An audit of the processing of citizenship applications by the Department of Home Affairs has found the system to be inefficient, subject to delays and lacking in key performance indicators.
In his report, Efficiency of the Processing of Applications for Citizenship by Conferral, Auditor-General, Grant Hehir reported that since 1949 newcomers to Australia could apply to become citizens in one of four categories: Descent, adoption, resumption, and conferral.
“Citizenship by conferral is the largest component,” Mr Hehir said.
“Of the 259,815 applications for citizenship lodged in 2017-18, 92 per cent sought citizenship by conferral.”
He found, however, that the system for processing the applications was inefficient.
“Applications for citizenship by conferral have not been processed efficiently by the Department of Home Affairs,” Mr Hehir said.
“Processing times have increased and long delays are evident between applications being lodged and decisions being taken on whether or not to confer citizenship.”
He said significant periods of inactivity were evident for both complex and non-complex applications accepted by the Department for processing.
“The Department has a suite of initiatives in train that are designed to improve efficiency but implementation has been slow,” Mr Hehir said.
“It has not set external key performance indicators to inform Parliament and other stakeholders of how efficient it has been in processing conferral applications.
“Further, the Department is not checking the quality of the decisions being taken.”
The Auditor-General’s 63-page report can be accessed at this PS News link and the audit team was Tracey Bremner, Tiffany Tang and Brian Boyd.
