NZ Police say they are in the process of establishing a cross agency working group to develop options for addressing the issues raised in the report. Photo: 123rf
Police say they back new recommendations for overhauling 111 emergency calling and are working on how to do it.
A report by an Australasian group police is part of, details many shortcomings in the old, fragmented system that it says are hindering the response to routine emergencies and large disasters.
Police said they were not aware of any issues with 111 during the landslide and flood events last week.
"The core technology used by Police Emergency Communications and Dispatch to answer and respond to emergency calls for service functioned throughout, with no significant outages or issues to any of its systems including Inter-CAD," acting director of Emergency Communications and Dispatch Inspector Mike Higgie said in a statement on Wednesday afternoon.
However, the latest report by the National Emergency Communications Working Group of Australia and New Zealand has echoed several earlier reports on how the system that has been upgraded here-and-there over the years, often failed to share information and enable operations in a quick, accurate and seamless way.
Police are part of the working group and said they were considering all recommendations in the report.
It called for them to set up two working groups, on tech and on rules and standards.
"NZ Police is in the process of establishing a cross agency working group to develop options for addressing the issues raised in the NECWG white paper," Higgie said.
RNZ reported its findings and recommendations on Wednesday, for police to take the lead on technological and legislative-regulatory change, and for a strategy to overcome an uncertain future for 111.
Minister Mark Mitchell said the day-to-day running of the emergency communications systems were an operational matter for police, however, “my expectation is that police will consider the recommendations of the report, and will bring advice to me where it is required”.
A push within the emergency agencies for over four years to overhaul 111 has not been funded by government, with police, Fire and Emergency and ambulance operators instead making incremental tech improvements here and there.
Police are also part of the Emergency Communications Service and Inter-operability set up in late 2023.
Its aims included to "improve how emergency services communicate and operate with each other" and build strong partnerships, Higgie said.
The forum's aim did not include making changes to the 111 service owned and operated by Spark. Spark was not a member of it, he said.
Mitchell said he expected police to fully participate in the forum with the goal of improving emergency communications to improve public safety.
The working group's 111 report detailed various ways the current system failed to coordinate what was being done between the responders like police, and the telco companies that run some of the tech.
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