Eyes turn to Immigration's new IT project after it misses first milestone

Immigration New Zealand (INZ)'s next multi-million dollar IT project has failed to meet its first stage goals.

The $336 million Our Future Services (OFS), a seven-year visa processing rebuild, began last year.

But it ran into problems with group visitor visas, which according to its business plan had been due for completion between June and December last year.

The immigration and finance ministers are getting quarterly updates on the project's progress, and Cabinet is being briefed ever year. Last month, a Public Service Commission assurance review was also ordered, following the axing of the $35m Biometric Capability Update amid allegations that officials had misled ministers and a select committee.

Commissioner Sir Brian Roche said it would be checking the advice Erica Stanford had received about Our Future Services was "accurate and can be relied on".

The project's first phase deliverables were due earlier this week and included moving 31 visa types onto its new platform - students, relatives of temporary visa holders and group visitor visas.

Future Services' acting general manager Jaci Barnes said in a statement the latter was now "expected to occur in the coming weeks".

Group visitor visas account for about 60,000 applications a year.

OFS' first phase included decommissioning legacy systems and ran from February 2025 to last month.

"We expect to be able to demonstrate our ability to deliver as a programme by building these high-volume, complex products in phase one," officials told ministers in a March 2025 business plan.

"The first phase is designed to be deliberately short to build confidence in our ability to deliver at an early stage. By the end of the first phase, we will already be delivering both monetary and non-monetary benefits. While it would be possible to choose not to proceed with the programme following the first phase, the efficiency benefits achieved would not be enough to recoup the costs spent."

Phase two runs from now until June 2028 when INZ is due to have moved more than 100 visa products onto its enhanced Immigration Online system, and to have created a new risk analytics platform.

Barnes told RNZ as well as visa processing changes, phase one was also aimed at learning lessons. "Through our work on the programme so far, we have identified ways in which we can deliver the programme more effectively and efficiently, which we will embed into the next phases. Learning lessons and adapting the approach is a standard way of operating multi-year programmes.

"The Our Future Services Programme is bringing visa applications and processing into a single digital platform, supported by smart risk management, modern tools and redesigned processes that deliver a better experience for kaimahi and customers."

She said INZ's highest volume visa products were all now on the new platform, and the agency welcomed the Public Service Commission assurance review.