Hipkins defends Crime Prevention Fund: 'I expect the programme to ramp up'

Senior Labour MP Chris Hipkins. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Police Minister Chris Hipkins is defending the $6 million Crime Prevention Fund which has only helped five businesses and remains - for now - entirely unspent.

Announcing the fund in May, then-Police Minister Poto Williams said Aucklanders should "absolutely" expect a reduction in crime as a result.

However, after months, just five Auckland stores had received security upgrades, and - due to the process for distributing the fund - nothing has yet been spent.

Williams' successor in the role, Hipkins in a statement last night said it was normal practice for an agency to draw from its own budget until the Proceeds of Crime fund - which the prevention fund comes from, and from which 40 ministries or agencies are able to seek funding - later reimbursed them, normally in October and March.

This meant police will be reimbursed for spending from the fund, but concerns have continued to be raised over delays and effectiveness.

National's police spokesperson Mark Mitchell said it was just too slow a process.

"If dairy owners and shop owners feel like they need the protection, they want to prevent a ram raid, especially those that have already been subjected to one - or multiple - I would have thought it would be a speedy process, it would be expedited, and they'd be given the security measures and the support that they need quickly.

He said Police was stretched enough as it was without the added burden of administering the fund.

"To put the police in charge of it like that, to me, just doesn't make sense. It should have been that someone else could have managed that $6m fund, shopkeepers and store owners cold have applied ... and then have an expedited process by which they could then get the security systems put in place."

Hipkins, in a second statement late last night said he expected the programme to ramp up over the next month.

"I expect the programme to ramp up over the next month. Police have been working through how they best support small businesses, particularly in Auckland, and are bringing on more assessors so they can work with more of them, more quickly," he said.

"I feel for those businesses that have been targeted, and it is my expectation that they should feel supported by police."

Ram raids have been continuing throughout the country, but arrests have continued too with two young men arrested over raids last month in Invercargill and a young person arrested over a raid in Hamilton in the past few days.