1 February 2024
45 Pipitea Street, Wellington 6011
Phone +64 4 495 7200
dia.govt.nz
CNN Fakenews
fyi-request-25350-
[email address]
Tēnā koe
OIA request 23/24 0484 Request for Citizenship Timeframe Data
Thank you for your Official Information Act (Act) request received by the Department of Internal
Affairs (Department) on 9 January 2024.
You requested –
Can you please provide the application status in each workstream by Birth Country for all
online citizenship applications submitted on date: 6th Jan 2023?
On Tuesday, 16 January 2024, an acknowledgement email was sent to you, which also asked for
clarification of your request. You responded on the same day advising that you based your
questions on a proactively released request: OIA23/24 0286, dated 21 December 2023 but that
your request was for all countries.
Your request was clarified as:
Citizenship application status for: applied on 6 January 2023. Country of birth, Workstream
and Status: approved, assigned, unassigned, rejected and withdrawn.
In response to your request, I can provide you with the following information.
Please refer to Appendix A, attached to this letter. Descriptions of workstreams in the data
provided are detailed below:
There are six different workstreams for managing citizenship by grant applications. All
applications start off by being placed into workstream two. They are then filtered into other
workstreams using system logic or automated assessment of applications.
• Workstream one – Applications transferred from workstream two that have been pre-
assessed by an administrator for completeness, or have been automatically filtered to
workstreams three, five and six and, after the initial manual assessment, or, it is deemed
that further manual assessment is required.
• Workstream two – All applications begin in this queue and are filtered to other queues
using system logic. Applications that are not automatically able to go to workstream
three, four, five and six remain in this queue until they are picked up to be assessed.
• Workstream three – Online applications that meet all automated checks.
• Workstream four – Applications assessed under the Citizenship (Western Samoa) Act
1982.
• Workstream five – Online applications that meet all automated checks except presence
and/or English. Manual assessment is required.
• Workstream six – Applications submitted on paper that meet all automated checks.
It is important to mention here that we have removed the pre-assessment of
applications. These are internal operational matters and will not affect the current processing
of applications.
It may also be helpful for me to explain that there can be a lag between the date when an
application is submitted, to when the data shows it as received. For example, if an application is
submitted in the evening, it may be recorded in the data as after midnight.
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 (Acting)
Service Delivery and Operations
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