NZ Citizenship - time taken for approval

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Master Geek
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#2754567 3-Aug-2021 16:35

@tchart congratulations, wow 10 months. That's really frustrating.

@kyanar That's great so around 4 years and 8 months (240 days). Yeah DIA is quite good with their customer service, If they don't get it right then we are all doom as its not very common see above average customer service in the public sector. The worse I talked with are IRD, Kainga Ora, Kiwibuild, & MSD. I felt a hint of aggresiveness on the start of conversation.

Anyway I signed in this petition to return the processing of citizenship back to the usual 3 months, so we could get our money's worth on the salary we pay to those upstanding workers in DIA.

https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/petitions/document/PET_111097/petition-of-mathewkutty-jose-mangalassery-restore-the

Mrsd411

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Master Geek
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#2755253 4-Aug-2021 19:54

tchart: Woohoo finally got an approval email, 1 week shy of 10 months.

Congratulations. 😀

tchart

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Uber Geek
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#2755255 4-Aug-2021 20:01

Mrsd411:
tchart: Woohoo finally got an approval email, 1 week shy of 10 months.

Congratulations. 😀

Thanks. Just reread the email and it says I'll be contacted about the ceremony within 5 months. Hopefully it's not 5.months!

Mrsd411

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Master Geek
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#2755397 5-Aug-2021 07:49

tchart: Thanks. Just reread the email and it says I'll be contacted about the ceremony within 5 months. Hopefully it's not 5.months!

I didn't think they were doing the ceremonies due to covid. I wonder if that's changed then? Do you have to wait for that before you can get your passport?

tchart

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#2755406 5-Aug-2021 08:25

Mrsd411:
tchart: Thanks. Just reread the email and it says I'll be contacted about the ceremony within 5 months. Hopefully it's not 5.months!

I didn't think they were doing the ceremonies due to covid. I wonder if that's changed then? Do you have to wait for that before you can get your passport?

Yes you can't apply for a passport until the ceremony as far as I know.

tchart

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#2755408 5-Aug-2021 08:26

The ceremonies are held by the local councils as far as I know. So if you are in a bigger city them the wait may not be long. Smaller cities don't do them as often.

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Rmani

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Ultimate Geek
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#2755650 5-Aug-2021 13:28

While discussing about this with a friend, he pointed to Official Information Act. I wasn't aware of this until he told me. Looks like few people have already raised concerns about the time delays. Not sure if it would result in any action though.

https://fyi.org.nz/body/dia

Rmani

Mrsd411

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Master Geek
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#2756218 6-Aug-2021 15:43

Rmani:

While discussing about this with a friend, he pointed to Official Information Act. I wasn't aware of this until he told me. Looks like few people have already raised concerns about the time delays. Not sure if it would result in any action though.

https://fyi.org.nz/body/dia

Thanks for that link, it's very interesting. There sure seems a lot of people unhappy with the time it's taking. I note they've taken on more people now to help with the backlog. Let's hope it works.

Stefanonz

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Geek

#2756290 6-Aug-2021 17:07

Rmani:

While discussing about this with a friend, he pointed to Official Information Act. I wasn't aware of this until he told me. Looks like few people have already raised concerns about the time delays. Not sure if it would result in any action though.

https://fyi.org.nz/body/dia

Sorry which month they are processing at the moment January 2021 ?? or Feb 2021 ???

very bad luck taking so long at the moment this process

good luck everyone

tchart

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#2756333 6-Aug-2021 19:23

Stefanonz:
Rmani:

While discussing about this with a friend, he pointed to Official Information Act. I wasn't aware of this until he told me. Looks like few people have already raised concerns about the time delays. Not sure if it would result in any action though.

https://fyi.org.nz/body/dia

Sorry which month they are processing at the moment January 2021 ?? or Feb 2021 ???

very bad luck taking so long at the moment this process

good luck everyone

Mine was October 2020 so I'm guessing they haven't started on 2021 yet.

Mrsd411

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Master Geek
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#2757823 10-Aug-2021 11:42

Just rang DIA to see if they could tell me the status of my application. I applied in early January 2021 and my email stated I'd hear within 5-10 months. That's not the case, everyone's is now taking 9-14 months. He said the earliest (at the moment) that I'd even be allocated a case officer would probably be around November, then hopefully a decision by January next year, then the ceremony, so around March next year. Oh well, what can you do. They have taken on more staff and are trying to get them out quicker but I'm not holding my breath.

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tchart

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#2757894 10-Aug-2021 11:55

Yeah that's what bothers me about this. The situation should be getting better and not worse.

