13 April 2023
Manpreet
[FYI request #22141 email]
DOIA 2223-2105
Tēnā koe Manpreet,
Thank you for your email of 18 March 2023 to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE)
requesting, under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act), the following:
“
May I request for the number of remaining RV21 applications by statuses: Preparing Application,
Gathering Info, Under Assessment according to month.
We sought clarification from you to assist with understanding your request and received confirmation from
you on 21 March 2023 as below:
I am after how many applications are still in under assessment and please breakdown of application by
the month of its went into under assessment.”
Our Response
Please see Table one below, for the number of 2021 Resident Visa applications submitted via the Enhanced
Immigration Online system, broken down by application status as at 29 March 2023.
Table one.
Application Status
Number of applications
Preparing Application
2
Gathering Information
3,903
Under Assessment
10,066
To provide information on the month when an application’s status changed to ‘Under Assessment’ would
require the manual checking of all applications currently under assessment which would take significant
resources to do as the information is not held in a reportable format. This part of your request is refused under
section 18(f) of the Act, as some of the information requested cannot be made available without substantial
collation or research. This task would remove Ministry staff from their core duties and therefore the greater
public interest would not be served.
In accordance with section 18(a) of the Act, we have considered whether fixing a charge under section 15
or extending the time limit under section 15(a) would enable the request to be granted but it is our opinion
that it would not.
I have added a link to the Immigration New Zealand website that has the latest 2021 Resident Visa processing
statistics for your reference:
1
https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-zealand-visas/waiting-for-a-visa/how-long-it-takes-to-process-
your-visa-application/2021-resident-visa-processing-times
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.
If you wish to discuss any aspect of your request or this response, or if you require any further assistance,
please contac
t [email address] Nāku iti nei, nā
Richard Owen
General Manager (Acting), Border and Visa Operations
Immigration New Zealand
2