Police recruiters turn to Plan B

Recruits at the Royal NZ Police College at Porirua.

Police admit the number of recruits at the Police College is below target, but say they have a fallback plan.

Police human resources manager Wayne Annan said the current intake at the college was 227, well down on the target of 300.

He said a new tactic had not worked but they had a "Plan B" to get numbers up by the end of the financial year.

The January and February intakes were the largest, historically, and police planned to admit 200 next year rather than the 120 forecast.

This month the Police Association criticised recruitment efforts. It said school leavers should not be targeted because they were not able to handle the responsibility of policing.

With training at the college lasting five months, it was possible for 19-year-olds to be sworn police officers, the association said in its magazine Police News.

Association president Greg O'Connor said younger police did not have enough support from more experienced officers so there was more potential for things to go wrong.

"More pressure now goes on those frontline officers in their first year than used to be the case."

He said recruiting younger people would be acceptable if they were joining an experienced force, but that was not the case.

Mr Annan said school leavers were being targeted because in the past five years only 2.9 per cent of recruits were under 20.

Attrition rates also came under fire from the Police Association, which said rates had been rising since 2004 and cited internal documents saying police had "serious concerns about meeting recruitment targets".

Nationally, the police attrition rate was 5 per cent. The association said recruits were "burning out because of huge workloads dealing with high volume crime" in "hotbeds like South Auckland".

Mr Annan rejected the claim, saying there had not been a long-term increase in attrition rates.

He said increases last year were caused by a change to the police pension scheme that allowed those under 50 to receive their pension in a lump sum and leave the force.

He said 382 sworn staff left last year, but if the group who left to take advantage of the lump sum was taken into consideration, the attrition rate was 4 per cent - the lowest it had ever been.

He said the average length of police service was 11.9 years; 15 years ago the average service was 9 years.

- NZPA