Mark Leys: Enough resources? Get real, chief

There are times when I am truly troubled by the situation that the police are in.

My day as an association rep and serving police officer mirrors this crisis. It started in Prosecutions, not because I work there, but because my six staff work in an office with one computer, so I work the first two hours at the clerk's computer at Prosecutions, until she comes to work.

A long-serving sergeant has been getting increasingly exasperated with the NIA computer and its time-consuming mode of operation, which has added more pressure to his day.

This morning, a missed prisoner transfer was the spark that set off the powder keg. He went to find the custody sergeant, who for recent months has tried to keep a watch-house functioning with remand prisoners from an overloaded Prison Service, deportees from an under-resourced Immigration Service and a service desk dealing with an overflow from a Comms Centre that cannot carry its load.

The row was breathtaking. I left the station and climbed on to a train. Yes a train. If I took a car, that would leave only one for the six staff to use.

The next job is to examine a constant flow of stolen cars in an effort to identify them ... before there is truly no more room in a shed the size of two football paddocks. One hundred cars per week come in.

It is then back to the office at three because I know that one of the administration officers will have left for the day and I will be able to access a computer.

Any efficient business would have a computer at the yard ... but we are a cash-strapped Government department so we continue to operate in the same time-wasting fashion. But I digress.

Back at the station a typist with decades of service approaches me. She is at her wit's end and near tears. She has two child-abuse videos to transcribe. She is fully committed with her assigned work and feels guilty that she has been unable to type an urgent trial file and has watched a detective sergeant spend his day typing it himself.

She has just been told that on top of this load she is now expected to cover for a sectional typist who is going on six weeks' leave.

This position requires the entry of timesheets for 80 staff. She knows that she cannot cope. I have nowhere to refer her except the Welfare section.

As soon as I am seated behind the computer, a temporary clerical assistant approaches me.

She has been denied access to the computer system which will allow her to enter firearms licence renewals. This is frustrating for her as she is seeing the abuse the arms officer is taking from people who are paying $65 for a new licence and receiving nothing for months.

An hour on the phone, e-mail and I think it's sorted. All the department needs right now is an irate gunowner on the front page. Next is the distressed victim of a double unlawful taking. Because we cannot keep up with the computer work his car, which has been located and returned to him without number plates, cannot be issued with new plates as it is still shown as stolen on the police computer.

He needs a letter of explanation from the police to the issuing authority. More phone calls, e-mails and inquiry work has to be undertaken to authenticate his claim. Then guess who is going to type the letter?

What is really galling is that when I collapse into a chair exhausted at the end of the day, there will be the commissioner telling the public that we have enough staff and resources. It has never been better. My reply to that would get me locked up.

* Sergeant Mark Leys, a police officer based at Papatoetoe, wrote this article for the NZ Police Association's May newsletter.