Policing the numbers on promise

Awhopping 1800 extra cops sounds like a great promise, until you’re in the hot seat and have to deliver.

Police Minister Stuart Nash has found himself in a somewhat difficult position seven months in.

Nash is maintaining his wide smile as he talks about the coalition Government’s promise to ‘‘strive towards’’ adding 1800 extra sworn police officers to the force by 2020. But his language has changed in the past few months, in what appears to be an effort to hedge his bets.

And it’s recently become clear that he will be counting the former National Government’s 880 cops planned and paid for in Budget 2017 towards his 1800. Meaning, the current Government is adding 920 sworn officers, with National laying the groundwork for the first 880.

Nash says it doesn’t really matter who did the planning, at the end of the day it would be the Labour-led Government delivering the extra numbers. A view the Police Association backs: ‘‘From the association’s position, what matters is the number of fully funded officers on the beat, not which government delivers them.’’

But there has been constant confusion about the number of officers, their powers, how they would be funded, and where they would come from, since day dot.

There was never any doubt it was an ambitious target, and the aspirational wording of ‘‘striving towards’’ 1800 extra cops was intended to give the Government some wriggle room.

This week, Nash said: ‘‘If we can find 1000 a year . . . then we’ll deliver it in three years. If it takes a little longer to get the men and women through the system, then maybe three and a half years, but we are still striving for that three-year target.’’

Nash knows this is a big ask – he’s called the target ‘‘ambitious’’. National’s police spokesperson, Chris Bishop, has called it ‘‘extraordinarily ambitious’’. Even Police Association boss Chris Cahill has called it ‘‘ambitious’’.

To add to the challenge, it seems there isn’t quite as much money in the police pot from Budget 2018 as Nash had hoped there might be.

Now it seems the coalition Government’s penchant for setting specific, numerical targets may become a stumbling block.

An extra 1800 cops by 2020, one billion trees in 10 years, and 100,000 new houses in 10 years – these numbers sound great in opposition, and even in the first 100 days of Government, but seven months on, when the reality of Government sets in, those numbers can look daunting.

Ahead of the election, National was promising 880 extra frontline cops, with 245 support staff – accounted for in Budget 2017. Nash one-upped the Nats with Labour’s big promise of 1000 extra cops.

Meanwhile, NZ First was promising 1800 sworn police. Something they managed to win during coalition negotiations.

Now it is the police minister’s job to figure out how to deliver on that promise.

And while the Labour-nz First coalition agreement does say the Government will ‘‘strive towards adding 1800 new police officers over three years’’, all the public has heard is a promise to deliver 1800 extra cops.

The Nats’ Bishop says the public expects 1800, and if the Government does not deliver, it will be a broken promise.

It’s unclear whether Nash will make the target. He says police need to recruit and train 800-1000 cops a year to get to 1800 extra police by October 26, 2020 (he’s counting three years from the day he was sworn in).

That works out to 600 a year extra (to get to the 1800), and about 400-500 a year to replace those who leave the force.

Seven months in, about 400 cops have graduated, including the 78 who graduated the day after Nash took office. That’s more than halfway through the year, with fewer than half of what’s needed to hit the 1000-a-year target.

Luckily, Nash has set himself a three-year goal, giving him the space to catch up.

In the meantime, Nash isn’t doing himself any favours by confusing the numbers around how many sworn officers, versus authorised officers, versus frontline cops, versus support staff will make up the 1800.

He has said all 1800 will be frontline police, but that’s been challenged in the House. His definition of frontline includes officers working on cyber-crime.

That count also includes authorised police (about 250), who take a different sort of oath, and still have some powers, but are not the officers responding to family violence incidents or pulling up speedsters.

And 700 of the 1800 will be working on things like organised crime, cyber-crime and forensic accounting. The 485 support staff (245 of those accounted for in National’s Budget 2017) are over and above that 1800.

The confusion sits in the definition of frontline. Basically, frontline refers to all police officers, and has taken over as the term used to described a ‘‘sworn’’ officer. Despite how it may sound, frontline does not refer exclusively to those out on the street.

This confusion on the numbers has given National space to attack Nash in the House. Nash is trying not to get pulled into a debate over definitions, saying frontline means: ‘‘working hard to keep New Zealanders safe and solving crime’’, and that’s all 1800 extras.

Budget 2018 includes $298.8 million in new operating funding and $17.8m capital for police over the next four years. In addition, $159.7 million of new funding is provided in 2022/23.

NZ Police and the Police Association say it costs about $140,000 to train and kit out an officer – that’s $420m for the 3000 total recruits over three years. But $252m for the 1800 extra.

The increase in funding would enable the recruitment of the extra officers and support staff, Nash said.

Bishop said the funding out to 2022/23 indicated Nash expected it to take through to 2023 to deliver the 1800. But Nash said the extra funding was in place to account for payrises for the 20 per cent more police officers.

Treasury said Budgets were usually only set out for four years and it would not be Treasury’s ‘‘standard approach’’ to go further than this, ‘‘but it appears that the Minister of Police’s office wanted to highlight the point that the funding will increase further over time as agreed by Cabinet’’.

Nash said a failure to deliver 1800 extra cops by 2020 would not be due to funding. If the Government came up short it meant the logistics, and the effort to train 3000 people over three years, was ‘‘a little bit too much’’.