Quality Check Exempt Advisers Group April 2012

Background  Retrospective quality checks to be undertaken to determine if the immigration adviser licence exemptions are being claimed correctly.  Review completed for 1 July 2011 to 31 December 2011.

Methodology: Lawyers  To meet the exemption a lawyer must hold a current practising certificate issued by the New Zealand Law Society (NZLS).  Due to the large dataset (395), a random sample of 50% (199) of the lawyers was checked against the NZLS register.  Applications submitted by the advisers were queried with the case officers

Methodology: Offshore Student  Very large dataset (4264)  Added complexity of how to verify the exemption as the advice must be given offshore.  Full verification would entail having every individual advisers personal details and track their movements as well as confirming when the advice was given.

Offshore Student cont.  The following was undertaken: Company location – Verification of company names and assumed location. Randomly, (approx 10%) a company’s details were checked in AMS.  Application categories – Analysis of the INZ visa categories that the exemption was recorded against.

Methodology: Other exempt categories  Informal/Family, NZ Member of Parliament, NZ Public Service, Citizens Advice Bureau, Community Law Centre and Foreign Diplomat/Consular.  Due to the small size of the dataset for these categories: –all advisers were checked; and –100% of the applications submitted by the advisers were checked

Lawyers: Findings  Total lawyers recorded = 395  Random sample of 199 lawyers was analysed  Of the 199 lawyers, 29 could not be found on the NZLS register. These were queried with case officers and 19 replies were received: –Four were correct (names were recorded differently- variation of spelling/married name) –Five were employees of a lawyer where the lawyer had submitted the application –Five were data entry errors as no exemption was claimed on the form –Four were Licensed Advisers –One was incorrect – the lawyer was on the NZLS register but is an in-house lawyer (this is to be passed onto the IAA)

Offshore Student: Findings  Application categories: –Total 4264 applications were recorded under the Offshore Student exemption –42 (.98%) applications were non student visa applications and had the exemption incorrectly recorded against them –These resulted from INZ error  Company location: –A check of randomly selected applications found all companies to be located offshore.

Informal/Family: Findings  There were 16 applications within the dataset. All were queried with the case officers and 14 replies were received: –Two did not provide clarification as to how they met the exemption –Five were INZ data entry errors in that the wrong exemption was recorded –Two could not be verified as the applications were paperless –Five could not be verified as they were online Working Holiday applications

Overall  Exemptions are being claimed correctly.  Recurring issue: –INZ data entry error  Emerging issue: – Exemptions are being incorrectly claimed in online applications

Recommendations  Provide a reminder to branches including: –The recurring data entry error –For the lawyer exemption – the ‘responsible’ lawyer must be contact recorded as the adviser and not an employee  Investigate whether further information can be added to the website on the WHS page in regards to exemptions  Change the current verification parameters from 6months to 12 months.