Police Vet Information Sheet

When must vetting be done?

• Vetting must be completed before a person is employed to a permanent position at a school or early childhood centre.
  
• A police vet application must be applied for, through the NZ Teachers Council, within 2 weeks of employing a temporary employee or contractor.
  
• The Act also requires that police vets be carried out on existing employees. However the Council is working on a phased approach basis for schools, and will then begin vetting existing early childhood centres.
  
• Section 78C(2) requires that once a vet has been performed, a further vet must be conducted "on or about the third anniversary of the previous vet".

What is the process?

When police receive a form signed by the applicant, they run a check on the Law Enforcement System LES ( the former "Wanganui Computer"). This check may show criminal and / or traffic convictions.

The police then check for any other information about behaviour of a sexual or violent nature that may pose a risk to children and young people. If they do hold such information, and it is substantiated, police will stamp the application "police recommend that this person does not have unsupervised access to children, young people, or the more vulnerable members of society".

Where police do stamp the vetting form as above, the individual concerned should be advised that they can obtain the reason for the stamp by writing directly to the Manager, Licensing & Vetting, NZ Police, PO Box 3017, Wellington.

Vetting information is personal information, and therefore must be protected. This information is to be securely stored until such a time as it is no longer useful for the purpose it was obtained. Boards or management requesting police vets should take care to ensure compliance with the principles of the Privacy Act, in addition to complying with the requirements of the Education Act. The applicant, however, may keep their vet information if they wish.

What is the NZ Teachers Council's role?

• The NZ Teachers Council's role for non teaching staff is to act solely as a conduit. NZ Teachers Council staff process the application forms, send them to NZ Police, receive them back, log that the vet has been performed and then forward the results to the vet requestor and the applicant. The only record the NZ Teachers Council keeps is that the vet has occurred.

• The NZ Teachers Council advises that schools or early childhood services should consult their employment advisors if they have any questions regarding employment and personal information processes and procedures.

• New Zealand School Trustees Association has advised all school Boards of their obligations and suggested procedures. That information is also available
  on the NZSTA website.

• The Ministry of Education may also be of some assistance. The website is www.minedu.govt.nz.

What is the fee?

The fee for an application is $10.00(inclusive of GST). This is to cover the NZ Teachers Council's administrative costs in relation to co ordinating police vetting requests for non teaching and unregistered employees.

Non Teacher Police Vet Information Sheet (150Kb PDF file)

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