Tçnâ koe Ghai,

Thank you for your OIA request to the Department of Internal Affairs (included with this email)

The Department will provide its response to your request as soon as practicable and within twenty working days. The 20th working day is 13 December 2021

Please note that in cases where the Department’s response provides information that is identified to be of general public interest, the response may also be published on the Department of Internal Affairs website. If the Department publishes its response to your OIA request, all personal information, including your name and contact details, will be removed.

Nâku, nâ

Michelle Reed (she/her)  
Kaitohutohu Ârahi, te Ture Pârongo Ôkawa | Lead Advisor Official Correspondence 
Te Urûngi | Organisational Strategy & Performance
Level 6, 45 Pipitea St | PO Box 805, Wellington 6140, New Zealand |  www.dia.govt.nz

-----Original Message-----
From: Ghai <[FOI #17576 email]>
Sent: Monday, 15 November 2021 12:12 PM
To: OIA <[email address]>
Subject: Official Information request - Citizenship application backlog's current status

[You don't often get email from [FOI #17576 email]. Learn why this is important at http://aka.ms/LearnAboutSenderIdentifica...

Dear Department of Internal Affairs,

Please provide with the information - Which month/year citizenship applications are currently getting processed? In which month/year was that application made? Please provide information on both paper and online applications.

Please provide with the information - Which is the oldest month/year, from which a citizenship application is still awaiting a case officer assignment? Please provide information on both paper and online applications.

In which month/year was the decision made to do the transition from paper to online system? Was it known at that time that the transition is going to be done on an iteratively released application? With every iteration, how many hours or days of training was planned for the staff pre-pandemic?

I understand that pandemic may have affected the training schedules for the staff.

I am assuming by reading your responses on other requests, that by Law/legislation, your staff can not access private information of applicants while working from home. Does that mean during pandemic your staff was not allowed to access work computers from home using VPN or other technologies?
Follow up question: Am I correct in assuming that your staff was only able to do a little work from home or in some cases no work at all while being on work from home arrangement because of the legislation?

I understand that pandemic was an unforeseen event and work from home may not have ever got considered by Department of Internal Affairs before this.

Follow up question: What measure have been taken since pandemic to consider effective work form home for your staff?
Has any consideration been given into modifying the legislation to incorporate situations like pandemic and thus providing access to your staff to access work computers and thus work like they are in office with same efficiency and throughput?

Please state any other considerations that Department of Internal Affairs has worked on since pandemic or planning to work to incorporate better work from home arrangements to achieve pre-pandemic like throughputs/delivery from staff?

Is it now possible for your staff to access the information on an application from their homes while working from home?

Is it possible for Department of Internal Affairs to publish every month the information that from which month/year oldest applications are currently under processing and have been assigned a case officer to? Both paper and online applications.

Yours faithfully,

Ghai

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Tēnā koe,

 

Please see attached for the response to your Official Information Act 1982
request.

 

Ngā mihi,

 

Louise Walton [1](she/her)

Advisor Official Correspondence

Te Pāhekoheko, Kāwai ki te Iwi | Operations, Service Delivery and
Operations
Te Tari Taiwhenua | The Department of Internal Affairs

[2]www.dia.govt.nz

[3]Logo-test

 

References

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