Trust and confidence in police drops

Photo / File

Trust and confidence in the police has dropped slightly since last year, a new report shows.

The latest citizen satisfaction survey shows 78 per cent of people have complete trust and confidence in the men and women in blue, down from 79 per cent last financial year.

Despite this, people said they did feel safer in their neighbourhood both during the day and after dark, with both figures rising from the 2012-13 year.

Of the 9260 people surveyed, 94 per cent said they felt safe in their neighbourhood during the day, up from 93 per cent, while 75 per cent of people said they felt safe after dark, up from 72 per cent.

Acting Deputy Commissioner Grant Nicholls said the results were pleasing.

The small dip in the trust and confidence result showed people's perception of the police remained "stable", he said.

"At 78 per cent, New Zealand Police's overall trust and confidence rating would be the envy of many overseas police organisations," he said.

Mr Nicholls was also positive about the public satisfaction results, saying the 84 per cent of people who rated their overall satisfaction as totally positive "highlighted the good work of our staff who are out there going the extra mile every day to serve their communities".

"It's great to see their commitment being recognised through the survey," he said.

However, a breakdown of the results show there were drops in the satisfaction results among people who had recent contact with police in five of the seven categories.

The biggest fall was seen in the 'good value for tax dollars spent' category, which fell from 77 per cent to 74 per cent this year.

Dips were also seen in the rating for staff competency, which fell from 93 per cent to 91 per cent, as well as the category asking people whether their expectations were met or exceeded, which fell from 91 per cent to 89 per cent.

Those who felt police staff did what they said they would do fell from 88 per cent to 86 per cent, and the number of people who felt they were treated fairly dropped from 92 per cent to 90 per cent.

'We aspire to be an organisation which is easy to deal with and maintains high standards of service, so it's great that such a large majority of New Zealanders come away satisfied with the service they get from us," Mr Nicholls said.

"We also recognise that we can't take it for granted and will continue to work hard in order to maintain the trust and confidence of New Zealanders".