Further IT delays at Immigration - Stuff.co.nz

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 07/01/2014 - 02:36

Immigration New Zealand has admitted there will be a further delay in delivering the first major fruits from its $105 million technology revamp.

The department had planned to let international students apply for visas online from today.

However, Immigration NZ said that had been pushed back to the end of August. It previously put off a student trial that had been due to begin in September last year.

Universities New Zealand chief executive Chris Whelan said other countries, including Australia, let international students apply for visas online.

"It is hugely desirable, but doing it right is more important than doing it fast," Whelan said.

"The simple fact is that a lot of students used to sit around for 40 or 60 days waiting to work out whether they were going to be admitted to a university by which time someone in the United States had already offered them a place."

Immigration NZ general manager Stephen Dunstan said "risks assessments" had identified the need to address some security considerations.

"The extra time will help ensure that at our go-live we provide our global users, and our business, with the best system possible," Dunstan said.

"We have always maintained that go-live would be contingent on thorough technical, security and user testing."

Letting international students apply for and track the progress of visa applications online is one of the spinoffs of the service's Immigration Global Management System (IGMS), which is being built by privately owned technology company Datacom.

Dunstan said Immigration NZ remained on track to deliver all the main elements of IGMS by the end of next year.

Immigration NZ said in December that the capital cost of IGMS had crept up by $11.5m to $91.5m.

Dunstan said today that the Government had since approved another $13.3m of "additional initiatives" not included in IGMS' original business case.

"Immigration NZ maintains professional working relationships with all its contractors. Everyone involved with the project is working hard towards successful implementation," he said.

The investment in IGMS was first proposed by the Labour government in 2007 after a Thai national working for Immigration NZ in Bangkok was caught swindling thousands of dollars from Cambodian visa applicants in 2003.

A subsequent auditor-general's report found flaws in the department's ability to prevent and detect identity fraud.

The new system will centralise visa processing as well as letting migrants and other visa applicants check the progress of their applications online. It is hoped it will also speed up visa processing.

The department's goal is that by 2017, 70 per cent of visa applications will be received online.