Answers from the Immigration Advisers Authority (part 1)
1. How many staff currently work for the IAA.
As at 25 January 2011, 21 staff worked for the Immigration Advisers Authority including permanent and fixed-term staff.
a. How many are full time and how many are part time?
As at 25 January 2011, 20 staff were full time. One staff member was part-time.
This clears up an issue highlighted by Mike Bell, who said that he was told they had 50 staff. I am advised that he probably misheard 15 – which was the staff level at the time. I was speaking to the same person.
2. You list 170 TTMRA advisers — are they included in the 512 licences or are they on top of that number?
At 23 January 2011 there were 525 licensed advisers of which 156 were licensed through the Trans Tasman Mutual Recognition Arrangement ( TTMRA).
(So basically – this means that that there are even less agents available than the IAA are advertising. Bearing in mind that the 525 covers all licences - not full licences, and then it turns out that 156 of those are licences granted under the TTMRA – ie for Australian agents who automatically have the right to a New Zealand Licence.
It all looks a bit – well – overpromised and underdelivered doesnt it?)
3. Could we please have an organisational chart showing how many people are employed at each level of the organisation.
a. Could this please include job titles where possible?
Well, this is pretty good news – most of the staff are actually visibly front line staff – looking at licencing new agents or investigating current agents.
4 How many of your staff are on secondment from DOL or INZ?
As at 25 January 2011, there were no staff on secondment from the other parts of the Department of Labour including Immigration New Zealand.
5. How many IAA staff are “customer facing” (ie deal directly with agents) and how many are internal staff only and do not have direct contact with agents?
All staff can have contact with advisers. The extent of contact varies between roles. The assessors, investigators. Registrar, senior communications adviser and licensing administration officers are likely to have most contact. The operational policy manager, business manager, executive business administrator and executive assistant are likely to have least contact but do have contact from time to time.
I see this as a good thing in many ways. Perhaps it is a sympton of being a small department, but I feel that not having a huge gap between “management” and the “customers” prevents a lot of arrogance. Its something you see in any organisation – not just Govt. Departments, where there is just no interaction between the people ruuning the department and the people they are supposed to be looking after.
Of course in this case – it should perhaps be stated that the IAA should actually be working for Immigrants – the people they advertise that they protect – and not immigration agents. The organisation chart shows the unblanced nature of the IAA in this regard, with 6 assesors looking at licencing agents, and 3 investigators looking at complaints from immigrants regarding those agents.
And that is one of my main issues with the IAA!
6. Could we please have a copy of the last yearly financial report.
The Department of Labour’s annual report which contains a summary of the Immigration Advisers Authority financial performance in 2010 is available online at http://www.doLoovt.nzipublications/peneral/gen-annual-reportasp.
This deserves and will get a post all to itself, because I did not ask for a summary, and I have actually had to put in another OIR to get the right answers. The summary above by the way – is already posted on this blog, and was one of the reasons why we decided to start asking some questions.
7. How many complaints have so far been made to the IAA about the behaviour of Licensed Agents,
a. How many agents does that involve?
8. How many of those complaints have so far been investigated.
a. (I am not intrested in how many “so called” unlicensed advisers you have targeted such as Move2NZ.)
As at 25 January 2011, 37 complaints about individual licensed advisers had been accepted as meeting the criteria under section 44 of the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act 2007 and had been investigated and referred to the Immigration Advisers Complaints and Disciplinary Tribunal. The IACDT is an independent Tribunal within the Ministry of Justice.
(Which has only just had someone appointed to run it after all this time)
As at 25 January 2011, a further three complaints about licensed advisers were under investigation.
Of course that also didnt answer the question about how many agents that involved. Was it one really crap agent, or are 37 out of the massive 434 that were fully licenced at that time bad enough to have warrented investigation so far.
And why is this not being mentioned in the newsletters that the IAA put out?
I would also like to make everyone aware that the IAA have no power or authroity it seems to actually read the newspapers, look at cases that are taken to the old RRB or the new Immigration and Protection Tribunal, where there is a mine of information showing that licenced immigration agnenst are failing both ethically and competantly to do ther jobs properly and are causing untold problems for immigrants.
This more than anything needs to change – its just shameful.
9. Could we have copies of any minutes of meetings between INZ and the Authority relating to the creation of the 1NZ email address for immigration advisers.
There are no minutes of any meetings between Immigration New Zealand (INZ) and the Authority relating to the creation of the !NZ email address for immigration advisers. The Authority was informed by email from INZ of the creation of this email address.
Well, isnt that interesting. On the question of who is lying about application put in by agents getting priorirty – the IAA says its INZ that are telling porkies.
As of today, the INZ website still states:
Asking someone to help with your application
We treat all applications equally – whether you apply yourself or through an adviser, agent or representative.
Which is clearly – bollocks.
10. Could you please explain how one Denise Ella Sonnya Ah Tune of Leififi Travel and Tours was granted a licence (no. 201001701)?
This one so deserves its own post!
In general – answers are forthcoming, and I have clearly not been refused any of the information I am after. Where I have not got quite what I want – it seems to be more a case of a lack of understanding between the two parties rather than the IAA attempting to hide anything! This is in contrast to Mike’s experience, but then, we are also coming at this from two different start points – as in the IAA have never actually threatened me, and are not at risk of legal action from me. On saying that – Mike has had a great deal of help from the Ombudsman, whereas my dealing with them suggest they are in the pocket of INZ – so go figure!
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Related posts:
- Answers from the Immigration Advisers Authority (part 2)
- God will get you an Immigration Advisers Licence.
- Immigration Advisers Licencing Act: Update 2 Responce from the minister
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