FAKE dOPE REAl TROublE - New Zealand Police Association

News/viewsPICKING UP THE PIECESThe shake-up of non-sworn Police positions is generating a rippleeffect of organisational and staffing disruption in stations aroundthe country. Ellen Brook reports.File management centres,criminal justice supportunits, investigative supportunits and the crime reporting lineare just some of the new workgroups synonymous with PolicingExcellence. But with no extrafunding, the non-constabularystaff who work in these new unitshave had to come from somewhereelse. Despite soothing reassurancesfrom Police National Headquartersthat the restructure is aimed atenhancing services to the public,some frontline staff are telling adifferent story.It’s about having to pick upthe pieces of a shattered supportnetwork and spreading themselvesso thinly they are struggling tocover their core roles.It’s also about losing valuable,experienced staff. Job lossesgo beyond just relocation andreassignment to the new units, withnon-constabulary staff numbersdown by more than 180 betweenDecember 2011 and December2012. As one senior sergeant says:“The heart of policing is our staff,who are being ripped out of ourstations.”In one district, a reshuffle at thewatch house last year has put alot of extra pressure on remainingconstabulary staff. Frustrationlevels have risen so much that onestaff member “had a meltdown”and left to work at another station.The watch house keepers weremoved from front-counter dutiesand related roles about sevenmonths ago. They either tookredundancy or were relocated tofile management work. To fill thegap, four constables and a sergeantand their desks hastily shifted andwere told that their jobs were nowcombined with attending to thepublic counter and all the relatedwork that involved.As much as our frontline officerslike to engage with the public, it’snot proving helpful to their coreroles to have to deal with counterinquiries as well. Far from workingmore efficiently, they say theyare falling behind with their ownwork as they fill the gaps left bytheir non-constabulary colleagues,whether it be at the frontcounter or handling the file andadministration work that has nottransferred to the file managementcentres.A spokesperson for the sectionthat is most affected has this to say:“The open-plan setup allows thepublic to see us sitting at our desks,and we are expected to leave ourwork and attend to the counter on aregular basis. In the meantime, ourown work is suffering . . . We arealso required to do the follow-upinquiries and prosecution of anyfiles we attend to at the counter.We were not given any trainingon the new processes and had toflounder our way through.”Several staff at the station havealready gone around in circlestelling their superiors that the newsystem is not working, makingformal email representations andhaving informal meetings. Theresponse has been dismissive,they say, a sort of like it or lump itattitude.On some occasions, inspectorshave had to attend to the frontcounter because there have been nostaff available.Elsewhere, the Associationhas been made aware ofdissatisfaction at smallerstations that have either lost watchhouse keepers altogether or aredown to just one person. Thatmeans juggling all the watch houseroles – answering the phones,attending to the front counter anda raft of other duties that involvedealing with the public, as well asdoing Winscribe work (listening toand transcribing recorded reportsleft by police officers). When astaff member complained, thesolution was to put a sergeant incharge of the front counter whileThe point aboutthese issues is thatit’s past any“bedding-in” timefor these changes,most of whichcame into effectlast year. We arenow into theterritory of newproblems.the Winscribe work was beingdone. You don’t have to be a rocketscientist to figure out that that isfalse economy.The loss of non-constabulary fleetmanagers is another unwelcomeeffect of restructuring. Despitebeing told that those duties, as wellas building maintenance, wouldbe taken over by Police NationalHeadquarters, there are reportsof some police cars being caughtout driving around with expiredwarrants of fitness and registration.Not a good look. The day-to-day offleet management is falling to OCs,some of whom are struggling to fillthe gap left by a person with morethan 20 years of experience.Many of the old nonconstabularyjobs are now fallingto middle managers, who, as oneofficer says, are already runningaround like headless chickenstrying to deliver on PreventionFirst and roll out mobility.Another frustration that onthe surface may appear minor– the provision of paper andphotocopying services previouslydone by non-constabulary supportstaff – can have a more criticalknock-on effect. In one station,a late shift arrived to find therewas no paper. A unit had to go toanother station to fetch some. Afew days later a CIB staff memberhad to collect more paper fromanother station and spend nearlyfour hours photocopying a file fora prosecution case, taking himaway from his core duties. As onesenior staff member said: “With nosupport staff around, who used toorganise the day-to-day stuff, noone has taken any responsibility.”118 june 2013police news – the voice of police