IR 01-22-21664
15 August 2022
Michael
[FYI request #19993 email]
Dear Michael
Information Request
Thank you for your Of icial Information Act 1982 (OIA) request of 22 July 2022, in which you
requested information relating to the New Zealand Police (Police) vehicle fleet.
My response to each of your questions can be found below.
1. How many "pool vehicles" are operated by Police in the greater Wellington
region?
There are currently 10 pool vehicles in the Wellington District located at the various Police
stations within it. These are separate to the 20 vehicles assigned to the Criminal
Investigations Branch (CIB) in the District.
To give this some context, many workgroups within the Police have a “pool” of vehicles
allocated to their workgroups for staff to use as part of their role.
2. As at 22 July 2022, how many of these had expired registration?
As at 22 July 2022, none of the pool vehicles in the Wellington District had an expired
registration.
3. What systems or processes, if any, are in place for ensuring registration of Police
vehicles are kept up to date? (brief description please).
Police uses a third-party fleet management vendor, to maintain and licence all Police
vehicles. Licence labels are posted to each Police district, where they are then forwarded to
the relevant work group to place in the respective vehicle.
4. Assuming a process is in place, what caused the process failure in this instance?
Although our third-party vendor ensures all Police vehicle licences are purchased before
their expiry dates, there have been odd occasions where the label is delayed in getting
placed in the police vehicle. Delays can be due to both the internal and external mailing
systems, or the label has been sent to a district or work group where the vehicle has been
relocated to another area. These are just a couple of examples.
5.
Is there a 'back-up' process, i.e., why did the officer not check registration before
taking the car out on the road?
The current process works well to ensure our vehicles are relicensed prior to their expiry
dates, however as mentioned, there have been odd occasions where it was discovered that
a Police vehicle is not displaying a current label for one of the aforementioned reasons. In
these cases, police staff can get a ‘reprinted’ licence label from any of the Waka Kotahi
agents (e.g. VTNZ).
Where time and operational demand allow, police officers are required to carry out
operational pre-deployment checks of their vehicles prior to use. The vehicle displaying an
expired licence label, is part of the pre-deployment check and the responsibility of the officer
who is carrying out those checks.
In this instance I am not aware of a reason for this oversight, and the incident has been
brought to the attention of that working group supervisor. It has been confirmed that licence
for police vehicle, JFE470 (referred to in your correspondence), had been renewed on 28
June 2022 prior to the expiry of the old label (5 July 2022).
I trust this information is of use to you.
Your sincerely
Inspector Brian Yanko
Manager: Fleet Service Group
New Zealand Police