I had a meeting with two of INZ’s National Managers today about the SMC backlog issue, where I explained my concerns about the attitude of indifference that seems to be coming across in correspondence from INZ managers I’ve been in touch with, and the lack of understanding there seems to be about the impact these delays are having on applicant’s lives. I described the exasperation felt about the growing wait times and the apparent lack of a plan from INZ to improve the situation or be transparent about what is actually at play here. A few points that came out of the meeting:
• INZ do not currently have a New Zealand Residence Programme (the numbers that the Government sets each 18-24 months for how many places are available for new Residents to be approved), as the previous one ran out in December 2019 and the Minister of Immigration has not announced a new one. This has never happened before and INZ have no guidance on how many Residence applications they are ‘permitted’ to finalise without these numbers from the Minister. They are currently working off an “unofficial” number that is similar to the previous NZ Residence Programme (that is, 25,500-30,600 new Residents from the Skilled Migrant Category).
• INZ are currently resourced in line with the previous NZ Residence Programme (which ran out in December) and can not put more resourcing into the Skilled Migrant Category backlog unless a new NZ Residence Programme, with higher numbers, is announced.
• INZ currently have more SMC applications on-hand than there are places available on the Residence Programme numbers currently being worked to. In short, demand for Residence in NZ went up at the same time as the current Government reduced the number of new Residents allowed by almost 50%.
• The National Managers couldn’t tell me where the ‘priority criteria’ came from but they justified it as there being highest demand in the NZ labour market for people earning high remuneration and in occupations that require registration (I find their rationale highly questionable but, at the end of the day, the message to me was that the priority criteria is going to remain in place for the foreseeable future).
• There are many factors which are outside INZ’s control and are purely political – such as the Residence Programme numbers and the selection criteria for the Skilled Migrant Category. They inferred that they are doing what they can with the instructions they’ve been given by the Government of the day.
• It was confirmed that updated documents will be requested from applicants by an Immigration Officer once the application is finally allocated, since most of the documents that will be assessed (such as payslips, bank statements, partnership evidence) will be over 18 months old by the time the file reaches an Officer for assessment (just something to be prepared for once your application finally reaches the front of the queue).
• INZ are aware of the issue that many SMC applicants are facing of having almost exhausted the options of renewing work visas under the instructions that allow for an Essential Skills work visa without the need for a labour market test (12 months and then 6 months) – they don’t have a solution for this problem yet but they are “actively considering” options at the moment.
• The Minister has not indicated that a review of the Skilled Migrant Category criteria is a priority in the next 6 months, so there are no big changes coming in terms of the applications that are already lodged.
• In short, INZ recognise that there is an issue with the SMC queue and that it is having an impact on people’s lives, but the political reality is that the number of new Residents that INZ is permitted by the Government to approve has not been announced by the Minister of Immigration when it should have been and this is not a situation that they have ever dealt with before. Without throwing the Minister under the bus, everything they were saying inferred that the problem lies with Mr Lees-Galloway.
I was invited to provide details of what would be helpful information that they could send out in regular ‘stakeholder comms’ (either to advisers or clients directly) about the SMC situation – aside from knowing the date of lodgement of applications that are currently being allocated and the volume that are on-hand for each remaining lodgement month in the queue, what else would you like to know about the status of the SMC queue on a regular basis, to give you some surety that there is light at the end of this tunnel? While it’s not an ideal solution to the problem, I think that more regular and transparent comms about what is actually going on with these applications is a good start.
Sorry that it’s not more positive news that I have for you about this issue, but please know that I am continuing to fight hard for a resolution to the backlog of Residence applications and will keep highlighting the reality of the challenges that applicants are facing while waiting for their Residence application to make its way to the front of that long queue.