Vetting procedure guidelines

These guidelines have been prepared to help approved organisations understand the pre-employment vetting process and to assist these organisations develop their own procedures regarding the vetting process.

It is also intended to inform individuals giving consent to be vetted about the process and information that Police may release about them to an approved organisation.

On this page:

• Purpose of Police vetting
• What is Police vetting
• The process
• The result of vetting

Purpose of Police vetting

The purpose of vetting is to minimise the likelihood of the more vulnerable members of society (children, older people and those with special needs) being put at risk by individuals who may have displayed behaviour that could be detrimental to others' safety and wellbeing.

Organisations granted approval to submit requests for vetting have as their core business the provision of care to such vulnerable members of society.

Vetting is also undertaken where required under statute - for example, private security guards, taxi drivers, secondhand dealers.

What is Police vetting?

Vetting, as conducted by the Police Licensing & Vetting Service Centre, uses two computer-based checks to search for information about an individual.

The first check is a search of convictions in accordance with the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Act 2004. A printout is made of conviction history, location of the court, the date of the offence, the offence itself, and the sentence imposed. It should be noted that minor traffic infringements, such as parking tickets, are not shown on these printouts.

The second computer-based check is a search of other information held by Police. This information is used to look for behaviour that would impact adversely on vulnerable people (such as behaviour of a violent or sexual nature) that may not, for whatever reason, have resulted in a prosecution or conviction. In cases where such information exists, further investigation is carried out and the vetting response may release some information or it may be "red stamped" (see Results of vetting).

IMPORTANT: Police vetting is not a complete background check. It should be used only as part of a robust recruiting and screening process, such as that outlined in the publication "Safe Not Sorry" by Anthea Simock from the Institute for Child Protection Studies, PO Box 679, Hamilton, phone 07 838 3370.

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The process

New Zealand Police has created an electronic vetting process.  To be approved to receive vetting services, an organisation enters into a memorandum of understanding with Police and registers to interact with Police via the QueryMe electronic (web-based) application. 

Vetting can only be carried out with the consent of the applicant given on the correct "Consent to Disclosure of Information" form. Applicants should be told they are to be vetted and offered an explanation of the process (including direction to the Police website).

Note: It remains the responsibility of the approved organisation to verify the identity of each applicant.

The completed consent forms are then sent by the organisation to the Licensing & Vetting Service Centre for processing.

Once dated, the request undergoes two computer checks - one for criminal conviction information held by the Ministry of Justice, and one for any other relevant information held by Police .

If convictions are present and the subject is ineligible under "Clean Slate" legislation, and there is no suppression order in place, a printout of the criminal conviction record will be released in response to the request.

Where there is information (other than convictions) indicating behaviour that would impact adversely on vulnerable people (such as behaviour of a violent or sexual nature), minimal relevant information about that behaviour may be released in order to inform the approved organisation's decision-making.  Alternatively, a "red stamp" may be placed on the request by way of response (see Results of vetting).

All completed vetting requests are then returned to the organisation for their decision regarding employment.

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The results of vetting

The information supplied by Police will be sent directly to a designated person within the requesting organisation. This information is to be securely stored until such a time as it is no longer useful for the purpose it was obtained. The information should be stored in such a way that only those required to access the information are able to do so.

The subject of a vetting request should be given the opportunity to view information provided by Police to the organisation and have the opportunity to correct this, if necessary, under the Privacy Act 1993. A correction may be sought by writing to:

The decision as to whether an individual is suitable or not for a given position remains with the employer. In making this decision employers might need to consider the following when assessing the results of vetting:

• The nature of the offence and relevance to employment.
• Length of time since the crime was committed.
• Age and maturity now as compared to when the crime was committed, the seriousness of the crime e.g. length of sentence, use of a weapon, the circumstances at the time of violent behaviour.
• Pattern of crime, e.g. a short spate may indicate a "phase" but a regular pattern may indicate continuing inappropriate behaviour.
• The proximity of the person undergoing vetting to the vulnerable person(s). That is, are they likely to have unsupervised access to these vulnerable people?

Police may recommend that an individual does not have unsupervised access to children, young people, or more vulnerable members of society. This is shown by way of a electronic 'red stamp' flag. The basis of such a recommendation is that disclosing the relevant information would breach a Court order or would be likely to prejudice to the maintenance of the law, including the prevention, investigation, and detection of offences, and the right to a fair trial.  A red stamp recommendation is made, for example, where there is a suppression order in place, or information was provided in confidence, or is in the nature of intelligence.

Information supplied by Police must be destroyed once it is no longer useful for employment purposes.

Details of police vetting are not to be disclosed to any staff or other person other than the individual tasked with handling this information and the subject of the vetting application.

Police contact: email the Vetting Service