Baillie Chris; Mitchell Mark; McKee Nicole; Andersen GinnyCHRIS BAILLIE (ACT): Thank you Mr Chair. Just regarding the fiscally restrained environment again and the freeze on the non-sworn Police National Headquarters (PNHQ) increased over the last six years by 806 members; 153 of those I believe were sworn staff the rest non-sworn. Can we assume that those numbers won't increase at all over the next however long this freeze is on for the non-sworn staff? Just on another topic I've heard anecdotally on a number of occasions that there are front-line staff who aren't equipped to go out and deal with front-line duties—mainly the reports I'm getting are the body armour the lack of body armour—and I'm just wondering whether that is an issue anywhere around and what they should do to remedy that. Thanks.Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): Thank you Mr Chair. Minister first of all I'll just address your comment that we didn't seem to put any value on backroom staff or authorised officers—let me correct the record on that one. Our point was quite simply this: you led the country to believe that the 1800 new staff—CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): No I didn't do anything Mr Mitchell.Hon MARK MITCHELL: —were front line. I'm addressing an issue the Minister raised.CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The Minister did.Hon MARK MITCHELL: Yes. So I've got no right of reply to that Mr Chair?CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): No no just don't use the word you".Hon MARK MITCHELL: Oh sorry sir I apologise—I apologise. So the Minister raised that issue. Quite simply our issue was this: you misled the—sorry Mr Chair. The Minister quite simply misled the country and was deceptive in making just about every Kiwi believe that they were delivering 1800 front-line sworn officers.CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Mr Mitchell just be careful with that choice of terms please. You know the rules; you've been here long enough. Just be careful with your choice of terms please.Hon MARK MITCHELL: I'm being very specific in my choice of terms Mr Chair because in my view—and I'm entitled to my view—it was deeply deceptive to keep standing up in this Chamber—Tangi Utikere: Point of order Mr Chair. The terminology that the member is referring to or using is something that is long held as inappropriate in terms of being used in the House whether it is someone's view or not. It is a reflection on the member and I invite you to rule accordingly.CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Mr Mitchell I did warn you. You have a reasonable range of vocabulary could you just widen it please? You've been here long enough to know that. You're just detracting from your message.Hon MARK MITCHELL: Thank you Mr Chair. So the message is this: you had two Prime Ministers you had at least two Labour police Ministers stand up in this House and reconfirm that the 1800 were front-line beat officers and sworn officers. They clearly were not.Hon Stuart Nash: They were.Hon MARK MITCHELL: There was 1530 that were—no they're not. They were not sworn police officers with the power of arrest; 270 of them were authorised officers. And although authorised officers have got an important role to play—I recognise that—albeit in a non-sworn position where they can't respond to a member of the public that's putting their hand up to try and deal with an aggravated robbery with the power of arrest the point was quite simply this: it was not 1800 front-line police officers. The Police Association has come out as recently as today and reinforced that and supported us in that position as well.I want to come back to the time off in lieu (TOIL) and leave—and the Minister needs to be very clear about this. Is the Minister saying that there is going to be no interference or no directive coming out of PNHQ in terms of how the front-line police officers are choosing to use or take their time off in lieu or annual leave? The issue seems to be this: time off in lieu and annual leave has always had to be managed within the police service—that goes back for as long as the police service has been in existence. But the concern here is: are front-line police officers now going to be dictated to and told by those that sit in PNHQ when they are to take their leave or when they are to take their time off in lieu?By the way if time off in lieu is becoming such a big problem why is that? Is that because there's too much pressure now on the front line and because they're dedicated and because they want to provide the service to the communities and the public they serve they are taking more time off in lieu or they are accruing more annual leave because they're trying to keep their head above water and they're trying to support their colleagues on section so that they don't drop down to a dangerously low number? What is the reason that is driving now a focus coming out of PNHQ whereby they're saying that there has to be a minimisation of the collection of TOIL and annual leave? I'd like a very clear response to that thank you Minister.NICOLE McKEE (ACT): Thank you Mr Chair. Minister when I spoke about increasing crime and an increasing budget