Schools cop vetting costs for their staff
Schools may be forced to sell sausages to keep pupils safe from predators.
Police will now charge schools to weed out the criminals and the paedophiles from the legitimate staff.
They will charge $10 for about half the vetting requests they receive from July 1. A service that used to be free for all schools will now be limited.
The change will see police pocket an estimated $800,000 annually.
Members of one Hamilton school committee said they considered holding a sausage sizzle to raise funds for police checks, while a high school principal said the funds will have to come from school fees or parent donations.
Katrina Casey, Ministry of Education deputy secretary of sector enablement and support, estimated only half of all school requests would incur a charge.
‘‘The number of police vets requested by schools last year ranged from fewer than 20 [per school] to around 450 [per school],’’ Casey said.
‘‘The average cost to schools who request more than 20 police vets per year is expected to be around $600.’’
She said numbers from 2016 showed there were several unnecessary vets requested for principals, relief teachers, students on practicum, and repeat vetting of volunteers within three years.
The Vulnerable Children Act (2014) required all teachers and paid employees of a school to be police vetted every three years.
Police checked criminal histories for agencies that provided care to children and vulnerable members of society.
The act does not require volunteers to be vetted, but each school has its own child protection or health policy which may include vetting volunteers, including sports coaches.
Hamilton Boys’ High School principal Susan Hassall said schools would either have to take money from the operations budget, which had to be supplemented by school fees and donations, or hold fundraising events.
She said police vetting would cost her school at least $600 in 2017 just for the 60 winter sport coaches.
‘‘For us, it would come from locally raised funds,’’ Hassall said.
‘‘The problem is it’s a limited pool of money, so as soon as you have a charge like that, something else goes.
‘‘Schools are not cash rich. So the question is, what do we give up to do this?’’
Some schools would be exempt from the vetting charge. Schools that needed 20 or fewer requests per year and charities would not be charged. Schools could also apply for a waiver because of financial hardship.
Schools and early childhood services – which would also have to pay – could rely on the the Education Council to vet registered teachers.
The New Zealand Police manager of vetting services, Senior Sergeant Bruce MacKay, said police were forced to introduce a charge as there had been pressure on the service over the past few years.
Police expected more than 630,000 requests in 2017, 160,000 of those from the education sector.
MacKay said the fee was reasonable, adding that similar overseas agencies charged between $23 and $70 for such a check.
‘‘This is placing considerable strain on resources and the [cost] has come about to ensure ongoing resourcing that is resilient to demand.’’
According to the police vetting guide, the service cost $4.2 million to run each year, which paid for ‘‘salaries and resources’’.
President of education union NZEI Te Riu Roa Lynda Stuart said the operations grant was already under ‘‘real rigour’’ so it would force schools to choose what they gave up.
‘‘One of the things we’ve said is that there is a real simple solution to this – for the government to waive the cost of vetting to schools,’’ Stuart said. ‘‘They’re doing it for charity so there’s no reason why they can’t do it for schools. The only way schools can fund this is to do it with trade-offs between keeping their children safe, their curriculum resources and their teacher aides.
‘‘So if you’ve got outings, school camps and regular people coming into your school, then you absolutely need to do the police vetting to ensure that people are safe.
‘‘It really concerns me that people are having to do the fundraising for keeping their kids safe, for something the government should be doing.’’
But Labour MP and police spokesman Stuart Nash said the scheme was ‘‘one government organisation supplementing another’’.
‘‘This is the job of the police to be keeping our children safe . . . and it’s a job they shouldn’t be profiting from. If I were the police minister, I would be going to the commissioner [of police] to ask what is going on here.
‘‘That’s $800,000 taken out of education and put into police [services] – it’s seriously misguided.’’