Vaccine Pass enforcement - justification and costs
Vanessa Sinclair made this Official Information request to Christchurch City Council
The request was partially successful.
From: Vanessa Sinclair
Dear Christchurch City Council,
Please provide clear evidence of Councils justification to restrict entry to public facilities to those will to provide proof of vaccination
(1) Risk Assessment
Please provide the detailed risk assessment carried out by Council in their determination that proof of vaccination must be presented at Council facilities, by individual facility, or grouped by facility type if appropriate.
(2) Cost to Enforce
Please provide the approximate cost to the council of enforcing the vaccine pass per facility, per week
ie, for each location, the number of security/guards/enforcement personnel partially or fully employed to police vaccine pass entry, total cost per hour of said personnel and approximate hours per week spent on the enforcement activity.
Sample calculations for each location might be (say)
(eg1) 1 service officer, each costing $20 per hour, working 40 hours per week, enforcing restrictions for 100% of their day, Cost for that facility per week would be 1 x 20 x 40 x 1.
(eg2) 2 service officers, each costing $20 per hour, working 40 hours per week, enforcing restrictions for 85% of their day, Cost for that facility per week would be 2 x 20 x 40 x 0.85.
(3) Opportunity Cost
Please provide estimated loss of income per facility, per week week, at each traffic light level if vaccine passport restrictions were not enforced.
Note - this calculation should consider the average number of attendees per location, when no government restrictions in place and the average income received per attendee, against traffic light restricted capacity with vaccine passports requirement and traffic light restricted capacity without vaccine passport requirement.
Whilst this might, at first glance, appear like a daunting data request, given Councils email response to my recent request for information (extract below), it is my expectation that this modelling will have already been done, so the data and subsequent analysis should be readily available.
Email extract received 16/12/21 at 9:42
".... lowest overall financial cost to ratepayers is achieved by requiring vaccination certificates to access those facilities.
Conversely, allowing unvaccinated people to use facilities would require limiting numbers or closing certain facilities, which would incur higher costs to all ratepayers."
I look forward to your timely response
Yours faithfully,
Vanessa Sinclair
From: Official Information
Christchurch City Council
Dear Vanessa,
Thank you for your email received 16 December 2021.
We are handling your request under the Local Government Official
Information and Meetings Act 1987 (LGOIMA). We have forwarded it to the
appropriate Christchurch City Council staff, and we will provide a
response or update within 20 working days of the date we received your
request. If we are unable to respond to your request by then, we will
notify you of an extension of that timeframe.
If you have any queries, please feel free to contact me. If any additional
factors come to light which are relevant to your request, please do not
hesitate to contact me so that these can be taken into account.
Kind regards,
Sean
Sean Rainey
Manager Official Information and Privacy Officer
Official Information Team
[1]CCC-Christmas-e-card-Te-Reo2
From: Vanessa Sinclair <[FOI #17971 email]>
Sent: Thursday, 16 December 2021 1:10 PM
To: Official Information <[email address]>
Subject: Official Information request - Vaccine Pass enforcement -
justification and costs
Dear Christchurch City Council,
Please provide clear evidence of Councils justification to restrict entry
to public facilities to those will to provide proof of vaccination
(1) Risk Assessment
Please provide the detailed risk assessment carried out by Council in
their determination that proof of vaccination must be presented at Council
facilities, by individual facility, or grouped by facility type if
appropriate.
(2) Cost to Enforce
Please provide the approximate cost to the council of enforcing the
vaccine pass per facility, per week
ie, for each location, the number of security/guards/enforcement personnel
partially or fully employed to police vaccine pass entry, total cost per
hour of said personnel and approximate hours per week spent on the
enforcement activity.
Sample calculations for each location might be (say)
(eg1) 1 service officer, each costing $20 per hour, working 40 hours per
week, enforcing restrictions for 100% of their day, Cost for that facility
per week would be 1 x 20 x 40 x 1.
(eg2) 2 service officers, each costing $20 per hour, working 40 hours per
week, enforcing restrictions for 85% of their day, Cost for that facility
per week would be 2 x 20 x 40 x 0.85.
(3) Opportunity Cost
Please provide estimated loss of income per facility, per week week, at
each traffic light level if vaccine passport restrictions were not
enforced.
Note - this calculation should consider the average number of attendees
per location, when no government restrictions in place and the average
income received per attendee, against traffic light restricted capacity
with vaccine passports requirement and traffic light restricted capacity
without vaccine passport requirement.
Whilst this might, at first glance, appear like a daunting data request,
given Councils email response to my recent request for information
(extract below), it is my expectation that this modelling will have
already been done, so the data and subsequent analysis should be readily
available.
Email extract received 16/12/21 at 9:42
".... lowest overall financial cost to ratepayers is achieved by requiring
vaccination certificates to access those facilities.
