20 July 2023
45 Pipitea Street, Wellington 6011
Phone +64 4 495 7200
dia.govt.nz
Engr via FYI
fyi-request-23207-
[email address]
Tēnā koe Engr
OIA request 2223-0960: Request for processing timeframe data
Thank you for your Official Information Act (Act) request received by the Department of Internal
Affairs (Department) on 21 June 2023.
You requested –
Based on the response from OIA 2223 0893, regarding the average time allocated to the case
officer if the applicant fails the Citizenship Auto check, the maximum time, and the minimum
time.
1. In the above response, how have maximum and minimum times been calculated? In light of
the information provided in the above-mentioned response link, how do you handle
applications if they exceed the maximum allocation time?
2. In addition, please provide a frequency histogram of the duration of the applications
assigned to case officers. What is the number of applications allocated in five days, fifteen
days, etc.? Based on actual data, how many applications have been allocated in five days,
fifteen days, etc?
For the purpose of understanding, the following example is provided.
Time is taken to allocate Case officers’ Number of applications:
5 days 50
10 days 100
20 days and so on and so forth 150
For clarity, I have provided the excerpt from OIA 2223 0893 that you are referring to in your
request:
‘Citizenship by Grant Applications allocated during May 2023
Average Time
Maximum Time
Minimum Time
165 working days / 7.5 months 279 working days / 13 months 2 working days
Applications that have not passed the automated checks are allocated in date order unless
they have been approved for out of queue processing due to an urgent need.’
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In response to your request, I can provide you with the following information.
Please be advised that ‘case officer’ will be referred to as Life and Identity Service Officer (LISO)
for this response.
Question 1 Response
The Department does not place a minimum or maximum time limit on allocating a LISO to
assess an application.
The minimum and maximum times referred to in OIA 2223 0893 (excerpt above) are referring to
the application(s) that took the fewest number of days to be allocated to a LISO and the
application(s) that took the greatest number of days to be allocated to a LISO during the month
in question. This will change month to month depending on a range of factors. For example, for
applications allocated in June 2023 (that did not meet the automated checks) the minimum was
less than 5 working days and the maximum was up to 305 working days to be allocated.
Question 2 Response
The graphs below show the number of working days taken to allocate a citizenship by grant
application to a LISO in May and June 2023.
Caveats
• This data relates only to applications that did not pass the automated checks.
• This data was collated on, and is accurate as at 4 July 2023
• As the data is extracted from dynamic systems, there may be small variances when
compared with prior or future datasets.
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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 its 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
Kate Raggett
Manager Operational Policy and Official Correspondence
Service Delivery and Operations
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