26 August 2015

Waiver cost still a mystery

The Government still has no idea what it’s going to cost community and voluntary groups to get a waiver from the fees police will charge to carry out checks on their staff and volunteers, says Labour’s Community and Voluntary spokesperson Poto Williams.

“In answers to written questions it’s clear that Minister Woodhouse has no answers about the costs. He doesn’t know what sort of staff resources will be needed and just what the appeal process will be for people who lose waiver decisions.

“Given the Bill is called the Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill, you would think he would be on top of these details.

“However this lazy Minister has failed to answer the fundamental questions of why he is targeting NGO’s with these fees. He also doesn’t answer the question of how much this bill will actually save, against how much it will cost the community sector.

“Surely it would be better to fund the police properly for the vetting work, they need to do to keep us all safe,” says Poto Williams.

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