4 days ago
Police minister blames previous government for poor asset management
Police Minister Mark Mitchell.
Photo:
RNZ / Mark Papalii
The Police Minister says the force's asset management has been of concern "for some time".
RNZ reported on Thursday
that Police admit over 170 back-office job cuts last year ate into its ability to manage costly assets.
Mark Mitchell said the previous government failed to invest for six years in core operations.
"This was allowed to deteriorate quickly," he said in a statement.
The National-led government has since put about $240 million in to meet cost pressures, and more for vehicles and a boat, Mitchell said.
He did not mention asset management systems, which a Treasury report showed were at least five years behind being fixed to work properly.
Police said it has realigned leadership to manage assets better.
Earlier this year, it was rated the worst out of 16 agencies Cabinet put on watch to do better in 2023.
Yet in 2024, Police cut the back-office staff anyway, saying it would not hurt the front line.
Eleven of the 16 agencies were on track to be up to Cabinet standards by this financial year, the report back to Treasury in February said.
This included Health New Zealand (HNZ), though last year it had a raft of non-compliances - including one which HNZ said would take until 2028 to fix: Meshing finance, asset and investment management policies "to ensure assets are maintained to deliver the required level of service quality".
Along with that hangover of poor asset management, Health NZ also justified its
lack of a national health plan financially adept enough
to persuade the Auditor-General as being because it was always going to take several more years to make it "mature" enough.
It was not clear how this shortcoming fit with it complying with Cabinet's directive to improve asset management.
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