Dear Department of Internal Affairs,

Previously, the Department of Internal Affairs has mentioned an automated system multiple times as a solution to reduce citizenship by grant applications backlog, and it looks like the backlog reduction is already started.

However, it looks like automated checks are being applied to those who recently applied for citizenship. There are still many applicants waiting for citizenship to be approved for more than 13 months. Currently, the oldest applications being assessed were submitted in June 2021.

1. What the Department of Internal Affairs is planning to do to speed up applications that did not pass automated checks?
2. What the Department of Internal Affairs is planning to do to speed up applications that have been sitting in a queue for more than 12 months?
3. At this point, the Department of Internal Affairs's primary goal is to reduce a backlog of citizenship applications by processing the latest submitted applications. Does the Department of Internal Affairs give a processing priority to new applications?
4. Is there a process to push old paper applications to the new system and try to asses them with automated checks?
5. How many case officers are working on an automated checks queue, and how many are working on a failed automated checks queue?
6. How many case officers are working on applications sitting in a queue for longer than 12 months?

Yours faithfully,
Alexandr