I would expect they should be able to make a decision on someone's application within a few days if all the information is provided. My interactions with DIA showed they only looked at my file once a week. Thereby delaying the application approval by 4 or so weeks. If they had just called me and asked the questions on the spot then it would've saved them several weeks.

tchart

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#2757895 10-Aug-2021 12:00

Going back the these stats from earlier in the thread;

I couldnt find any more recent stats but in 2018 35,737 people were granted citizenship. So roughly 750 per week (assuming 48 working weeks)

So if they had 100 case officers that is 7 or 8 per officer per week.

The thing is with residency effectively closed the number of citizenship applications should have dropped off significantly over the past 12 months.

Mrsd411

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Master Geek
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#2757898 10-Aug-2021 12:04

tchart: Going back the these stats from earlier in the thread;

I couldnt find any more recent stats but in 2018 35,737 people were granted citizenship. So roughly 750 per week (assuming 48 working weeks)

So if they had 100 case officers that is 7 or 8 per officer per week.

The thing is with residency effectively closed the number of citizenship applications should have dropped off significantly over the past 12 months.

I agree, it doesn't make sense. Also how can they say 9-14 for mine which was submitted in January and those applying now are told the same.

Methegod

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Geek
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#2758069 10-Aug-2021 16:26

tchart:

Going back the these stats from earlier in the thread;

I couldnt find any more recent stats but in 2018 35,737 people were granted citizenship. So roughly 750 per week (assuming 48 working weeks)

So if they had 100 case officers that is 7 or 8 per officer per week.

The thing is with residency effectively closed the number of citizenship applications should have dropped off significantly over the past 12 months.

EDIT: it keeps removing my links so I had to add the naked links.

This is extremely disruptive to life, specially that I have to travel for work and I can't because you step a foot outside you don't know what's going to happen. Regarding the number of agents you mentioned, it might be worth it to have a look at the info I have extracted from FYI. Check out responses to this question (https://fyi.org.nz/request/15426-citizenship-queries-2021#incoming-59458). This is going to be a long answer, but I'm so frustrated that I spent a lot of time researching this and here is some of my findings. Overall I find it unacceptable, and hope we could do something. There is this petition that is going around and I don't know if it's going to do anything but it's worth spreading. See the petition here (https://www.parliament.nz/mi/pb/petitions/document/PET_111097/petition-of-mathewkutty-jose-mangalassery-restore-the).

As of May 2021, they only have total of 45 case officers who are trained to process citizenship applications. FYI official response (https://fyi.org.nz/request/15426/response/59042/attach/4/Daniel%20OIA%20response%202021%200563.pdf).
As of August 1st, they have only been processing September applications. FYI official response (https://fyi.org.nz/request/16027/response/61647/attach/4/OIA%202122%200033%20Daniel%20via%20FYI%20response.pdf).
There is a very interesting table showing average number of days taking for processing time per month since Jan 2020. In a nutshell processing time has more than tripled by May 2021, from 57 days in Jan 202 to 189 in May 2021. FYI official response (https://fyi.org.nz/request/15426/response/59042/attach/4/Daniel%20OIA%20response%202021%200563.pdf).
In the same table you can see average number of applications processed by case officers since Jan 2020. The average number of cases processed per case officer has dropped from 49 to 37, although it fluctuates month on month this shouldn't be a big factor.
- If we take the average of cases processed per agent per month to be 40 cases per month, and 45 agents in total and I read again in FYI the department is around 20,000 (https://fyi.org.nz/request/15427/response/59038/attach/6/OIA%202021%200654%20Appendix%20B%20for%20release.pdf) applications behind (backlog). Based off of these, current case officers will need 11 months just to cover their backlog. This means they are 1 year behind, so if you summited March this year, you'll get a case officer assigned by March next year.
Couple of good news I guess:
- Department says they will add 20 agents to the mix by August 2021, which should have happened. Official response (https://fyi.org.nz/request/15427/response/59038/attach/4/OIA%202021%200654%20ED%20Hirsch%20response.pdf).
- Department also says the delay was due to Covid as well as system changes. System changes are in place which allows API integration with other departments and therefore increase speed of processing (yet to see the effect though). See the official response (https://fyi.org.nz/request/15427/response/59038/attach/5/OIA%202021%200654%20Appendix%20A%20for%20release.pdf).
- Department is adding a whopping number of agents 11, yes you read that right, 11 agents to be added to the current 45 to tackle 20,000 backlog. See the official response (https://fyi.org.nz/request/15427/response/59038/attach/4/OIA%202021%200654%20ED%20Hirsch%20response.pdf).

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