Photo: RNZ / Richard Tindiller
New changes to police eligibility criteria will allow people on their restricted licence to apply to become officers.
Assistant Commissioner Jill Rogers said the move would increase the force's potential pool of recruits by accessing the more than 250,000 people currently holding restricted licences.
"Our standards remain very high and that will not change but we know elements of our selection criteria were creating unnecessary barriers for people who would otherwise make exceptional candidates," Rogers said.
Rogers said applicants would need to have achieved their full licence before training began but the change would enable them to "get into the recruitment pipeline sooner".
People who hold a residency visa would also become eligible to apply - in a return rules disestablished in 2017.
Rogers said the force was looking to build on greater numbers of people applying for the job compared to last year.
"These changes will allow many more people to apply to become a New Zealand Police officer. We are always looking for ways to increase the number of quality applications we receive.
"I'm confident these changes make that process more agile and fit-for-purpose."
Rogers said the time between application and training could vary from months to years depending on the applicant.
She said the acceptance of less experienced drivers would be complimented by recent extensions to the police training program.
"We've extended that curriculum from what was 16 weeks to a 20 week program and within that they actually get four extra days of driver training.
"We know that our staff operate in high pressure situations. They spend a lot of the time on the road responding to different events and so driver training is a big part of the curriculum for our initial recruits and then our officers are required to undergo ongoing driving training in their positions," Rogers said.
Rogers was confident broadening the number of available candidates would prove to be an asset for the force.
"We ask our applicants to go through a 12 step assessment of different factors that we look at. It's a really robust process that they go through - hence the time that it takes - so this allows us to just increase that pool of candidates that we have the ability to then work through and choose the best from that.
"We've been looking at a whole lot of processes and looking at how can we better the experience for people that do apply, how can we speed up the process and so this was one of the things that we looked at and thought that - by increasing the candidate pool - it was a good thing to do."
Police were working hard to deliver the government's goal of 500 new cops by the end of 2025, she said.
"We've seen a 40 percent increase just this year in applications so we are still seen as an employer of choice. We're still a fantastic organisation to work for. We still offer amazing opportunities, amazing interactions with our community and the chance to absolutely make a difference."
Budget funds 500 new front-line roles but serving police embittered at pay negotiation loss
In the 2024 Budget the government committed more than $220 million to train 500 new officers by the end of next year.
But Police Association's loss to the government's final offer in the more than year long pay negotiation process has embittered serving officers and raised the possibility of more officers to better paid overseas jurisdictions.
On Tuesday a police officer with nearly a decade on the job said his family was struggling and he had hoped negotiations would bring some significant relief.
"We live from pay day to pay day. What they've done doesn't give us anything like inflation or most interest rates costs," he said.
The officer was sceptical police could meet the government's recruitment goal when the feeling on the ground was more and more experienced cops were resigning.
"How are they going to get 500 more people when they can't keep officers in the job? It takes four months to get a wing of 60 new recruits and they're losing 70 per month so work the math on that," he said.
Voluntary redundancies to be offered to non-sworn staff
The recruitment change comes as the agency revealed voluntary redundancies would be offered to police staff as a part of cost saving measures in coming months.
In May Police Commissioner Andrew Coster told staff 175 non-sworn jobs would go to satisfy the government's demand for $55 million in savings from the agency as a part of the Budget.
In a statement Police deputy chief executive of strategy and performance Andrea Conlan confirmed the executive had "agreed in principle, to offer voluntary redundancy as part of the organisation's efforts to make cost savings with fewer corporate staff".
Conlan said the process to manage how the redundancies would be offered was still under consideration but she anticipated consulting over the changes would begin in August.
In response to the budget announcement in May, Police Association vice-president Paul Ormerod said the loss of support staff could impact 111 operations as well as an array of roles that assisted the work of sworn officers in their front-line roles.
"It's concerning to us, It's concerning to our members that any loss in back office workers will result in either the front line doing more work or a reduction in efficiency to respond to calls," Ormerod said.