The Department of Immigration and Citizenship appears to still be dealing with backlog of ENS and RSMS applications from May / June 2012; providing a backlog… The spike in May / June 2012 applications was some 525% higher than usual months. Some information below regarding backlogs and decision ready information for agents.

DIAC response to enquiry from MIA:

“We are still using the Decision Ready Checklist system…

You are aware that we have had significant systems issues post 1 July 2012 with one issue being that the applications lodged between 1 July and 23 November 2012 were not being recognised in our system as “decision ready”. When this issue was raised we requested that agents advise us by email if they were lodging “decision ready” applications so we could identify those applications out of the general pool of applications. This issue has since been fixed and applications lodged from 24 November 2012 can be identified in the system as “decision ready”.

We are allocating applications according to date of receipt. Where we have a “decision ready” application these are prioritised, however given the large number of applications and subsequently the high number of these that are identified as “decision ready”, these are also allocated according to date of receipt. In effect we triage the “decision ready” applications out of the larger group and then allocate those by date. There are always exceptions where we may prioritise an application out of date order for a range of reasons, and any prioritisation of a “decision ready” application out of date order is determined at management level.

In terms of processing times – we are working hard to get through the pre-1 July caseload, however given the unprecedented number of applications in May and June (a 525 percent increase on the average monthly lodgements) our processing times are longer than usual. Having said that, there is light at the end of the tunnel as we get the backlog of cases down.”

Courtesy of MIA

If you have any enquiries as to how Migration Agents can assist with a ‘decision ready’ application, please contact us now.