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This story was originally published on RNZ.co.nz and republished with permission.
Overseas government office personnel who have not worked during the lockdown have been supported with full salary, at an estimated cost of $ 7 million.
And more than 3,000 employees of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) were still using Windows 7 systems, causing delays in working from home.
Immigration New Zealand (INZ), a business unit of MBIE, said 427 employees had been retained overseas, but that for security reasons they did not have the option of working from home.
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INZ’s Beijing office, whose staff resolves around 10,000 visa applications each week, has been closed since the Chinese New Year on January 24.
According to salary figures released to RNZ last year, the cost of keeping staff on full salary so far has cost around $ 5 million.
The Mumbai office remains closed and his salary is $ 2 million. The costs of INZ’s offices in the Philippines, which remain closed, and in Samoa, which reopened last month, are unknown.
RNZ
Immigration New Zealand has relaxed border regulations for resident visa holders who are stuck abroad.
‘Shocking’ offshore case officers with full pay, unable to do anything for nine months
Immigration consultant Katy Armstrong said the public would be surprised to learn how much money had been spent on salaries and the lack of online capacity.
She said immigrants trying to change employers through varying conditions waited nearly two months before a case officer would review their application.
“In the context of an environment where much of immigration is completely on hold, you would naturally think that things that can still be processed would be processed at lightning speed. But actually, you know, [for] a simple variation of the working conditions there is a wait of 50 days, that is absolutely shocking for any professional.
“Having to wait 50 days just to be assigned when you have two main branches, with fully trained case officers, sitting there at full salary, unable to make any decisions, that really raises the alarm.
“We have seen that as the number of applications has decreased, we have this kind of concentric shrinking circle of activity within Immigration New Zealand, the queues almost seem to have gotten worse in some areas.
“It’s really shocking to think that a large number of extraterritorial case officers have been paid in full, without being able to do anything for nine months.”
INZ said it had reviewed the situation of each foreign office on a monthly basis since the pandemic began.
New Zealand seconded personnel had now returned to China to complete their quarantine requirements and prepare the Beijing office for reopening.
“We look forward to reopening the Beijing office in mid-September at the earliest,” said Acting General Manager of Visa and Border Operations Steve McGill.
“The health and safety of our staff remains a primary consideration in any decision to reopen an office abroad. Currently, all INZ offices abroad remain closed, with the exception of our office in Apia, which opened on last month.
“INZ offshore staff have continued to be paid while the offices have been closed. This has helped keep staff engaged locally in places like Beijing to ensure the office is now in a position to reopen, we have the processing capacity and capacity. necessary, particularly when border restrictions are lifted and processing of applications abroad resumes. “
Outdated IT Stuck Lock Job
In response to a request from the Official Information Act (OIA), MBIE said it could not say how many New Zealand Immigration employees it had working at level 4.
Initial planning for Covid-19 at the end of January was based on the fact that a quarter of the workforce needed to work from home.
“MBIE personnel who were classified as ‘essential’ were able to access the MBIE systems at all times and there were no limitations,” the ministry said in its response from the OIA, stating that others could only access the system outside of business hours until that more licenses will be purchased at Easter.
It accelerated the deployment of Windows 10 and bought 700 new machines that ran Direct Access, as well as 7000 additional remote licenses, such as VPN and Citrix.
But 3,222 employees were still using Windows 7, an operating system that was released in 2009 and for which Microsoft no longer provides product support.
Armstrong said the ministry withheld information under the OIA about the cost of INZ’s overseas office closures.
“We have been told that billions of dollars have been invested in upgrading systems and bringing applications online in recent years,” he said.
“There’s been a lot of PR around that and then when the turning point came, my God, it was like there was literally no capacity. Such limited online capacity.
“It was shocking, as professionals, we were way ahead of the game in terms of our ability and they have had years to prepare and have business continuity plans.”
INZ said it received 39,000 visa applications in July and 32,500 in August, as well as 35,000 border exception requests since the end of March.
Those applications and subsequent visa applications were being processed by his Henderson office in Auckland, whose workload had been transferred to other offices.
“This has affected the processing times for Variation of Conditions (VoC) applications as there was an initial period for immigration officers at the Christchurch office to catch up on the processing of this type of application,” McGill said.
“VoC applications are also paper applications, which means they could not be processed during the close at the beginning of the year. This has also affected the processing times as there was a backlog of applications that needed to be assigned when the office of Christchurch picked up this visa product. “
It had assigned more officers to those visas, but changes in the job market had led to an increase in VoC applications of more than 1,000 compared to the same three months last year.
“INZ has business continuity plans for an event such as an office closure that can occur for various reasons,” he said.
All INZ personnel on the ground worked from home whenever possible through Covid-19 alert levels 4 and 3, unless they were required to be on-site as essential workers or to be on leave. “
This story was originally published on RNZ.co.nz and republished with permission.
