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Newsletter September 2009

Upskill your staff

How is your business growing?  One of the easiest ways to expand your business is to attract more clients by increasing the number of licensed immigration advisers within your organisation.  Your support staff are likely to have some knowledge of immigration matters and may be sufficiently competent to provide advice under supervision.  This is the ideal position for someone looking to enter the immigration adviser community through applying for a provisional licence.

More licensed advisers working for you will bring a range of benefits to your business, including providing certainty to your clients that there is more than one or two people within the company who can advise them.  Staff absences are more easily covered and supervision of provisional licence holders is counted as a part of the licensed adviser’s continuing professional development commitment.

Fully licensed immigration advisers are in the best possible position to provide day-to-day supervision of staff and upskill them at the same time.  Direct supervision ensures that a provisional licence holder’s clients have access to the same standard of advice as from a fully licensed adviser.

As a part of the Authority’s education programme for migrants, we will continue to promote the message that only individuals, and not companies, can hold an immigration adviser’s licence.  Anyone seeking immigration advice should routinely ask for proof that their adviser is licensed.  You can help increase migrant awareness of the licensing regime by always showing a new client your wallet card.

Remember – it’s not a matter of who signs off and sends the application to Immigration New Zealand (INZ), but who is giving immigration advice to migrants.  We encourage you to promote licensing within the immigration adviser community.

Continuing professional development

We were very pleased with the interest in the immigration policy seminar programme, held around the country last month.  Attendance at the free seminars qualified as a continuing professional development activity for licensed immigration advisers.

The Authority and INZ have developed clear guidelines, outlining the two organisations’ respective roles for CPD.

The Authority has a role in publicising the seminars with advisers and providing information on CPD.  We also collect and analyse feedback from attendees, to ensure the seminars meet your needs.

INZ provides the content of the seminars, which are timed to coincide with the periodic Immigration Policy Release documents.  These and future INZ seminars will be presented by a branch or regional manager.

The Authority actively promotes CPD for immigration advisers, both in licensing and renewing advisers.  We need to know that you have kept up to speed with policy developments and changes to the law and that you’re continuing to improve your skills and knowledge in a wide range of areas such as managing client funds and running a business.

A wide range of activities qualify as CPD.  For more information on the sort of courses that make up relevant CPD, please consult our website.  However, the Authority itself does not undertake training – it’s not our role.  Our role is to provide guidance to help you plan your CPD, but not provide actual training courses. 

We recommend that licensed advisers try to complete a minimum of 20 hours of CPD during the course of their licensing year.  Examination of the time and type of CPD undertaken during the past year will be included in the licensing renewal process.

Guidelines on written agreements with secondary clients now on web

Guidelines for licensed advisers on what kind of written agreements they should have with secondary clients are now available on our website.

These guidelines are for advisers who, in the course of providing services agreed under contract with a client, must also provide direct immigration advice to another person, or act on behalf of another person in an immigration matter. For example, licensed immigration advisers may be engaged by a company to provide immigration advice relating to an employee, prospective employee or client of that company.

In the context of the code of conduct, a client is the recipient of the immigration advice provided by a licensed adviser, regardless of whether they pay a fee, or sign a contract. In any given scenario there may be more than one client. All advisers must ensure that they uphold all of the code’s requirements in relation to all of their clients.

The Authority recommends that a licensed immigration adviser should make clear in their terms and conditions of business that any other person to whom immigration advice will be provided as a part of an agreement must also sign a written agreement. This makes the adviser’s obligations to all of their clients transparent.

The guidelines provide a clear set of requirements for all written agreements. It is possible for a written agreement to meet these requirements and be no more than one or two pages long. Written agreements may also be accepted by email where distance is an issue.

The guidelines also discuss how to deal with conflicts of interest and confidentiality in this kind of situation.

Reference group update

The licensed immigration advisers reference group met for the second time on 20 August 2009.

The group discussed the development of guidelines for licensed immigration advisers on the code of conduct’s requirement for a separate client account for client fees and disbursements paid in advance. These guidelines will be published on our website later in the year, once they are agreed on.

The group also discussed the content of the upcoming code of conduct workshops for licensed immigration advisers scheduled for November and December this year. More information will be available on these workshops shortly.

The minutes for the reference group meetings will be posted on our website once they are agreed.

The final reference group meeting for 2009 will be held on 19 November. Please email the Authority if you have issues that you would like the reference group to discuss.

Gerard Otimi charged under Immigration Advisers Licensing Act

You may have seen reported in the news media recently that Gerard Otimi has been charged with an offence under Section 67(1)(a) of the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act 2007.

Because this case is now before the Court, the Authority will be making no comment.

New people at the IAA

Tess Alexander-Ward attended Otago University, before spending a year teaching English in South Korea.  She then moved to London, working for various banks in the compliance department, before joining the Authority as a Licensing Administration Officer in Melissa England’s team.

Kelly Hill is the newest Licensing Administration Officer.  Kelly is a New Zealander who has recently returned home after spending several years overseas, working for a private equity firm.

Jane Palmer is the Authority’s new Communications Adviser.  She has extensive experience as a public relations conultant in both the public and private sectors.

Jennifer Wheeler grew up in South Africa, trained and worked as an accountant in the Health Service in the UK, and migrated to New Zealand with her family last year.  She is a Licensing Assessor, in the team headed by Melissa England.

Licensing update

We are pleased to report that we continue to receive a steady stream of applications.  There are currently 260 licensed advisers, and around 40 currently moving through the application process.  To date, we have received 10 applications for renewal.  Eight people have been refused a licence.  There are 22 advisers who hold a limited licence, and nine provisional licence holders.

Contact us

As always, please feel free to contact us:

Email us at info@iaa.govt.nz
Freephone 0508 IAA IAA (0508 422 422 – New Zealand only)
Write to PO Box 6222, Auckland 1141, New Zealand
Visit www.iaa.govt.nz

Barry Smedts
Registrar of Immigration Advisers

Licensed professionals = Protected migrants