25 May 2022
45 Pipitea Street, Wel ington 6011
Phone +64 4 495 7200
dia.govt.nz
Ed Hirsch
fyi-request-19217-
[email address]
Tēnā koe Ed
Official Information Act request 2122-0727 – Citizenship by grant timeframes
Thank you for your Official Information Act (Act) request received by the Department of Internal
Affairs (Department) on 27 April 2021.
You requested –
1. Previous responses indicated that you have hired temporary staff to reduce the size of
the backlog of citizenship applications. How many temporary staff were/are hired?
Over what time scale? Please can you provide a table of the number of temporary
staff working on citizenship applications by month, for the last 12 months, including
April 2022.
2. How many applications does a temporary staff member process per day? If you do
not have this information, please provide me the total number of applications
processed by temporary staff members per month, for the last 12 months, including
April 2022.
3. Please release any analysis that was undertaken around the right number of
temporary staff to hire. I imagine that you might have internal resource planning
documents that explored the tension between increasing the number of temporary
staff, processing times and cost.
4. Please provide me your planning assumptions about average processing time when
the new system is fully operational and the backlog cleared. Note that, per previous
reuqests that others have made, I am not interested in a 'normal' processing time,
but an average. In particular, I would be interested in any documents where a
decision was taken to return (or not) to the 3-5 month norm.
5. In previous OIA responses, you have indicated 'mid 2022' as when things wil start
getting better. Please be more specific. When in mid 2022? In addition, please release
any internal analysis which has been undertaken to inform this statement. Note that I
am not necessarily interested in the high level statements you have shared previously
(e.g. as staff get more familiar with the system) but to see any documents or analysis
you have done which has given you confidence that it wil be better by mid 2022.
6. Pls release the number of applications received per month and the number approved
per month, by month, for the last 12 months including April 2022. I wish to calculate
the rate at which the backlog is being cleared. As an addition, and not a replacement,
to the above, if you have an internal future forecast about the size of the backlog by
month in graph or table form, pls share that too.
In response to your request I can provide you with the fol owing information.
Question one
I can advise that as at 16 May 2022, the Department had 16 temporary staff working in the
citizenship space. The start dates for these temporary staff members are as follows:
• Five started on 09/08/2021
• Three started on 01/10/2021
• One started on 15/11/2021
• Two started on 04/04/2022
• Five started on 16/05/2022.
Questions two, three, four, five and six
I can advise that the citizenship by grant backlog began reducing in April of 2022. However, the
remaining information requested requires significant time and resources to gather, analyse,
peer review and prepare for release. Therefore, I must refuse the remainder of your request
under section 18(f) of the Act; that the information requested cannot be made available without
substantial collation or research.
There is already extensive information available to the public regarding citizenship processing
timeframes both on the citizenship application timeframes webpage here:
https://www.govt.nz/browse/passports-citizenship-and-identity/nz-citizenship/how-to-apply-
for-nz-citizenship/application-timeframes/ and on the Department’s OIA proactive release
webpage as linked below, which may be of interest to you.
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: 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
Kāwai ki te Iwi Service Delivery and Operations
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