IRCC Deputy Minister Transition Binder 2022: IRCC’s Inventory Reduction Efforts

July 2022

What are inventories?

• Immigration, Refugee, and Citizenship Canada processes a large number of applications in any given year. For example, in 2021, even in a pandemic year, IRCC rendered almost 2 million decisions and is expecting more in 2022.
  • More than 500K Permanent Resident (PR) decisions
  • 1.2M Temporary Resident decisions (excluding TR extensions)
  • 234K Grant and Proofs decisions
• As a result, the Department must carry a substantial working inventory of files in order to meet operational targets. Just on PR applications this year, Operations sector will make decisions on about 560K applications.
• Covid-19 pandemic had many repercussions on IRCC and our clients: border closures, health and safety considerations in operating offices, employees working remote in an IRCC paper based organization, IRCC had to adapt its strategies to deliver on    the ambitious PR Levels 2021 (401K) and on processing crucial categories of Work Permit (health care or food industry).
• IRCC’s ensuing response included creating new temporary programs (TR2PR) that increased existing inventories and focused on processing in Canada applicants, further delaying overseas clients in the inventory. Border restrictions on TRVs necessitated a pause on processing most visa applicants. These measures (and others) increased processing times and generated an excess inventory of applications across all lines of business.

Excess inventory are files that the Department has on inventory, in excess of what is required to meet upcoming operational targets and/or files that are beyond the Department’s service standard commitment.

How did the pandemic and response efforts affect our inventories?

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Citizenship Grant line of business

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The evolving COVID situation essentially suspended the largely paper and in-person event based Citizenship grant line of business. While the Program is working to reduce the inventory, intake is expected to remain high as PR levels grow.

What are we doing to reduce inventory?

• In response to the pressures facing Canada’s immigration and citizenship programs, the Government committed to provide $85 million in the 2021 Economic and Fiscal Update (EFU). This funding is being used to reduce inventory and bring them back to a healthier level of applications across many of the departments lines of business that have accumulated as a result of Covid-19 impacts on processing capabilities. In relation to PR, the focus is expanding digital intake, continue the digitization of applications and overall reducing the amount of paper intake moving forward.
• The funding is being used to alleviate the pressures caused by Covid-19, subsequent border closures and travel restrictions that prevented people from coming to Canada. EFU funds are allocated to increasing the capacity in our processing resources (i.e., FTE resources), and implementing the initiatives aimed at supporting processing efficiencies, including Advanced Analytics triage modelling, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and advancing the digital intake. These initiatives are over and above the ongoing efforts the department puts in place to maintain a healthy level of inventory.
• Key EFU Initiatives:
  1. Ramp up Staffing for all Lines of Business (TR, PR, CIT)
  2. Expand case status tracker availability to some TR and PR Economic LoB and allow third-party access to the existing Citizenship Grant Applications Status Tracker
  3. Advance Analytics models for Temporary Residence LoBs
  4. Enhance PRDI and implement Semi-integration between portal and GCMS to key PR lines of business
  5. Transition to 100% digital Intake for key PR lines of business

What did we commit to?

Due to the pandemic impacts on operations, and in order to allow IRCC to return to its service standards, the Department has embarked on a path to fulfill very ambitious and challenging commitments to reduce processing times across our immigration and citizenship services.

Temporary Residence^{Footnote 1}

1. [Redacted]
2. Reduce the inventory of Work Permit (WP) applications to a volume that would allow the Department to achieve an overall processing service standard of 60 calendar days, by the end of 2022; and to maintain service standards for work permit extensions.
3. [Redacted]

Permanent Residence

1. Reduce paper inventory intake for all Permanent Resident (PR) application business lines by the end of Summer 2022, and phase out remaining paper application intake; ensuring that applications are created in IRCC’s primary processing platform, the Global Case Management System, and ready for continued processing and reporting.
2. Add electronic intake, so that all new applications from clients are digital from the onset.
3. [Redacted]

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2. [Redacted]
3. [Redacted]

What have we achieved to date?

Temporary Residence (TR)

• Despite the significant strain caused by the Ukrainian crisis and unprecedented high intake in all lines of business, the department continues to process a large number of study permit and work permit applications. 
  • Compared to 2019 (pre-COVID) in the same period, the department processed 75% more study permits and 79% more work permits.
• Between Jan-May 2022, the average weekly output has been around 10K applications for Study Permits and ~8K for Work Permits and as of the end of May, we have issued 126k WP, 166k SP and approved 463k TRVs.
• Prior to the Ukrainian crisis, the pre-September TRV inventory was decreasing at a rapid rate as such the department has been able to finalize more than half of the pre-September inventory since the TRV strategy was implemented in September 2021.
  • As of the end of May 2022, the pre-Sept inventory was 171.7k compared to 348.9k at the beginning of September 2021.

