Intelligence staff work in the 'mid-office' of operational support, and their numbers grew 23.4 percent since 2017. Photo: RNZ / Richard Tindiller
Police say the numbers of staff working directly in intelligence roles has grown by almost a quarter in the last seven years, and that their core tech is old but still functioning.
An overhaul of core intelligence technologies has been held up by the financial squeeze, and competing government priorities.
Police said on Wednesday the current delay to its Core Policing Services overhaul was six months, to the end of 2024, not 18 months as an internal document reported on by RNZ had said.
"We acknowledge there are limitations with our current resources and system," police said in a statement to RNZ.
The National Intelligence Application was still "supported and maintained" and work was still going on to "ensure our systems will support our current and future technology requirements".
Frontline officers require intelligence technologies to rapidly give them comprehensive investigation and threat analysis, but papers describe an existing system with big gaps and problems.
The government told RNZ on Sunday it had asked police to identify efficiencies, programmes that did not align with the government's priorities, and "excess spending on backroom offices".
RNZ has asked police if their intelligence tech overhaul was one of the programmes that did not align, but they have not said.
Intelligence staff work in the 'mid-office' of operational support, and their numbers grew 23.4 percent since 2017 (up by 73 full-time roles to 384), somewhat behind the 30.5 percent growth in all police staff, police said on Wednesday.
Police Commissioner Andrew Coster, who has to find 6.5 percent of savings, warned MPs in March that cuts to operational support would affect the frontline.
"We have staff who operate in a... corporate support capacity, which is what might be described as back office, and then we have staff who operate on our operational area doing activity to remove that load from frontline.
"So if there were cuts in the group that were in that operation support area, that would impact our service."
In a statement, they said they had a mission to keep people safe and "all police staff contribute to this vision and support our frontline".
As for corporate support staff expanding 42 percent since 2019, the police said beyond specific areas like ICT, "corporate support growth was necessary to ensure the same service levels to be provided to the larger overall workforce".
"The corporate functions of recruitment, vehicle fleet management, and property all directly enabled the delivery of the 1800 additional officers."
They noted staffing had expanded to run the 105 non-emergency number and Firearm Safety Authority, and so the ICT team could improve cybersecurity, build in-house expertise and "to reduce the reliance on technology contractors".
However, police spending on contractors and consultants, many in ICT, has tripled in the last six years.
Staff in the police's three wings, 2019 compared with mid-2023:
- Frontline - 9575 and 11,422, up 19 percent
- Operational support ("staff who contribute directly to the delivery of services") - 2687 and 2759, up 2.7 percent
- Corporate support ("staff who enable operational delivery" via resources, tools, and systems such as finance, ICT and HR) - 875 and 1241, up 42 percent
