Phil
Pennington Reporter
Police
have no commitment to carrying on with an upgrade
of their outdated and fragmented IT system for sending
officers out to fight crimes and other jobs.
That is
despite the recent police performance review warning they
will “not keep pace” with growing crime volumes without a
new system.
“Modernisation of the dispatch system is
essential to improve operational performance and service
delivery,” it said in April.
It showed officers
currently relied on two unconnected computer aided despatch
(CAD) platforms that invited mistakes.
“This requires
dispatchers to manually coordinate information across
multiple screens, creating inefficiencies and increasing the
risk of error,” said the review,
the first of its kind by the Public Service
Commission.
It made acquiring a modern, unified CAD
system one of its 14 recommendations.
The police’s
10-year upgrade plan
in response said, “Planning and early delivery work is
underway to progress a national Computer Aided Dispatch
(CAD) upgrade and associated fleet telematics
capability.”
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They want better telematics – what is
called automatic vehicle location – for “nearest capable
unit” dispatch and live status of specialist
resources.
The 10-year plan said phase two of the CAD
upgrade would be ready to begin in July 2026 “subject to
funding”.
But asked by RNZ about this, it was evident
the funding was not in hand.
“There is no commitment
to progressing the upgrade at this stage of the process,”
police said in a statement.
They would decide on that
once they had completed phase one that looked at feasibility
and likely costs of a new CAD.
Budget 2026 did not
have money for CAD.
Meanwhile, the old CAD keeps
running, while tech advances carry on.
“A contemporary
dispatch solution should incorporate predictive and
analytical capabilities,” said April’s review.
“For
example, the ability to anticipate the impact of emerging
patterns – such as a surge of incidents within a
neighbourhood – would enable proactive resource
deployment.”
CAD is one of several
vital police IT response upgrades that have taken a slow
track or been paused in the last few years, including an
overhaul of 111, usually around Budget.
The
performance review called 111 “fragile”.
After years
of stop-start moves on 111, the 10-year plan said police had
recently set up a cross-agency (with ambulance and fire) to
look at options this year to address “identified
vulnerabilities”.
Existing 111 and 105 systems remain
in operation while future capability is assessed, the police
plan said.
The plan made clear police are juggling a
raft of investment pressures, and talks of managing
the”trade-offs”.
It noted pressure to invest to
upgrade CAD, 111, digital and forensic capability, a digital
transformation, the finance system heavily faulted in
April’s review, and data and intelligence tools – not to
mention “property uplift, corporate capability, workforce
training, new specialist teams, and frontline enablement and
officer safety
initiatives”.
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