OIA 2324 0300 Joh.T via FYI.pdf

30 November 2023
45 Pipitea Street, Wellington 6011
Phone +64 4 495 7200
dia.govt.nz
Joh T
fyi-request-24630-
[email address]

Tēnā koe Joh
OIA request 23/24 0300 Request for citizenship processing timeframes
Thank you for your Official Information Act (Act) request received by the Department of Internal
Affairs (Department) on 2 November 2023.
You requested –
1.  Could I please request the following data for-Citizenship Application By Grant (Submitted
online) for the month's May (1st May) 2022 to November (30th Nov) 2022?
2.  Submitted Month, Number of Approved Applications (Submitted Online) Number of
Processing Applications (Submitted Online) Number of applications (Submitted Online)
waiting to be allocated to a case officer Number of applications (Submitted Online) each
month in different workstreams i.e., requesting the number of applications in each
workstream separately (May 2022 to November 2022)
3.  Also, if you can provide a breakup of,
What is the submission month for the allocated/processing applications in each
workstream at the moment (the day you answer)? For example: Workstream 1: Currently
processing Applications submitted in May 2022 Workstream 2: Currently processing
applications submitted in July 2022.

4.  Can you please provide application status in each workstream by Birth Country
Philippines , for all online citizenship applications submitted on the month of September
2022?
5.  Can you please provide application status in each workstream by Birth Country for all
online citizenship applications submitted on date: September 2022?
6.  The website says the current applications being looked at is August 2022. If there are
applications submitted in June or July? Then why does it say August?
7.  When will the website update on applications being looked at being August 2022 as of
today? What is the frequency of this being updated.
8.  Is there a system for those applications that need manual checks? How many of these
applications that require manual check are being looked at daily?

I note your request refers specifically to the Citizenship timeframes webpage:
https://www.govt.nz/browse/passports-citizenship-and-identity/nz-citizenship/how-to-apply-
for-nz-citizenship/application-timeframes/
In response to your request I can provide you with the following information:
I note that although your request was received by the Department on 2 November 2023, the
data provided in this response was collated on 17 November 2023 and is accurate at that date.
It may be helpful to explain that we can provide the most up to date information in existence at
the time of your request but not a future date e.g a responses due date, because of the amount
of internal work that is required from multiple teams to prepare a response.
Questions 1, 2 and 3 response:
Please refer to Appendix A, Table 1 attached to this response.  This table provides information
on the citizenship by grant (CBG) applications received online between 1 May 2022 and 30
November 2022 by workstream and current status.
Question 4 response:
Please refer to Appendix A, Table 2 attached to this response.  This table provides information
on the Workstream and status of online CBG applications received during September 2022,
where country of birth is the Philippines.
It may be helpful to explain that country of births are not confirmed until an application has
been assessed by a Life and Identity Service Officer (LISO), therefore unassigned applications
may not have the correct country. This is often the case with people mistakenly entering “New
Zealand” as the country of birth.
Question 5 response:
Please refer to Appendix A, Table 4 attached to this response.  This table provides information
on the status and workstream of CBG online applications submitted in September 2022, by
Country of Birth.
Counts of less than 5 applications have been masked with <5 to prevent identification of
individuals. This is in line with the Privacy Act of 2020, protecting the privacy of individuals.
Question 6 response:
It may be helpful to explain that there will always be applications being worked on from earlier
months. The Citizenship timeframes webpage at the time of this response, says:
the oldest applications being picked up for assessment are from September 2022.
This does not mean that all applications prior to September 2022 have now been finalised.  The
information on the website simply refers to the latest applications being picked up, which is
dated September 2022.

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Question 7 response:
Citizenship timeframes webpage updates take place each month during the first few days of the
month.
In case it may be of interest, status of citizenship by grant applications data can be found here:
https://catalogue.data.govt.nz/dataset/status-of-citizenship-by-grant-applications-by-date-
received-at-dia/resource/712409ae-d154-4ac9-a511-75627d4a9eb0
Question 8 response:
All applications require some manual assessment by a LISO; the amount of manual intervention
depends on the number of checks the system can automatically assess.

The time required to process applications that cannot be assessed automatically by the system
depends on various factors. These may include the complexity of the application, the nature of
the information that needs manual review, the availability of resources for manual processing,
and the overall volume of applications being handled.

Attempting to provide a precise average processing time for such applications is challenging due
to the inherent variability in the data. Each application may require a different level of manual
review, and the workload of the processing team can fluctuate based on various factors such as
staff availability, priority of other tasks, and unforeseen circumstances.
Based on the above explanation, I must therefore refuse this part of your request for
information pursuant to section 18(e) of the Act; that the document alleged to contain the
information requested does not exist or, despite reasonable efforts to locate it, cannot be
found.
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. 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

John Crawford-Smith
Manager Operational Policy and Official Correspondence (Acting)
Service Delivery and Operations

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