Permanent Residence (PR)

• PR Card Renewal: As of June 1, 2022, we have achieved 96% (65K applications processed) of our commitment to eliminate the inventory of PR card renewal applications received as of October 2021 by Dec 2022.
• Processing time for PR Card Renewals reduced from 135 days in November 2021 to ~60 days by end of May 2022.
• Online intake for PR Card Renewals was launched on June 14, 2022. Following a phased approach, 20% will be received through the portal.
• PRDI – semi-integration: Connecting the PR Digital Intake (PRDI) portal to the Global Case Management System (GCMS): PNP, QSW, OVS and Dependent Child lines of business have been successfully semi-integrated. This allows the department to process the applications submitted through the permanent residence portal in a more streamlined way. [Redacted].
• [Redacted].

Citizenship

• As of June 1, 2022, we have finalized 46.3K (79%) applications from pre-December 2021 ceremonies inventory.
• To date, the program is on track to surpass the goal of processing 12-16K Citizenship Grants in addition to the yearly target.
• While no additional funding is being offered for Proofs, IRCC continues to meet and/or exceed its weekly target of  900 – 1000 decisions. To date, 13K (23%) of applications from pre-December inventory have been finalized.

How are we addressing Permanent Resident backlogs?

In addition to the 2021 Economic and Fiscal Update (EFU) commitments, the Department also has a plan to right-size the Permanent Resident inventory through a set of actions under IRCC’s control (see Annex A for details):

• Rendering decisions on approximately 560k Permanent Resident applications in 2022.
• Managing intake via a pause of Federal High Skilled applications through the Express Entry system to ensure IRCC has an ideal volume of applications on hand to support both levels and processing time commitments.
• Working to create an admissions plan for 2023 that will help address the current excess inventory.
• Dedicating supplementary operational resources to those lines of business where excess inventory exist. 
• Pursuing operational solutions, which are intended to increase operational output and streamline processes.

The Department currently has an excess Permanent Resident Application inventory of over 250k persons.

Progress to date for Permanent Resident

• Since the inventory peaked in September of 2021, the Department has been able to reduce the inventory by 12%.
  • This has been primarily achieved by pausing Federal High Skilled Worker intake, beginning in September 2021.
• Federal High Skilled intake will resume in July 2022.
  • Round sizes will be kept to a modest level initially in order to continue focus on existing applicants through the year, given the excess inventory that remains in PR Economic categories.
• Work is currently underway to identify admission and final decisions targets for 2023. These targets will need to be strategically set to address the inventory backlogs that will remain at the end of 2022.
  • Special focus should be given to PNP, TR2PR and Refugee Resettlement. 

Amount of inventory needed for one year of admissions, at current admissions levels: 12

Note: As excess inventory forms and files age, the per unit cost of finalization increases substantially.

Next Steps

• The Department is implementing strategic initiatives that are achievable, will maximize resources and effectiveness, and aim to reduce inventories and improve processing times, initiatives are also being focused on addressing labour market priorities. The key pillars of the strategy include:
  • Allowing foreign nationals that are already in Canada to stay and work as much as possible.
  • Enabling more efficient processes, including by improving processes through Automation, Advanced Analytics (AA) and review of processes.
  • Bolstering our capacity to control intake by following strong intake management principles, with a view to preventing excess inventory accumulation.
• Initiatives focused on immigration levels include:
  • Managing intake effectively will also enable the Department to return to service standards in those programs where service standards exist.
  • Develop a consolidated intake and levels plan for 2023 that aims to address the current backlog of permanent residents files.
  • Ensure policy design is aligned with upcoming Departmental admissions targets.

Annex A

Intake Management options are currently limited

At this time, IRCC has the ability to control only a portion of the intake that is received each year, and therefore, it is crucial that strong intake management principles are followed where the control exists.

Note: there are also no intake control mechanisms for any TR (except for IEC) and Citizenship categories.

Annex B

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Annex C

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Annex D

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Annex E

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Meeting of the Task Force to Improve Government Services for Canadians

Background

• On June 25th, the Prime Minister announced a new task force to improve government services for Canadians. Minister Fraser is an ex-officio member of the Task Force.
• This is not a policy committee, its focus is about delivering short-term solutions, positioning and communications.
• The Committee has been meeting twice weekly on the following service delivery issues:
  • Passport Challenges
  • Airport Congestion
  • Immigration Deep Dive

Forward Agenda

• Going forward it is anticipated that additional meetings may focus on Citizenship and Asylum.