9 June 2021
45 Pipitea Street, Wellington 6011
Phone +64 4 495 7200
dia.govt.nz
Daniel
fyi-request-15426-
[email address]
Dear Daniel
OIA request 20/21 0563 Request for citizenship information
Thank you for your Official Information Act (Act) request received by the Department of Internal
Affairs (Department) on 11 May 2021.
You requested –
1. Underneath check processes are from Citizenship Guide November 2020. Can you please tell
how many hours efforts(department wise) it takes for a case officer to collect information from
these department ? Please add in reply if there is any extra department to collect information by
Citizenship case officer.
• New Zealand Police (some convictions are assessed under section 9A of the Citizenship Act)
• New Zealand Security Intelligence Service
• Ministry of Social Development
• Ministry of Justice
• Inland Revenue Department
• Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.
2.Time taken by a citizenship case officer to approve citizenship (till approved citizenship) for a
normal person with no bad credit, no traffic offense, no tax due, etc? Please add in reply if there
are more checks? Please provide data from Jan 2021 to June 2021.
3. Number of Citizenship files processed per day by a Citizenship case officer (till approved
Citizenship), Please provide data from Jan 2020 to June 2021?
4. How many Citizenship case officers are there in DIA by City wise to process the citizenship
files? How many in Auckland, Wellington etc?
5.Number for citizenship files allocated to per case officer?
6.Time taken by a case officer to process the file? (till approved citizenship) Please provide data
from Jan 2020 to June 2021.
7. How frequently the citizenship ceremonies are happening? Just asking months and frequency
in a month? Please provide data from Jan 2021 to June 2021
8. Number for citizenship files applied in Auckland? How many online and paper based? Please
provide data from Jan 2020 to June 2021.
9. Citizenship applications Approved by month (Jan 2021- June 2021)?
10. Currently which months citizenship files are in processing or allocated to citizenship cases
officers for Auckland?
For ease of reading, our response has been broken down by each question.
Question one
It is not possible for the Department to isolate the efforts associated with external agency
checks. This is because they are performed throughout the processing time and no record is
kept of the administration time it takes to request each piece of information.
The portion of your request relating to the time taken for external agency checks must
therefore be refused pursuant to section 18(e) of the Act; that the document alleged to contain
the information requested does not exist.
A common external agency the Department performs checks with that was not included in the
list you provided is Customs New Zealand. In addition, the Department may, in some cases,
check with other agencies, if information received indicates that they may have information
relevant to the applicant’s ability to meet the requirements. I note this could be any
government agency.
Question two
I can confirm the average number of business days it took for an application to be approved
after having been submitted, between January 2021 and end of May 2021, was 163. Under
section 15(1)(b) of the Act we also wish to notify you of our decision to release the average
number of business days it took for an application to be approved after having been submitted
to a case officer, should we be able to successfully collate this information. We anticipate having
a response with the outcome to you no later than 21 June 2021.
As checks are performed throughout processing, we are unable to determine which applications
may or may not be straightforward and therefore no data is collected to distinguish between
the complexity of applications.
As advised in response to question one, a common external agency the Department performs
checks with that was not included in the list you provided is Customs New Zealand. In addition,
the Department may, in some cases, check with other agencies, if information received
indicates that they may have information relevant to the applicant’s ability to meet the
requirements. I note this could be any government agency.
Please note when we refer to an application being approved, this is when the Minister or
delegated official has approved for citizenship to be granted to an applicant, in most cases,
pending their attendance of a citizenship ceremony.
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Questions three and six
Citizenship applications take more than one day to process. Although there is no specific
timeframe, the time taken to process a citizenship application depends on what further
information may need to be sought from the applicant or other external agencies.
Should it be of use to you, however, please find below a table showing the average number of
grant applications approved per case officer each month.
In response to question six, this table also provides the average number of business days it took
for an application to be approved after having been submitted. Under section 15(1)(b) of the Act
we also wish to notify you of our decision to release the average number of business days it
took for an application to be approved after having been submitted to a case officer, should we
be able to successfully collate this information. We anticipate having a response with the
outcome to you no later than 21 June 2021.
Please do note that these applications could have been submitted at any time, and were not
necessarily submitted on the same month they were approved.
I also note that April and May 2020 show lower numbers of citizenship applications being
approved, as this was during Covid-19 lockdown.
Average processing per CO per month Average processing days Approval month
49
57
Jan 2020
54
63
February 2020
46
58
March 2020
8
93
April 2020
26
98
May 2020
51
97
June 2020
38
95
July 2020
44
101
August 2020
49
107
September 2020
43
100
October 2020
45
107
November 2020
48
114
December 2020
23
127
January 2021
35
134
February 2021
51
166
March 2021
31
179
April 2021
37
189
May 2021
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Question four
Please find below a table showing how many staff are trained in processing citizenship by grant
applications as at the month of May 2021.
Auckland Christchurch Wellington Total
12
6
27
45
Question five
I can confirm as at the end of May each case officer had an average of 56 applications they were
working on.
Question seven
Please find below a table showing how many ceremonies were held throughout New Zealand
each month so far this year. I note that no ceremonies were held in the month of January.
Month
Number of ceremonies held across New Zealand
February 2021 18
March 2021
24
April 2021
22
May 2021
28
Grand total
92
Question eight
I can confirm a total of 11,628 paper applications were received in our Manukau and Auckland
offices between 1 January 2020 to end of May 2021.
I note no data has been provided for the number of online applications submitted to the
Manukau and Auckland offices. This is because online applications come through a central
online system, and are then allocated to case officers throughout the country in order of
received date, opposed to being submitted directly to a specific office.
Question nine
Please find below a table showing the average number of citizenship applications approved each
month between January 2021 and May 2021.
Month
Total grants approved Average days to approval
January 2021
819
127
February 2021 1283
134
March 2021
2081
166
April 2021
1165
179
May 2021
1456
189
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Question ten
I can confirm that files from September 2020 are currently being allocated to case officers. I do
note however, that the majority of files currently still being processed are from August 2020.
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.
Yours sincerely
Julia Taylor
Manager Operational Policy and Official Correspondence
Service Delivery and Operations
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