During the year, the Authority has worked extremely hard exercising its oversight functions to ensure public confidence in the performance and integrity of New Zealand Police.
The report highlights progress and achievements across a range of activities during the financial year, including these comments from the Chair's foreword:
This time, more than in any other year, that is again true, but I wish to begin this foreword by doing this first; thanking staff members and Board members and others who work with us for their sterling efforts over an exceptionally busy time. Never before have staff of the IPCA been under such pressure and yet continued to produce such work of exceptional quality and standard. Their efforts do a great deal to ensure public confidence in the performance and integrity of New Zealand Police.
The Authority has been very successful in developing a more timely response to serious incidents and complaints. Although the performance measures relating to timeliness were ambitious, I am proud of the fact that they have for the most part been achieved. All investigations have a project plan with milestones and projected completion dates. In short, the work of the Authority is closely supervised and controlled and is completed without undue delay.
With the assistance of the Government Centre for Dispute Resolution at the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment, the Authority and Police developed a new method of dealing with complaints which is being trialled in three Police Districts starting from 7 March 2016. The objective of this project is to obtain speedier resolution of complaints by establishing clear time frames, keeping the parties informed and making decisions on a consultative basis.
It is pleasing to be able to report that the overarching objective of the pilot is being achieved. The initial results are very satisfactory and encouraging. It has been agreed with Police that similar changes need to be rolled out to all Police Districts early next year, adapted as necessary, in the light of experience in the pilot Districts.
Read the Authority's Annual Report for the Year to 30 June 2016 (PDF 1,249 KB)