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Good practice Imported

ADEPT — New Zealand's NZ$62 Million Visa-Automation Platform That Users Nicknamed 'Inept'

New Zealand · Wellington · See the New Zealand profile · See the Wellington profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 66% 53/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Immigration New Zealand's NZ$62.4m Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform, built to automate visa case processing, instead produced 550+ logged defects by late 2022 and years of backlog complaints — a cautionary case for automation-driven case management.

62.4 NZD million
Combined capital and operating funding (ADA + EDP projects) (2019–2020)
550+ defects
Logged production defects (by November 2022)
~35 %
Share of visa applications processed by ADEPT (2025)
336 NZD million
Follow-on 'Future Services' programme funding (through ~2027)
ADEPT — New Zealand's NZ$62 Million Visa-Automation Platform That Users Nicknamed 'Inept'

Details

Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
Immigration New Zealand (MBIE), with Microsoft, DXC, Argonaut, Theta and Datacom
Period
2020-2025
Keywords
migration, visa processing, case management, digital government

Context

Immigration New Zealand's Automated Decision Assist (ADA) and Employer Direct (EDP) projects, funded mid-2019 through mid-2020, built the ADEPT platform on Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Azure — with delivery partners Microsoft, DXC, Argonaut, Theta and Datacom — to replace paper-based, manually processed visa applications with automated case triage and administrative decisioning.

Objectives

Automate visa case processing to reduce manual workload and processing times across Immigration New Zealand's caseload.

Activities

The visitor-visa module went live in January 2022. MBIE commissioned an assurance review of the wider programme in October 2024, and the government subsequently approved a further NZ$336 million 'Future Services' overhaul targeting additional automated decision-making for low-risk applications, running through roughly 2027.

Results

Immigration advisers and applicants reported widespread delays, wrongly triggered document requests and processing errors; by early November 2022 more than 550 production defects had been logged, prompting users to rename the system 'Inept' in press coverage. MBIE's October 2024 assurance review rated the wider programme 'amber' risk, and by 2025 ADEPT was still only handling around 35% of visa applications.

Conclusions

ADEPT is documented here as a cautionary case: a well-resourced, technically ambitious case-management automation that measurably increased processing defects and backlog rather than reducing them, prompting a further NZ$336 million follow-on programme on top of the original spend.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Very high (> €5M) — NZ$62.4 million combined capital and operating spend on the original ADA/EDP projects (2019–2020), plus a further NZ$336 million approved for the follow-on 'Future Services' overhaul — very high cost.
Time to results
Long (> 3 years) — Funded 2019–2020, visitor-visa module live from January 2022, defects tracked through 2022–2024, follow-on programme running through roughly 2027 — a long, multi-year timeline.
Staffing & skills
Immigration New Zealand (MBIE), Microsoft, DXC, Argonaut, Theta, Datacom

Conditions for success

  • Dedicated multi-vendor delivery consortium (Microsoft, DXC, Argonaut, Theta, Datacom)
  • Formal MBIE assurance review process to track programme risk
  • Follow-on funded programme ('Future Services') to address unresolved defects and low coverage

Common failure modes

  • 550+ logged production defects by November 2022
  • Wrongly triggered document requests and processing delays reported by advisers and applicants
  • 'Amber' risk rating in MBIE's October 2024 assurance review
  • Still handling only ~35% of visa applications by 2025 despite NZ$62.4m initial spend

Where it fits

Governance type
national government agency
Scale
national (visa case-processing system)

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

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