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 more than 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.
Labour said Mitchell's claim that back-office job cuts at police did not matter had not stood up.
"Mark Mitchell cut jobs at police and claimed it didn't matter because they were back-office staff," police spokesperson Ginny Andersen.
"Now he's looking for others to blame for National's cuts, which is becoming a hallmark of Christopher Luxon's government.
"He should front up, accept responsibility, and come up with a plan to fix his own mess."
Police said it had 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.
"NZ police and Corrections have flagged that with regards to asset management, they currently do not have the resources to attest to being compliant in the short term. We are following up with them on specific challenges," Treasury said.
"The key caveat remains that this is a self-reported assessment" from all 16 agencies.
So, the agencies are marking their own work.
"Based on our current understanding of asset management practice, these agencies [police and Corrections] are probably being more upfront about the challenges in meeting requirements."
It told ministers this means they might want to talk to the other agencies about needing to prioritise baseline funding.
The 11 agencies on track included 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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