OIA 2223 0121 John via FYI Response.pdf

9 September 2022
45 Pipitea Street, Wellington 6011
Phone +64 4 495 7200
dia.govt.nz
John via FYI
fyi-request-20203-
[email address]

Tēnā koe John
OIA request 22/23 0121 Request for Citizenship Timeframes
Thank you for your Official Information Act (Act) request received by the Department of Internal
Affairs (Department) on 11 August 2022.
You requested –
1)  Number of new citizenship by grant applications from May 2022 to present date
(month-by-month).

2) Number of citizenship by grant applications that had the NZ Citizenship granted in
2022 and have applied in 2022. (From 1 Jan to 1 Sep).

3) Number of citizenship case officers trained to assess Citizenship by grant Applications
as of August 15.

4) Number of different queues of citizenship by grant applications awaiting being
assigned to a case officer

5) Number of citizenship by grants applications per queue.

6) Number of trained case officers per queue.

7) Detailed criteria used by the Citizenship Office officials to decide which applications are
pass or fail the automatic checks. The back office decides who has a shorter timeframe
than others. Please describe based on what.

8) Top 3 reasons citizenship by grant application failed the automated checks and the
number of applications per reason (Jan 2022 - August 2022).

9) All e-mails, correspondence and/or MS Team chat discussing the Citizenship Office
end-of the year target (December 2022) relating to the number of unassigned Citizenship
by grant applications.

In response to your request I can provide you with the following information.
Question one
Please refer to Appendix A attached alongside this letter, specifically Table One - Citizenship by
Grant applications (CBG) received from 1 May to 6 September 2022.
Question two
Please refer to Appendix A, Table Two – Citizenship by Grant Applications received and granted
from 1 January to 1 September 2022.
Question three
The Department uses two systems for the processing of citizenship applications; Citizenship
Operating System (COS) and Customer Centred Management Solution (CCMS).
The number of trained case officers to assess Citizenship by Grant applications as of 15 August
2022:
a.
44 Life and Identity Service Officers (LISO’s)/ citizenship case officers working in CCMS
b.
20 LISO’s/ citizenship case officers working in COS
Question four
We have five assessment queues and four validation queues within CCMS
We have one assessment queue and one validation queue in COS
Question five
Please refer to Appendix A, Table Three - Number of Citizenship by Grant applications per queue.
Question six
Please refer to Appendix A, Table Four - Number of trained case officers per queue.
Question seven
It may be helpful to explain when applications are received, our systems run a series of
preliminary automated checks which are used to triage them into different queues
In response to this portion of your request I can advise that the information requested will be
made available soon via a proactively released Official Information Act (OIA) response, available
here: https://www.dia.govt.nz/Official-Information-Act-Requests-2 under OIA 2223-0111.
Therefore, I must refuse this part of your request pursuant to section 18(d) of the Act; that the
information requested is or will soon be publicly available.

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Question eight
The top three reasons for an application failing the automated checks are:
•  Applicant is not from an English-speaking country or does not hold a visa-type that
automatically demonstrates they meet the English language requirements, so further
investigation needed to establish English knowledge/ability (5,572 applicants).
•  System does not automatically show that the applicant meets the presence requirement
for New Zealand citizenship, so further investigation is needed to establish they have
been here for the requisite timeframe (2,890 applicants).
•  System does not automatically provide a photo match with Immigration New Zealand
records, so manual photo matching is required (2,314 applicants).
It may be helpful for me to explain that numbers are based on applications in the system
unassigned to a case officer on 4 August 2022. We are not able to provide the data over the
period requested due to the complexity. These figures do not necessarily reflect exact numbers
due to some applications being grouped with family members and applications potentially
requiring multiple manual checks.
Question nine
The Department has not set an end of year target for citizenship by grant processing. Therefore,
I must refuse this part of your request pursuant to section 18(g) of the Act; that the
information requested is not held by the department and we have no grounds for believing
that the information is either held by another department or connected more closely with
the functions of another department.
I can assure you that the Department is working hard to reduce the timeframes to process all
citizenship by grant applications.
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 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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