The Department is seeking views on the proposed approach to a three year licence for best practice societies and clubs. Consultation opens today and closes on Friday 19 May.
View the Best Practice (Three Year) Licence consultation document.
We would like to acknowledge the significant input we received from the Class 4 sector, including societies, clubs and problem gambling service providers, to get us to this stage. We place great value on this collaborative way of working together and would like to thank all those involved for their time and effort.
What is the best practice licence?
A best practice licence would reward a high performing society or club with a three year licence. Its aim is to improve practice in the sector and may lead to lower compliance costs.
The Select Committee on the Gambling Act No.3 Bill specified that the intention of the longer licence is to act as an incentive for best practice and improved performance. Best practice is more than good compliant practice. Instead, the Department expresses best practice as:
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societies and clubs putting community and customers at the heart of what they’re doing
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working alongside the Department to improve sector performance, and
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continually working towards improved performance.
To be considered for a best practice licence a society or club will first need to meet the licensing criteria in the Gambling Act 2003.
Our expectation of best practice requires societies and clubs to go above and beyond what is expected in the legislation. The best practice licence framework clearly sets out the Department’s performance expectations to support societies and clubs to drive improvement and work towards best practice.
Our intention is that the proposed approach will help societies and clubs assess the organisation’s strengths and weaknesses and identify areas for improvement.
What are the potential benefits of a best practice licence?
We see a number of potential benefits to individual organisations having a best practice licence, including potential savings and reduced administrative costs by moving to a three year, rather than annual, licence term. We also see that the longer licence term may allow for longer-term planning for the licence holder and business partners.
In addition, we see potential reputational value that would come from supporting and demonstrating best practice. This would include value both for the individual licence holder, but also for the wider sector, as it may improve the public’s perception of Class 4 gambling.
Share your views
We would like to hear your views on the proposed approach to best practice licensing and the performance expectations. Please email your submissions to bestpracticelicence@dia.govt.nz. or mail to:
Sharlene Hogan
Policy Advisor, Operational Policy
Department of Internal Affairs Te Tari Taiwhenua
PO Box 805
Wellington 6140
We would also like to test the performance expectation framework in a compliance audit situation. We are specifically interested in understanding whether the practice expectations are relevant for small to medium sized societies or clubs, who may have more limited resources than larger organisations. If you are a small to medium sized society or a club and your organisation is interested in participating, please signal your interest in your submission or email bestpracticelicence@dia.govt.nz..
If you have any questions or require any further information please contact Sharlene Hogan on sharlene.hogan@dia.govt.nz or (04) 495 7207 or Stephanie Grummitt on stephanie.grummitt@dia.govt.nz(04) 495 9429.
Any submissions need to be received by 5pm on Friday 19 May 2017.