Conversely, allowing unvaccinated people to use facilities would require
limiting numbers or closing certain facilities, which would incur higher
costs to all ratepayers."
I look forward to your timely response
Yours faithfully,
Vanessa Sinclair
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From: Vanessa Sinclair
Dear Official Information,
Can I add one more item to the request?
To give me a completely rounded understanding of the decision making process, could you please also provide minutes of meetings where adoption of the traffic light system was proposed, debated, and decided?
I am not interested in the names of the participants, but I do want to see evidence that this issue was adequately assessed, and what (if any), alternatives where presented and rejected during the analysis.
Yours sincerely,
Vanessa Sinclair
Vanessa Sinclair left an annotation ()
Updates by direct email:
>>>>> From Me:
Sent: Friday, 4 February 2022 9:19 PM
To: Official Information <OfficialInformation@ccc.govt.nz>
Subject: Re: [Ticket: 516206] - Vaccine Pass enforcement -
justification and costs
Hi
You have not provided the estimate for loss of income due
to capacity restrictions under traffic light system, which was
a fundamental part of my request.
Please provide these ASAP.
Many thanks
Vanessa
>>>>> To Me:
On 10 Feb 2022, 10:01 am, Official Information <
OfficialInformation@ccc.govt.nz> wrote
Dear Vanessa,
I have asked staff to see what we hold. I am not sure we
have conducted this exercise but will let you know once I
hear back.
Regards,
Sean
>>>>> From Me:
Sent: Friday, 11 February 2022 7:36 AM
To: Official Information <OfficialInformation@ccc.govt.nz>
Subject: Re: [Ticket: 516206] - Vaccine Pass enforcement -
justification and costs
Thanks Sean.
Since I was advised that the policy of discrimination was
deemed to be most cost effective for the ratepayers, the
Executive Leadership Team must have had used
data/modelling to reach that decision.
It is starting to look like the decision to discriminate has no
sensible foundation or justification, only allegiance to a
higher political agenda, which is wholly unacceptable.
Vanessa
Vanessa Sinclair left an annotation ()
Received by email 21/02/22, 11:55 am
Dear Vanessa,
I have followed up with staff. We had not conducted a specific “estimate for loss of income” for facilities as you seek. However, to assist we have calculated
In terms of Recreation and Sports Centres, under the NZ Covid-19 protection framework we would have needed to close our gyms and cafes with no vaccine pass requirements, and estimated an additional 15% reduction of existing participation in pools revenue. In December our revenue loss was $188k with vaccine pass and with a no vaccine pass we would have expected a loss of approx. $518k i.e. revenue loss would have been an additional $330k per month.
In terms of Libraries, the reason for making libraries require a vaccine passport was not revenue related (which is very limited) but health and safety to users and staff.
I hope this assists.
Kind regards,
Sean
Vanessa Sinclair left an annotation ()
In response to my initial complaint, CCC advised (excerpt):
".... lowest overall financial cost to ratepayers is achieved by requiring vaccination certificates to access those facilities.
Conversely, allowing unvaccinated people to use facilities would require limiting numbers or closing certain facilities, which would incur higher costs to all ratepayers."
The most recent update to my OIA request advises:
"I have followed up with staff. We had not conducted a specific “estimate for loss of income” for facilities as you seek."
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Vanessa Sinclair left an annotation ()
Received by email - 04/02/22 15:48
Dear Vanessa,
Thank you for your email. My apologies for the delay in responding.
I have some responses for you:
Cost to Enforce and Risk assessment
The Council takes the health and safety of its customers, workers and others very seriously. We have considered the risks associated with the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID 19) virus (for the latest update published on 6th January 2022 see https://newsline.ccc.govt.nz/assets/Gene...) and taken a health and safety driven approach (see https://ccc.govt.nz/the-council/covid-19...)
We engaged security guards for our public Council facilities where a vaccination pass is required to enter because of concerns about the safety of our customers, workers and others. Unfortunately, we have received threats of violence and damage to facilities, and our staff and contractors have been exposed to unacceptable aggressive behaviour.
The approximate cost for providing staff and security across all Council facilities is $60,000 per week.
It is anticipated that this cost will reduce in the future as alternative measures (eg training for staff) are adopted to lessen the need for external contractors.
Minutes
The Council’s risk assessment was published on 6 January 2022. This risk assessment identified that to minimise the risk of harm from COVID-19, anyone entering a Christchurch City Council workplace will require the My Vaccine Pass. This requirement included all workers, elected members, contractors and other third parties. The final version of the document was considered by the Council’s Executive Leadership Team on 22 and 31 December 2021. Restrictions on entry to Council community facilities commenced on December 3 2021 when the Government’s Orange Traffic Light setting commenced. This was determined by Council’s Executive Leadership Team on 29 November 2020. There is no specific minute in relation to this issue.
Note this was an operational decision and not made by the Mayor and Councillors.
Kind regards,
Sean
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