'Underpowered': The police back-office holding back the front line

Police face making more cuts to their back office support systems despite warnings this undermines crime fighting at the front line.

Ministers were warned in 2024 and again this year the corporate side is so weak police are not even sure how to make back-office savings safely.

A review in April said the police back office is a "critical enabler" of the front line but has been "underpowered and undervalued".

This echoed a similar review back in 2024 when police promised a 10-year fixit plan.

Two years on, the April review sparked by the inquiry into disgraced former deputy police commissioner Jevon McSkimming made building the "corporate backbone" one of three top priorities. Police have embarked on 11 projects to strengthen their corporate side, under a 42-point action plan .

However, in May's Budget police's total funding was cut 4.3 percent and is forecast to fall further.

The government said the drop was largely due to the end of specific projects and of time-limited funding to deal with cost pressures.

'Frontline services are constrained'

In the past three years the government has asked public sector agencies to make "back-office" cuts while repeatedly saying these would not hurt the front line.

But by 2026 the integrity review had concluded, "Police's ability to deliver frontline services are constrained by weak corporate foundations."

It added, "Budget 2024 and 2025 savings targeted back-office and non-frontline roles, meaning financial and asset management capability likely went backwards during this period, widening the maturity gap.

"This underinvestment has created systemic weaknesses."

The finance and police ministers Nicola Willis and Mark Mitchell had heard this before: Shortly after being elected in part on a law-and-order platform, they ordered a rapid review of police in 2024.

It told them underinvestment in support systems was "really limiting police's ability to react, respond and be efficient in the medium term".

Despite this, a few months later police HQ cut 170 backoffice jobs to save $50 million.

By 2026, the April review found asset management, digital, HR, procurement, and risk and assurance were all underpowered, and financial nous was low, making it difficult to find more efficiencies that managers could be certain would not detract from core policing.

"Limited visibility of the organisation's true financial position makes it difficult to prioritise funding for critical initiatives or assess trade-offs between competing demands."

Declining budgets

Since the election the government has put more money into the front line as the total police budget rose from about $2.8 billion to $3.16b.

But Budget 2026 signalled the first of several drops, by 4.3 percent or $136m down to $3.02b.

Another drop to $2.84b was forecast for next year and another to $2.79b in Budget 2028, Mitchell's office told RNZ on Monday.

This would make for a total reduction of about $370m or 11 percent between Budget 2025 and 2028, back to about the level of 2022-23.

Mitchell's office said this year's reduction was mostly due to the Next Generation Critical Communications project being transferred from police to Internal Affairs.

Next year the road policing investment programme would end, and in 2028-29 about $50m in cost-pressure funding was set to stop.

Labour MP Ginny Andersen at a scrutiny week hearing in mid-June questioned if funding was in patch-up mode.

She suggested $30m of police pay was coming out of time-limited funding.

"I want to know why are police wages not part of the police baseline in the Budget," she told Mitchell.

The minister replied the government had funded police for collective bargaining which was not his place to comment on, an answer that did not satisfy Andersen.

'Makes it hard to tell'

Police had a gap in the last two years between commitments and funding of at least $267m.

At one stage they offered $44m in a savings plan compared to a government target of $118m (half a billion over four years).

They struggled with upward cost pressures.

"There has been underinvestment in police's core corporate functions which makes it hard to tell where investment delivers the best impact - and conversely, where savings might also impact," cautioned the 2024 rapid review.

It told Mitchell and Willis there was weakness across business insights and the monitoring of performance, cost pressures and value for money.

"This has made consideration of further savings in Budget 2024 very difficult without risking operational performance."

The rapid review recommended the ministers not ask for more savings, but instead get police to lay out ways to resource their corporate side properly.

They didn't.

Instead, the recommendation was "not explicitly being progressed", said a later report, and at a meeting in June 2024, police told ministers they would deliver the Budget savings by "reducing corporate support" jobs.

Over 170 roles went. More back-office cuts - alongside front-line and cost-pressure spending - came in the Budget 2025 process.

The rapid review also recommended root-and-branch reform to what police do; this led in part to them reducing some functions, such as around mental health callouts.

Pressure on 'critical policing activity'

Two years on, the integrity review found police planners were still relying on spreadsheets and had no integrated platform for planning or reporting back on frontline performance.

Leaders lacked skills to interpret financial information or manage budgets so often only planned short term.

It found the same dynamic: Inefficient police systems under fiscal pressure to make themselves - more efficient.

"The finance function is under-resourced and lacks the capability to provide robust analysis or strategic advice," said the April 2026 integrity review for the Public Service Commission.

Police struggled to shift spending in response to new pressures.

"This lack of agility constrains operational effectiveness and increases the risk of inefficient spending."

Operational staff told the reviewers this created "significant pressures" on "critical policing activity".

The Auditor-General also highlighted weaknesses in procurement and financial controls, it said.

Action plan

Police said their 42-point action plan was modelled on the Defence Force's capability plan.

The 11 "corporate backbone" upgrade projects are all meant to be finished by 2028.

Police are promising clear accountability and a good grip on delivering the projects.

However, when RNZ asked about one of the 11 - replacing the old computer-aided dispatch system or CAD - police said they had no commitment to fund it beyond the first planning phase that was about to end.

They have begun work on a modern finance system, however, questions remain over other tech funding, such as for a new 111 system or a new Enterprise Resource Management Programme for human resources and payroll.

They face an additional fiscal pressure compared to 2024 - new obligations to rebuild integrity demanded in the April review.