for Police but a decreasing budget to actually go after crime one of the things that you had answered in your answer to my question was about the changing priorities of the New Zealand Police. And at the time that we have at the moment where we do have or are seeing ram raids at a huge amount—an over 500 percent increase—when retail crime is happening 14 events every hour of every day over a year we do have to ask whether or not those priorities need to be reset Minister. Then with that we look at the 700 percent increase in youth on the National Gang List and yet funding for youth services has also decreased at a time when I think that it is critical to policing that we do have money in these areas for police to be able to work solidly on it. So I just wonder Minister rather than saying it's about police looking at their priorities what are the critical policing areas? Because if it's just going to be domestic violence—as an example which is very very important—but we have a 500 percent increase in ram raids then we need to please have an explanation as to why we have some areas more critical to others and why we cannot accomplish it all.Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Minister of Police): Thank you very much. Just in relation to the member Mark Mitchell's questioning around this Government or me in particular misleading the committee or being deceptive in terms of authorised officers being counted as constabulary staff I would just like to refer the member to the Policing Act 2008 which was passed under a National Government. It is that 2008 Act which provides for authorised officers. And I would like to highlight the fact that not only did that Act establish authorised officers it was decided when that Act was passed under that Government that those authorised officers would be counted as constabulary staff. So I don't think it is a correct reflection of history to say that that was a new thing under this Government. It is something that was initiated by the National Government in 2008 and that is where authorised officers were not only established but also it was agreed upon that they would be counted as constabulary staff.In terms of the other point in relation to specific comments around time off in lieu (TOIL) I have covered this before but I will go back to it again. It might help the member Mark Mitchell if I read from the email that was distributed to staff. It's quite long—I could read the whole thing; I won't do that. But it says "Manage your budget. Make sure we have good corporate hygiene". And the points covered under that heading are to limit non-essential activity such as discretionary travel and consumables approving timesheets in a timely manner monitoring allowances and only approve when it's an allocation and not being accrued unnecessarily managing annual leave balances and minimising the collection of TOIL to ensure it is being taken within the policy guidelines. And I think that's the really important part—that the email has encouraged staff to simply abide by the existing policy guidelines. It also reflects that members needed to review the Budget forecast and actually reflect expected cost during the year and to be realistic about what will be spent to monitor and update forecasts on a monthly basis to manage cost pressures within budget and avoid taking on new costs and to make sure that credit card monthly returns are being reconciled and submitted within the specified time frames.In terms of the question in relation to those priorities raised by the member Nicole McKee I will need to get the breakdown—I'll have to come back to you in terms of the youth offending figure that you have. But what I will say is that a lot of that work has actually been expanded with now Circuit Breaker. So that programme is specifically targeting youth offending and specifically responding to the increase in ram raids we've seen—that started in two places in Auckland. That's now been expanded to Hamilton and also into Christchurch and there's a number of other sites that are currently being looked at. So while that doesn't sit within the Police budget—it sits within Oranga Tamariki—there is a significant amount of resource that's going into providing that full wraparound support.I think the success rates we've seen out of programmes like Kotahi te Whakaaro and Circuit Breaker are because they take a whānau approach. And the problem or I guess the fault in the past is quite often that young person was lifted out given some treatment and put back into the same unit that maybe was not good for them or maybe was dysfunctional in other ways. But this approach is different—it's looking at mum dad siblings and all those other factors going on in their life. And yes it probably does cost a bit more and yes it probably does take a little bit longer but it also stops the nine- or the six- or the five-year-old in that whānau taking the same pathway as the 12 or 13yearold has.So I think that's a really good use of resource. And I also see it's a really huge improvement in terms of the way Police and Oranga Tamariki are now working more closely together in that 12 and 13- and 14-year-old space where we're seeing the problem occur the most."