Volunteering New Zealand works to ensure that volunteering is represented and supported by government departments and the Government. We continually strive to deliver results in this area. In this email we are providing an overview on the progress of matters we have previously provided expertise on.

We have updates on MOJ Criminal Justice Checks and the proposed legislation for the Police vetting system. We also have been working with WorkSafe on H&S advice. There is also an opportunity to provide feeback on the Charities Reporting Standards.

Ministry of Justice criminal records checks: 
The Ministry of Justice currently offers a free service for 3rd party criminal record checks of potential employees/volunteers as a gratis service. We have previously fed back on the cumbersome paper-based process. The Ministry of Justice has advised that it is introducing a new online service scheduled to go live in March 2021. This change should bring the service more in line with the police vetting service checks in terms of useability. To be able to use the new service organisations (or people) requesting 3rd party checks will need to enrol and subscribe to new terms of use due to be released shortly.
> Read more here.

NZ Police vetting services:

Codification of the vetting service into legislation has been in process since the original request for input in 2018. It has been confirmed that the project to bring the legislation before the house is progressing, with the aim of having a bill before government in the first half of the coming year.

WorkSafe H&S advice:

During the previous year we have provided expert advice and collated stakeholder feedback to WorkSafe about its existing resources for volunteers and voluntary associations. They are drafting updated guidance for PCBUs which is intended to be practical, and containing working examples of various volunteer groups and situations. It will be released later in the year.

Have your say on charities reporting standards

The New Zealand Accounting Standards Board is reviewinng the Tier 3 & 4 reporting standards for non-profit organisation. They are looking to see how organisations have been finding the current standards, how easy they are to use, if you have found that any additional custom guidance has made the job of implementing them easier, and so on. For more information on what the XRB review consists of please follow this link.

There are thee ways you can give your feedback. You can:

Complete an online survey

Michelle Kitney
Chief Executive
Volunteering New Zealand