In today’s headlines with Chereè Kinnear, David Seymour outlines expectations for Pharmac, new speed-camera signage and Tenacious D world tour gets halted.
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 restrictedlicences.
“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.
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.
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
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.
