5 December 2025
45 Pipitea Street, Wel ington 6011
Phone +64 4 495 7200
dia.govt.nz
R B
fyi-request-32777-
[email address]
Tēnā koe R B
OIA request 24/25 0503 Request for Citizenship Ceremonies Information
Thank you for your Official Information Act (Act) request received by the Department of Internal
Affairs (Department) on 7 November 2025.
You requested –
1. Dates and location (no address needed, just suburb or district e.g. "Takapuna" is enough)
for all public Citizenship ceremonies scheduled - either tentative plans or approved events
to occur between November 2025 and August 2026 in the Auckland Region.
2. Number of people currently invited for each ceremony, total capacity and available slots
as on the date you extract the information.
3. How many applicants are awaiting to be allocated to a ceremony based on the day of
their Citizenship approval date between the dates of October 25th and November 7th
(inclusive)?
4. Plans for any efficiencies introduced or designed to proactively avoid backlog of
applicants awaiting a ceremony due to known upcoming events (elections, public holiday
season, etc).
5. Plans or designs to improve communications or visibility around upcoming Citizenship
ceremonies instead of providing a wide range of 1 to 6 months.
6. Steps to solicit client feedback on the experience of Applying for Citizenship
7. Options available for the public to provide feedback on their Citizenship processing
experience including raising concerns, complaints, suggestions and compliments.
For question three of your request, I can advise that pursuant to section 15(1)(b) of the Act, the
Department has decided to provide the requested information to you. However, we are
currently preparing this information for release and wil provide it to you as soon as practicable.
We anticipate having the requested information to you by no later than 12 December 2025.
In response to the remainder of your request, I can provide you with the fol owing information.
Questions one and two
The information you have requested is publicly available on Department’s website at
www.dia.govt.nz/Official-Information-Act-Requests-2 under proactively released response OIA
2526-0452.
Therefore, this part of your request is refused pursuant to section 18(d) of the Act; that the
information is or will be made publicly available.
Questions four to seven
Local authorities (councils) are responsible for administering citizenship ceremonies. To assist
with planning, the Department provides Councils with up-to-date data including expected
volumes.
The Department also runs a monthly customer experience survey across its major services,
including Citizenship (by Grant and by Descent), Passports, Births, Deaths and Marriages, and
Charities Services. Each month, a randomly selected group of customers who have completed
their process are invited to participate. The survey includes standard questions and space for
free-text feedback, suggestions, or comments.
The Department actively engages with councils to raise awareness of expected volumes. As a
result, some councils have scheduled additional ceremonies, secured larger venues, or
increased seating capacity.
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
Director
Branch Performance
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