Front counters are expensive. A records clerk who spends the morning taking cash, copying identification and explaining the difference between a police information check and a vulnerable sector check is a clerk who is not clearing the file behind her.

So we moved that work online. The applicant applies at eleven at night if that is when they have time. The agency keeps the decision, the standard and the release. Nothing about who authorizes a check changes.

The agency pays no licence fee, no implementation invoice, no annual maintenance charge and no per-seat cost. We are able to do that because the model works only at scale, and scale is what two hundred communities gives us.

There is a second reason, and it matters more every year. When a resident searches for a record check and lands on an out-of-province commercial provider, the fee leaves the community and the police service of jurisdiction loses sight of the standard being applied.

A virtual front counter that carries the agency’s own name keeps that work, and that revenue, where it belongs. The platform is truly built by police, for police.