President's Column - Reporting on Police
“We have not independently verified the accuracy of information provided to us, and have not conducted any form of audit in respect of the New Zealand Police.
Accordingly, we express no opinion of the reliability, accuracy or completeness of the information provided to us and upon which we have relied.”
– Above is the disclaimer in the State Services Commission’s report into Change Management Programme Process (a third phase review of the Commission of Inquiry into Police conduct).
In ancient China, executions were sometimes carried out by ‘death by a thousand cuts’, and with the plethora of reports, workplace survey results and exposés on Police relentlessly being released and published, the phrase almost seems to apply.
The PricewaterhouseCoopers report, probably the most damaging, stated they had not verified or audited any of the information contained therein (see inset at top), but that didn’t stop them from reproducing comments that had media headline and ridicule written all over them.
They neglected to interview the Commissioner, one person whose views one would have thought were reasonably pertinent in helping them make up their mind.
Mind you, the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) also neglected to interview either the Area Commander or Officer in Charge of the CIB in compiling their report into the un-investigated child abuse files in the Wairarapa, so perhaps it is only police who are expected to establish all the facts before coming to a conclusion.
I know my old detective inspector would have been highly descriptive in his views of my competence, had I ever submitted a file without interviewing all the key people.
The various reports emanating from the Commission of Inquiry are now, quite frankly, doing more harm than good.
Apart from being horrendously expensive and diverting scarce resource into even more compliance regimes, any real issues they raise are generally lost when the media inevitably pick out the salacious
and headline-grabbing bits. It is time to ask: What are we trying to achieve here?
Our organised criminal hierarchy rub their hands with glee when they see us, their enemy, being weakened by the endless procession of damning reports. Why wouldn’t they?
We have a new Commissioner. Are we going to saddle him and his team with the same burden, or let him get on with the job?
Of course we can improve our performance, internally and externally. But the excellent results we have achieved dealing with major disasters like the Christchurch earthquakes and Pike River, combined with crime and crash reductions, are the real yardsticks against which we should be measured – not offhand the fact ‘TJF’ in the same way most cops have for time immemorial.
As I write this, I am sitting in the Christchurch Police Station, a day after the second catastrophic earthquake which has devastated this city.
Professional, dedicated Police staff are overcoming horrific devastation to their own lives, to bring order to the inevitable uncertainty and ‘fog of war’ which follows such events.
Whether standing 12 hours on a cordon, digging through rubble, or being involved in the massive organisation involved in co-ordinating and managing the response to this event, police are very good at what we do.
I am reflecting on how helpful it would be for those blithely publishing damaging and uncorroborated comments about policing, to be seeing what I have seen over the last 24 hours.
That may provide them with some perspective next time they sit down to compile their report, and cause them to reflect on what they risk destroying by failing to do full research..
Otherwise, those damaging cuts might just bring about the death of the very thing they are tasked with improving.
Their ‘cure’ may prove to be more damaging than the perceived disease they seek to remedy.
