15(1)(b) of the Act, the
Department gave notice of its decision to provide you with the information sought. However, as
we were still working to prepare it for release, we advised we would provide it as soon as
practicable.
In response to your request, I can now provide you with the following information.
We have interpreted your request to be for the following information relating to citizenship by
grant applications-
1. Number of applications received each month from October 2020 up to and including
October 2021
2. Number of applications where a decision has been made each month from October 2020
up to and including October 2021
3. For October 2020 up to and including October 2021, what months were majority of
applications where a decision was made were submitted?
4. For October 2020 up to and including October 2021, how many applications waiting to
be allocated each month
5. Which months applications are currently being worked on?
6. How many ceremonies occurred in Auckland each month from August 2020 up to and
including October 2021
7. Number of planned ceremonies for Auckland each month from October 2021 up to and
including December 2021
Questions one, two, three, four, six and seven
In response to these questions, please find Appendix A attached alongside this letter.
With regard to question seven, citizenship ceremonies were suspended for much of the period
for public health reasons relating to Covid-19. Applicants approved for citizenship while
ceremonies are suspended are sent their certificate in the mail, and are New Zealand citizens
from the date their certificate is printed.
Question five
The Department has published a range of information relating to citizenship processing
timeframes on our citizenship website, which it regularly updates, here;
Citizenship timeframes
| New Zealand Government (www.govt.nz). The information includes what month’s applications
are currently being processed. This portion of your request is therefore refused pursuant to
section 18(d) of the Act; the information requested is publicly available.
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. All requestor data,
including your name and contact details, will be removed prior to release. The released
response will be made available alongside a significant amount of other responses relating to
citizenship processing timeframes, which you may be interested in taking a look at, here:
https://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 Operations
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