Photo: RNZ
- 'Competitive edge' for NZ if visa systems run more smoothly
- Customers should be able to check visa progress like they would a pizza delivery
- Better reporting would drive improvements
Immigration New Zealand needs a sharper focus on the skilled residence visa system to maximise its benefits to the country, according to the auditor-general.
In-demand migrants could pick and choose their country of destination, and smoother visa processing and better communication could improve the country's pulling-power.
The auditor-general has made five recommendations, including making it easier track the progress of visa applications and reviewing its approach to reporting on the immigration system's performance.
Lucy Mouland, who led the audit, said customer satisfaction surveys should drill down into what skilled migrants thought of the process.
"We noted particularly organisations like the OECD saying that the ease with which you can navigate a visa system is a real key point in being able to attract the migrants that you want. And we know that New Zealand, like other countries, is in a very competitive market for some of those skills in areas such as health and information technology. So the more that Immigration New Zealand can do to make its systems user friendly, the more competitive edge that New Zealand can have."
Immigration New Zealand could identify the causes of delays to applications and why some occupations moved through the system more quickly, for example, carers had faster visa processing than engineers in the audit's analysis.
Auditor-General John Ryan said: "Immigration New Zealand needs to know what improvements to processes it could make to strengthen the country's ability to attract and retain this sought-after group of migrants.
"Making these improvements will require shifts in the way that Immigration New Zealand thinks about applicants for skilled residence visas and their place in the wider immigration system."
He also called for better reporting about the effectiveness of the skilled residence visa system by collecting longer-term information, which until seven years ago was published in Migration Trends reports. They detailed whether residents remained in New Zealand and what occupations they eventually worked in.
The Skilled Migrant Category was overhauled after the pandemic lockdown, changing the former points system and adding in Green List fast-tracked and work-to-residence categories. More than 100 staff members process those applications from INZ's Manukau office.
Other areas to improve included using plain language and encouraging complaints.
Auditor-General John Ryan. Photo: Controller and Auditor General
The auditor-general heard that INZ needed to prioritise improvements to communications, access to information about the progress of applications and processing times.
"If New Zealand is to remain competitive in the global skills market, it is important for Immigration New Zealand to manage how quickly visas are processed ... a system that works well for applicants is also clear, smooth, fair, and consistent.
"Immigration New Zealand knows that its letters can be hard to understand. It is working to improve its written communications, which includes considering a correspondence guide to help immigration officers with their communication. In our view, there is an opportunity for Immigration New Zealand to see whether a stronger focus on plain language could help it improve its written communications."
The report said applicants were given a small number of opportunities to supply the right documents before Immigration New Zealand declined an application, possibly deterring migrants from re-applying because of the cost and time in restarting the process. The report suggested allowing applicants the choice to pause their applications to gather the right information.
A new website was being launched to make it easier for users to navigate.
"Making it easy for applicants to see how their application is progressing improves the transparency of the process, reduces applicants' anxiety, and saves them spending time on phone calls and emails to understand their application's progress.
"People are accustomed to receiving real-time information on their phones about the status of, for example, food they have ordered or deliveries they are expecting. They are likely to expect a similar experience from government organisations. However, when an applicant for a skilled residence visa logs in to Immigration New Zealand's website to track the status of their application, they can access only limited information about their application's progress."
Having different IT systems for different visas slowed down processing and affected customers' experience of applying, it said.
Getting feedback from staff and customers and encouraging complaints from applicants would also highlight where there was room for improvement.
"We encourage Immigration New Zealand to consider whether it could do more to help people who might find it difficult to complain in writing or verbally, including people with a first language other than English. We consider that, because people might be unwilling to put their visa in jeopardy by complaining, and because Immigration New Zealand does not specifically collect data about complaints from skilled residence visa applicants, it needs to use caution when interpreting who and what its complaints information represents."
'High trust' for Green List
Staff in non-managerial roles talked about wanting more opportunities to provide feedback about a process before it was introduced, because working with policy-makers afterwards to find solutions can sometimes be "time-consuming and frustrating".
"Some people told us that it was welcome, but unusual, to have adequate notice to prepare for changes or to have time to reflect on operational matters and provide meaningful input into the policy process. One senior staff member told us that they were working in a system where it was 'very hard to do anything but run'."
The report noted a decision when the Green List 'straight to residence' category opened in 2022, that not all decisions would undergo a quality control check - a decision reversed only in March this year.
"Because Green List Tier 1 Straight to Residence Visas were intended for highly skilled migrants in hard-to-fill occupations of importance to the country, Immigration New Zealand was expected to process this type of visa quickly.
"Immigration New Zealand decided that it could apply a high-trust approach to occupations where a professional body required registration or certification."
It continued to check 100 percent of Skilled Migrant Category and Work to Residence Visas when they re-opened in 2023.
INZ told the report writers it considered it was appropriate to treat those applications differently because they did not have the same skills requirements of the Straight to Residence Visa.
Elsewhere, the report noted staff in the risk and verification team said they sometimes felt "out of the loop" as they could not easily see how immigration officers applied their advice in practice, or to learn how to improve their advice.
"Recruitment and retention of staff was hard and some managers described themselves as 'the meat in the sandwich' or the 'tectonic plate', taking the strain of pressure to manage change and still make good decisions quickly. We also heard about change fatigue and the additional pressures of recruiting and retaining staff."
INZ did not regularly report on whether the system is working for different groups as intended or achieving policy objectives, it said.
"Immigration New Zealand needs to systematically monitor how well applicants move through the system, identify bottlenecks in processing applications, and know whether decisions about visa applications meet policy objectives.
"We could not see that Immigration New Zealand routinely monitors applications or groups of applications to understand whether and why some move through the skilled residence visa system quicker than others.
"In our view, it would be helpful for Immigration New Zealand's reporting to include analysis of application processing information by categories such as nationality, gender, or occupation."
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