KEY POINTS:
A fall in the number of people interested in joining the police means the Government's goal of increasing frontline officers by 1000 is set to fail, according to National.
The party's police spokesman Chester Borrows questions if it can achieve the target as the number of people phoning the 0800 NEWCOPS line dropped by a quarter from 7707 in 2003 to 5811 last year.
"This was despite a spike in the number of calls in November (778) coinciding with the start of Government's Better Work Stories recruitment campaign," Mr Borrows said.
He said police last year told Parliament's law and order select committee the ratio of calls for information that resulted in recruitment was 7 per cent.
"If the target of the Better Work Stories campaign was 10,000 calls to yield 700 recruits, then you'd have to say that so far it is struggling."
However a spokesman for Police Minister Annette King said the Government was still set to achieve the 1000 new officers over three years.
"We are still on target and at the end of this financial year we will be 39 (police) ahead of...our target," he said.
The Government, as part of its agreement with New Zealand First, promised 1000 additional officers over three years.
Mr Borrows said the number of hits on the $30,000 Better Work Stories website was falling -- down by almost 80 per cent, from 87,219 in November to 18,400 in March, and the number of individual sessions down from 4473 to 1921.
He did not think the recruits' targets would be met.
'That is what happens when police are forced to try to meet the unrealistic expectations foisted on them through political deals, rather than well thought through police," he said.
But Ms King's spokesman said because of very low attrition rates the situation was positive.
- NZPA
