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Digitalizing Business and Legislative Rules in the Norwegian Immigration Administration

14.04.2023, Tobias Vigmostad, Decisive

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Tobias Vigmostad

Previous

The Norwegian Directorate of Immigration

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Talking points

• Norwegian Immigration Administration (UDI)• Digitalizing rules• Previous experiences with extensive rule changes• Increasing the efficiency of the casework in

immigration administration • Automation strategy• Digital structure—decisions and rules• Current use

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Norwegian Immigration Administration

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Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI)

• Mission– facilitating lawful and wanted immigration – ensuring that those who meet the requirements are given

an opportunity to come to Norway– control function, preventing abuse of the system

• Number of users– approx. 1200 simultaneous users– approx. 3000 unique users

• Number of cases– approx. 350,000 cases going through the system per year– approx. 200,000 cases routed through the BRMS based

decision module per year– approx. 100,000 cases handled at UDI

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UDI in 2008

• Wants– more efficient work flow– move towards automated processes and decisions– easily exchange information with other government

agencies and key partners

• Startup of the EFFEKT-program ($90M)

• Shared solutions for all of the Immigration Administration

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What do we mean by digitalization of legal (and business) rules?

• Has become a collective term– Digital and Internet codification vs. automation– Making laws available

• Technology creates new opportunities (and challenges)– Internet codification of analog law books– What rules apply to my case– Help doing legal consideration– Automate rules

• New technology vs. traditional legal craftsmanship

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Calculator laws and rules

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Give some input and get an answer

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What happened to the considerations?

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• In the public sector, the consideration is just as important as getting the right result

• Considerations are first-class citizens of the domain

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What we hoped to achieve

• Business and legal should be able to manage their own rules

– No special IT-knowledge or skills needed

• Automatic rule checks where it was – wanted– prudent

• Retain execution of police power inside the government body

– Not outsource to outside IT-service providers

• Similar cases should have similar considerations and results

– Prevent unjust differences in outcome

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§ 40      Requirements residence permit for spouses 

• An applicant who is the spouse of a sponsor, see section 39, shall be entitled to a residence permit where the sponsor is: 

• (a)       a Norwegian or Nordic national who is resident or intends to establish residence in the realm, • (b)       a foreign national with a permanent residence permit, • (c)       a foreign national who has or will be granted lawful residence in the realm with a residence permit that

can provide the basis for a permanent residence permit, or • (d)       a foreign national who holds a residence permit pursuant to the provision of section 34 without the

system of collective protection having ended. • It is a condition for being granted a residence permit pursuant to the first paragraph that both parties are aged

18 or over. It is further a condition that a sponsor who falls within the scope of section 40 a fulfils the conditions set in that section. 

• Unless particular circumstances indicate otherwise, it is a condition that the spouses shall live together. • A residence permit may be refused if it appears most likely that the main purpose of contracting the marriage

has been to establish a basis for residence in the realm for the applicant. • An applicant who does not have children from his or her relationship with the sponsor and has not lived together

with the sponsor in an established relationship in another country or in Norway may be refused a residence permit if it is most likely that the applicant or his or her children from a previous relationship will be mistreated or grossly abused. The same applies to children from a previous relationship who apply for family reunification with a parent who has been granted a residence permit without having had children with the sponsor or having lived together in an established relationship with the sponsor in another country or in Norway. The King may by regulations make further provisions in respect of the application of this provision. 

• If the sponsor is granted residence in the realm after having contracted a marriage with two or more persons, only one of the persons whom he or she married may be granted a residence permit. If the sponsor is already married to a person who is resident in the realm, no residence permit may be granted pursuant to this section. If the sponsor has previously been married to another person, and it appears most likely that the former spouses intend to continue their cohabitation, a residence permit may be refused. 

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Typical decision rule

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Brief description of needs and solutions where BRMS is a key component

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Needs SolutionsClassification of cases eDiff (Find similar cases and

patterns in the portfolio)Simple cases should be easy to handle

Simple renewals

Automate considerations, decisions, and decision texts

New BRMS-supported Decision module with its own management module for rules and decision texts

Automatically exchange information with other government bodies

eExchange

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The system must support the development of new rules and business ideas- not hinder them.

