Marie-Anne Thompson gets her day in court – maybe.
The ex-head of immigration is now going through deposition hearing to determine whether she will go to trial for allegedly lying on her CV. This is something that has been rumbling on for a while now, and it will be interesting to finally see the outcome. (If we ever get there).
So what is the deal here?
Well, in all the hullabaloo over whether Ms Thompson did or did not use her position to influence her family getting residency visas that they were not entitled to, it also emerged that she was claiming on her CV that she had a PhD when she didn’t.
She is in court on this point – this has nothing to do with the immigration of her family members. She faces 3 charges of fraud.
Mary-Anne Thompson did indeed study at the London School Of Economics – starting out on a Masters degree and at some point transferring to a Doctorate. The issue surrounds the question of whether or not she ever was ever actually awarded a degree – specifically the PhD.
Staff from the London School of Economics are giving evidence by video link.
It seems that although a thesis was submitted, it was sent back to be corrected and improved and so far it looks like that was last the LSE heard on the matter. It all gets a bit confusing with one report saying the thesis went back three times, another saying that an oral exam was suggested but never took place, one saying there are documents available showing a Masters degree was awarded. I think it needs a proper court case just to establish what the real facts are!
What does not seem to be in doubt at the moment is that there is no PhD. Ms Thompson claims that she believed she had one – and that’s the one part of this I have very little time for. How on earth do you not know that you didn’t actually get a degree? If you had spent all that time studying – wouldn’t you make absolutely sure you had the proof to back it up? Especially when working in a field like immigration where applicants have to be able to prove every last detail with documentation. There is always a paper trail somewhere!
There is actually an awful lot about this in the Auditor General Report – part 2 of which is specifically about the Issue of the PhD. I’ll go into that in a separate post – otherwise you will probably be bored to tears – but one thing did come through in that: everyone would have still given the job to Ms Thompson whether she had a PhD or not – based on the level and quality of her work. I can’t help but feel a bit sorry for her that she appears to have felt the need to lie to bolster a career that was so well respected. Especially since, in lying – she has wrecked that reputation completely.
On the other hand – I also have absolutely zero sympathy – given the treatment meted out to migrants who similarly “lie” on their applications – knowingly or by accident.
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Auditor General’s Report – we got a mention :)
As we (slowly) work the OAG report in the stuff ups that Immigartion New Zealand have been making for years – we were a bit gobsmacked to find that a (small) part of our submission to them was included.
Knowledge of complaints processes
5.132
We received an expression of concern from a member of the public (Thats lil ol’ me) that the
complaints procedures were hard to find. Certainly, it is not possible to easily
submit a complaint either through the Department of Labour website or through
the Immigration New Zealand website. We were told that the Department is
reviewing the publicly available descriptions of, and means of access to, the
complaints procedures.
5.133
In our view, members of the public should be able to easily find out how to raise
concerns with Immigration New Zealand and know how their concerns will be
dealt with
Way to go!!!
This is a small reminder that no matter how tiny and insignificant you might feel as one or two people trying to make a change in the world – it is worth perservering in the effort.
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Auditor General report – The NZIS computer system sucks.
I’ve taken a few days off from blogging about this – because frankly it’s just too depressing to work through every day. I take my hat off to the staff at the Office of the AG – because it must have done their heads in!
Anyway – one of the things they looked at was the computer system that INZ uses to help process applications. Its called the Application Management system (AMS), and the OAG team had to make use of it extensively in their investigations. They were less than impressed it appears.
This doesn’t surprise me. When we were having problems with the London branch – we asked to be sent the entire file so we could see what was really going on at their end. Any applicant is entitled to this under the Official Information Act and INZ has to respond within 20 working days. As part of this request – we were given a printout from the AMS. It was appalling. No wonder the staff can’t keep abreast of applications.
There was very little information in the file – merely a list of actions taken and letters sent – almost no details on the contents of the correspondence (until we get to the emails regarding the complaint). The AG also notes this is an issue.
INZ wants to replace the system – this should be done immediately. They may as well be using pen, paper and smoke signals. It turns out that one huge (and I mean massively huge) cock up is that the AMS has absolutely no way of 
storing a photo of the applicant. It also can’t store copies of such basic immigration material as Passports or drivers licences – let alone the mass of documentation that we are required to send in to prove who we are. This explains why it took a staggering 3 weeks for my parents file to be transferred from Wellington to London – because the file has to be physically posted. The mind just boggles. In this day and age – that a department dealing with immigration is still using a computer system that isn’t fully integrated with the internet and have the ability to store basic identification material is absurd.
It also means that staff in New Zealand cannot access any of the information in another on shore branch, let alone off shore branches, by simply accessing the AMS. The AG found a distinct lack of quality in the notes found on the AMS, as this varied between different offices and staff. But then, if no one else is going to be able to access – I can’t help wondering why they would bother to keep good notes anyway.
Apparently the AMS can only make links between family members in an haphazard way – and even then the visa officers have to manually tell the system that two people are in the same family. Again – it just beggars belief that an Immigration department does not track links between families. For crying out loud – we have to go through a whole load of rigmarole to prove we are all related – and yet they can’t be arsed to do the same???
Worse – many of the offshore agency departments don’t even have access to the AMS, bad as it is. Now on the face of it that may not seem such an issue – but let’s be clear here – this is Immigration New Zealand – tasked with protecting the country form undesirables. And many of the offices processing whether people can come to New Zealand or not do not have the software to document the applications and decisions. This is such a basic screw up. These offices account for 40,000 visa applications every year. They have no access to basic info such as previous applications, travel history, warnings or alerts which are held in the AMS. If these branches want to note something – it has to be manually sent to New Zealand and entered on the system from there.
Whoever it is that has made the decision to equip NZIS with such a defunct system should be ashamed. And sacked. The AG seemed to be less than impressed with the speed of the system and the fact that (embarrassing for INZ) it kept crashing on them while they were carrying out the investigation. (Can’t help but chuckle at this one I’m afraid).
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Some interesting facts and figures about Immigration New Zealand.
I’m working my way through the Auditors Generals report.
While it will take quite a long time to get through it – there’s some interesting facts and figures that are presented – which actually came as some surprise.
For example – it seems that only 5% of the visa applications that INZ deal with are for permanent entry – 95% of them are for temporary visas such as work or visitor visas. About 60% of all applications – whether for temporary or permanent visas are handled by onshore branches in New Zealand.
There are 16 Offshore Branches of INZ, and 29 “Agency Posts” which are contracted out by INZ in countries that do not require dedicated branches.
The report looked at 10 branches, including the four main onshore branches and London.
Immigration New Zealand accounts for two thirds of Department of Labour funding and employs more than 60% of the staff there.
It takes 5 days of theory training followed by a test to end up with a warrant to be a Visa officer and assess and decide on applications.
20% of Visa decision that were actually reviewed by the OAG were considered to be poor – and most of those were decisions made by Onshore Branches.
Immigration Branches are funded on the basis of the number of immigration decisions that they make. This ended up being a huge concern to the OAG because it encourages sloppy decision making.
The Christchurch and Sydney branches of INZ came up with Project Crusade to clear backlogs of temporary Visa and Permit applications. They fast tracked 1770 applications by not following policy and procedure.
There are now roughly 500,000 applications going into INZ each year – that is for both temporary and permanent visas.
There are 24 verification officers in the Auckland area – working out of a specialist unit, 1 in the London branch and none in Wellington. Verication officers are there to basically verify documents, job offers and the like.
On the other hand – the great news is that:
My Parents and Brother arrive today.
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