Police commissioner Andrew Coster Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Police are looking to shed 170 roles in a bid to save $53 million over four years to meet the government's cost-cutting directive.
Commissioner Andrew Coster said the change proposal to staff on Tuesday did not include any frontline services. He declined to be interviewed by Checkpoint, but in a statement said the "changes focus on reducing corporate functions".
"We remain committed to delivering our core services as an organisation and focusing on becoming more visible, reassuring and responsive," Coster said.
However the police association said most 'corporate support' jobs have an effect on the operational roles of frontline officers.
The proposed changes involved:
- Disestablishing 248 roles (of which 128 are currently vacant)
- Creating 78 roles
- A net reduction of 170 roles
"It's estimated this would achieve a saving of $53m over four years, however, we will not know the full extent of the savings until after final decisions are made in October," Coster said.
Consultation would be carried out over the next three weeks.
Meanwhile, a separate voluntary redundancy process was underway, which would run until the end of November.
"This is not open to constabulary staff. This will help achieve further savings in some cases, and reassignment opportunities for affected staff in other cases."
The Police Association represents the majority of those affected. Its president Chris Cahill told Checkpoint the proposal was wide - 260 pages long - and reaches across many parts of the police organisation.
"The reality is in policing that any corporate role ... touches the front line. Everything filters down to some degree."
250 police roles cut, commissioner says no reduction in frontline services
This audio is not downloadable due to copyright restrictions.
There was not a lot of fat on the bone in the police organisation in the first place, Cahill said.
"It's a pretty lean organisation when you compare it with a lot of other government agencies. But it is a big organisation, because there's 10,000 sworn officers - so it takes a lot to back that up with what is now being referred to as corporate support."
From a first look, Cahill said it appeared many of the roles were in ICT (information and communications technology), as well as the police stations the cops work out of and the cell blocks.
"So we just want to go through the whole proposal - it's very big, there's a lot in it ... we're trying to understand what those roles are, seeing what the touch-points to the frontline are and what affect they'll have.
"The association's key priority is to support those members whose jobs will be disestablished but the full extent of the process will not be fully understood until there is clarity around the number of vacancies that currently exist and the outcome of the voluntary redundancy process."
The union's over-riding measure was to avoid any impact on frontline policing, Cahill said.
"The association has already indicated most roles described as 'corporate support' do contribute to the operational role of frontline officers.
"This is potentially problematic given the government directive that the frontline should not be impacted by any proposed job losses."