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• Must be easy to update the system with new rules• UDI wants «Yes can do» systems, not «No can do» systems• Rules of tomorrow are just as important as rules of today

TELL ME – WHY DON’ T WE SELL THIS PRODUCT

WHEN WE KNOW THIS IS WHAT

EVERYBODY WANTS?

BECAUSE IT’S SO CHEAP THAT IT DOESN’T PAY TO PUT IT INTO THE SYSTEM .

CAN’ ‘T WE JUST INCREASE THE

PRICE ?SORRY. SUCH A

CHANGE HAS TO BE APPROVED AT SO MANY

LEVELS THAT THE PROFIT DISAPPEARS.

URGH!IS IT THE

SYSTEM OR US WHO ARE IN CHARGE?

NO IDEA!SHALL I CHECK WITH THE ONES WHO MADE

IT?

Lunch by Børge Lund

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Some areas are easier to automate than others

Rule complexity

Minor Major

Factcomplexity

Minor Bank Pension,Taxes

Major Criminal cases Immigration,Building code

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Is everything equally complicated?

Rule complexity

Minor Major

Fact complexity

Minor Simple renewals

Major Temporary right to work

Refugee cases from Somalia

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• Can we do the simple stuff easier?

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SupercomputerSeven minutes per case

FURIOUS: Union representatives in the police are raging over new rules from the government. The machines are taking over for humans in a new solution that will decide on immigrants’ fates in Norway in seven minutes.

Union representatives are furious with the Ministry of Justice’s latest idea: starting March 1 this year, a new project will make the case working more efficient and give immigrants who are applying to extend their stay in Norway a quicker answer.

Computers are now taking over for the human case workers, following the so-called “Lean-method,” an efficiency theory originally invented for the mass production of cars.

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Wednesday, February 20, 2013

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UDI’s approach to automation - complex rules and facts

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Decision support

Standardizing

Automation

• Gradually and continually increase automation levels• Certainty within the organization that the automated decisions are correct • Increase automation without new projects and investment needs

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Where do the best ideas come from?

Evaluate established

practice

Idea

Approve new practice/rules

Implement new rules into

the system

Harvest the rewards

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Structuring rules and decisions – meta model

Add rules to

• Evaluate terms and considerations

• Suggest result• Internal dynamics

for considerations• Check for

consistency • etc

Legal source

Permission/Outcome

Terms and considerations

Rights and obligasjons

Individual decision

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Some gains we envisioned

• Business people can manage their own rules• Execution of police power is wholly within the grasp of

the government—not out-sourced to IT service providers

• Equivalent cases should be handled in the same way• Make the brightest, most experienced caseworkers’

know how available to everyone without delay• Short time to market; enable the business to quickly

gain experience with new rules in the system

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How does this work today?

• Rules update once a week– Demanding but the correct approach– Can do more if needed

• Big demand from the business people to get new rules into the system

• IT is no longer a stopper in the system

• The business people update the rules in the system themselves

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Cases going through the new Decision Module

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 -

1,000

2,000

3,000

4,000

5,000

6,000

7,000

8,000

9,000

10,000

Series2Series1

Right to stay service e-exchange

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• UDI’s offered services based on BRMS Red IRS Blue Government Student Loans

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 -

500

1 000

1 500

2 000

2 500

Series2Series1

UDI collecting information from IRS

Januar

Febru

arMars April Mai

JuniJuli

August

Septem

ber

Oktober

November

Desember

Januar

Febru

arMars

-

1 000

2 000

3 000

4 000

5 000

6 000

7 000

LTOLikningsopplysninger

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Red Collecting monthly pay-stub information Blue Last year’s tax information

UDI collecting numbers from Norwegian Labor and Welfare Administration (NAV)

Januar

Febru

arMars April Mai

JuniJuli

August

Septem

ber

Oktober

November

Desember

Januar

Febru

arMars

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

Aa-registeret - NAVYtelser - NAV

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UDI says the potential is even bigger…

• These are just some examples

• They are continually working on – Improvements– Increased usage

• Full effect scheduled 2017

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www.decisive.no

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