New Zealand’s visa authority, Immigration New Zealand, is considering options to consolidate its visa processes, including closing several of its offshore and onshore branch offices, according to a statement released by the Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment.
Among the processes under review, options are being considered to specialise visa processing by sector, reduce the number of processing sites and effectively increase the number of visas processed onshore, and implement a new leadership model for the department.
“It is proposed that over the next three years, our offshore presence would be reduced from 17 locations to five,” said Steve Stuart, general manager of visa services.
“There will be processing centres in Beijing and Mumbai, with our three offices in the Pacific also remaining.”
Stuart said the review comes after significant investment to INZ’s online platform, Immigration ONLINE, which has seen a marked increase in popularity, now accounting for about half of all eligible visa applications.
Under the proposed changes, offices in Ho Chi Minh, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Bangkok, Moscow, New Delhi, Pretoria, and Shanghai would close, along with the Auckland Central and Henderson offices.
A further four offices in Manila, Washington DC, London, and Dubai would cease processing visas but would remain open for other activities, such as market intelligence and verification activities.
Ravi Lochan Singh, managing director of Indian-based education agent consultancy Global Reach, told The PIE News the changes would be a positive move for INZ and would not have an impact on international students.
“[The office closures] make no difference on the student decision making,” he said.
“As more and more dependence on online tools increase, it allows INZ to be able to centrally process the visas at a few locations and thus take advantage of economies of scale.”
While INZ is clear in its intentions to consolidate its processes, Stuart said no final decisions had been made at this time.
“I want to stress that these proposals are just that at this stage and we want to hear what staff think before making any decisions,” he said.
“But we want to ensure we have the right operating model in place to meet our ongoing commitment for world class service delivery and customer excellence in a digital world.”
The consultation period will end Friday 29 September with a decision expected to be announced by the end of the year.
