A police officer is seen carrying a rifle. Photo: RNZ
Police admit they ate into their ability to manage their costly assets with big back-office job cuts last year.
They promised at the time no impact on frontline services from axeing the 170 jobs to save $50 million, amid the government's public sector cuts.
Asked by RNZ about them scoring the worst out of 16 agencies Treasury measured, police said the "reduction in corporate roles in 2024 has impacted the resource available for strategic asset management".
It came at a time that some key assets, including about 900 of their 5300 Bushmaster rifles, were too old and need replacing.
Police were under a 2023 Cabinet directive to improve asset management, when they cut the corporate jobs.
The Treasury report said police were five-to-seven years away from fixing the systems as Cabinet demanded, and could not do it without fresh investment.
As for the rifles, Treasury said, "Police must procure a vendor to supply product and services to replace, maintain and sustain its fleet of rifles.
"Some current weapons are 20+ years old and well outside their life-of-type."
Life-of-type usually refers to submarines past their expected lifespan.
A rifles tender went out in June that said the "semi-automatic rifle stock includes a portion of aging firearms reaching end of life and needing replacement".
Police said they maintained the old rifles well - "A rifle at end of life does not mean that it is no longer functioning or safe."
Out of 5300 rifles, about 800 were "beyond end-of-life", and 100 at or near it. Four thousand were current; only 500 were new, police told RNZ.
They also defended their overall asset management, saying they were striving to improve it.
But they scored the worst out of 16 agencies in a Treasury report in February.
Told by the Cabinet in 2023 to do better, 11 agencies did so.
But the police instead cut back on staff doing the work, taking out 170 back-office jobs to save $50m amid the public sector cutbacks the government ordered.
At the time, they promised the cuts would have no adverse impacts on frontline policing.
But they had impact elsewhere.
"A reduction in corporate support staff has impacted resources with expertise in resilience, sustainability and portfolio specific asset management," the police reported back in February.
They repeated this four times on one page, about five "non-compliances" with what Cabinet ordered in 2023.
They estimated they would not have fixes for these till 2030 and 2032 - and even then this was "dependent on securing an uplift in investment and retaining dedicated resource". Again, this line was repeated four times.
The next agency with the most number of failures to comply - four - was the Defence Force. Eleven out of the 16 agencies had complied.
Police told RNZ: "NZ Police strives to continuously improve asset management towards compliance with the Cabinet circular."
"The Commissioner has prioritised operational asset management this financial year."
RNZ asked what assurance police could give the public that they would not cut out vital back office roles in future.
The Police Association union last August quoted a police employee saying, "We think this will be a scattergun headcount-reduction exercise made in a silo by people who don't understand the work people do, who they do it for, and who also won't personally be affected by the outcome of the 'realignment' exercise."
A police spokesperson said the force faces considerable pressure with its capital funding and was constantly making prioritisation decisions.
"Police's reduction in corporate roles in 2024 has impacted the resource available for strategic asset management, but recent changes to leadership the Commissioner introduced through his leadership realignment have also brought a range of assets, (including our property portfolio, vehicle fleet, firearms, and other operational assets such as tasers and body armour) together under single leadership and this is enabling improvements in how those assets are managed."
RNZ approached Minister Mark Mitchell for comment.
Mitchell has heralded putting over a billion dollars into police in the last two Budgets. Most was for the front line, with a slice for a human resources and payroll IT upgrade.
Police Minister Mark Mitchell. Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii
The Cabinet directive demanded police have an asset register for "critical assets" listing their condition and risks. They now expect to have set one up by 2032, but "compliance is dependent on securing business case funding".
They got the nod late last year to do a business case to replace the old Bushmasters, in a project rated "medium" risk, the document showed.
Police told RNZ their rifle stocks included new ones, and others "at end of life, or beyond end of life" at the other end of the spectrum.
End-of-lfe was about an asset being fully depreciated.
"This is typical of asset management ... This means the asset no longer has a monetary value and can be replaced," said Inspector Jason Ross, acting director of operational capability, in a statement.
"Our rifle fleet is regularly and well maintained by our National Armoury and all firearms are operationally and functionally checked before every deployment. Should any issue be identified during these checks, the rifle is removed from service and repaired or replaced."
As well as new rifles, they were also looking into maybe getting an outside service to manage the rifles rather than their own armoury.
They also want a digital asset tracking tool.
"This will enable police to have a rifle fleet that meets current and future operating capability needs," Ross said.
It aligned with how they were managing their body armour.
The Treasury report covered the quarter to December 2024, but was the latest available.
Along with it, the Minister of Finance Nicola Willis and her Associate Chris Bishop warned colleagues that many agencies "remain well below" their expectations on giving Cabinet accurate budget advice about projects on time; fewer than 60 percent were up to scratch.
Ministers had a big role in making sure project planning, delivery and asset management got better; they should "understand the state of their agency's asset management performance and ability to manage critical replacement, renewals and maintenance within existing funding".
Treasury scored Police middle of the pack of 25 agencies for planning big projects, higher for delivering them on time and on budget.
They have $1.2 billion of investments planned, and $2.1b being delivered - the largest project is the $1.8b Public Safety Network.
Along with a nod on rifles, Police won the nod to do more planning on public order policing improvements, sparked by the 2022 occupation of Parliament grounds.
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