Police eligibility criteria extended to increase potential pool for recruits

By Bill Hickman of RNZ

New changes to police eligibility criteria will allow people on a restricted licence to apply to join the force.

Assistant Commissioner Jill Rogers said the move would increase the potential pool of recruits by including more than 250,000 people 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”.

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People who hold a residency visa would also become eligible to apply.

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.”

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 the 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 losing 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.

New changes to police eligibility criteria will allow people on their restricted licence to apply to become officers. Photo / NZME

“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 cost saving measure 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.

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 consultation 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.