The Immigration Department has announced that applications certified as “Decision Ready” by Migration Agents will no longer receive priority processing. All applications that are lodged under the Employer Nomination Scheme (ENS) and the Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme (RSMS) will now be placed in a central queue and allocated by date of lodgement.
Before 1 January 2014, the Immigration Department had introduced the ‘Decision Ready Checklist’ system in order to speed up processing of visa applications. It allowed Migration Agents to lodge complete, ‘decision ready’ applications, which were then priority allocated to a case officer for processing. In essence, a ‘decision ready’ application was one where a case officer was able to make a decision on the application without having to request any further information or documents from the applicant.
It is too early to say how the new measures will impact on the processing of applications that had have already been lodged certified as ‘decision ready’ and those that will be lodged under the new regime.
It is recommended that, where possible, applicants try and provide all documents to the Immigration Department at the time of lodgement of the application, as lodging a complete application should allow for it to be finalised quickly when it is allocated to a case officer for processing.
If you have any questions concerning the preparation of your ENS or RSMS application, please feel free to contact us.