An internal consultation process on a structure for the delivery of services to communities across the Central Police District has been completed.
“We called it Project Balance because we wanted to re-distribute our resources to provide a level of equity across the district. We are committed to investing in areas with lower staff allocations and in particular the Whanganui/Ruapehu area,” says District Commander Superintendent Sue Schwalger.
Following the consultation process the decision has been made to retain 10 positions in rural communities and small towns across the Central District, which were originally proposed for reallocation to other areas.
“This is great news for our smaller rural-based communities who we continue to remain committed to providing an excellent service to,” says Superintendent Schwalger.
“In considering the feedback and the long term resourcing needs in the District, we have been mindful to balance the demand for service with the needs of the community. We are continuing to invest in rural communities and we understand and appreciate the value local communities place on their Police service.”
Police have been consulting with district staff on a series of changes to the structure within Central District for the last six weeks. Superintendent Schwalger said more than 75 submissions were received from staff on the proposal, which were of a very high quality.
“As a direct result of staff feedback, we have listened carefully and made a number of changes to the original proposal, including the decision to retain the 10 rural based Police staff spread across communities within the District,” she says. “I’d like to thank all of those staff who took the time to make submissions and share their ideas on how we can continue to deliver and improve upon our service to the communities we serve.”
Overall constabulary staff numbers in Central District have not changed. The final decision document sees 15 positions reinvested to enable Police to better deliver prevention-based services. There will be no redundancies as a result of the organisational alignment as the individuals impacted will be redeployed within the new structure.
“In keeping with Police’s operating model, the new structure remains focused on prevention. This means we are always working to deploy our staff as effectively as we can to best match demand across the district.
“We take the feelings of safety and security of our communities to heart. We have committed to deliver the best service that we can to those communities. We believe the new structure will provide us with the greatest level of flexibility and enable resources to be deployed to best meet the demands of the people we serve,” says Superintendent Schwalger.
The final decision document has been shared with staff today and the new organisation structure will take effect from 1 July 2017.
ENDS
Issued by the Police Media Centre