Tony Hill: Canterbury District Commander on the proposed police restructure getting cancelled

Canterbury police will keep monitoring demand in rural areas, after shelving a proposed restructure.

It would've replaced some permanent officers, with staff working at 24/7 hubs in Rolleston and Rangiora.

Many of the thousand submissions supported the idea, but it was rejected by affected communities.

Canterbury District Commander Tony Hill says the feedback showed police can meet demand with current staff.

"We just questioned whether we've got them in the right places - what we've seen from our people is some really good suggestions about how we might deploy those, to actually meet that without disrupting people in their roles."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good news. Police are backing off a planned staffing restructure
following public backlash. Under the plan, you'll remember this, one
rural police officer roles would have been cut and twenty
four hour policing hub set up on the outer cities
of christ Church. Now they say the more than one
thousand people submitted feedback on the changes. Tony Hill is
the Canterbury District Command is superintendent and with us Hi, Tony, Hi,

(00:21):
how are you? I'm very well gone so I know
you're dying to say it, so just get it over
and done with.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
But you owe me a coffee.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
I do owe you a coffee because I bet you
weren't going to change your mind, and you changed it.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Well, you were quite convinced we were going to steam
rollers through it. Did the whole time that we take
on this feedback and listen to it.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Yeah, I'm sorry, Tony, I was far too certain of myself.
Now why did you reverse it?

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Well, they had me reflecting on the one for review
the feedback and there was eight hundreds that come and
externally from our organization and two hundred from our stuff,
and it really had me reflecting on what it was
we were trying to achieve at the start and where
we were now, and a lot of the things that
we were trying to address were just organizationally we had
improved on and particularly from the district our staff, we're
doing a great job and improving in some of those places.

(01:07):
Took around managing our demand, which brought into I started
the question the relevant and you know we're sort of
disrupting people and upsetting communities by achieving this that we
actually are managing to meet this through our current focus
on our deployment.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
I mean part of the problem that you it was
coming from a good place, I think, which was that
you were trying to make sure that on the order
and Rolliston, which are growing, actually had enough early stuff.
So what are you going to do about that?

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Well, we still think we've got some positions that we've
already got in place out there that aren't affected by
the restructure. We're going to get together as a team
tomorrow and see what is the things we've got in
place now that aren't actually impact will require restructure to
achieve and keep moving on those with We're just mindful
and monitoring out how much we demand we have in

(01:54):
those areas and how are currently meeting that and we
are doing very well. And I think actually it's a
testament to our stuff that despite going through the proposal
or for restructure, that they're carried on to do an
amazing service.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Is this a case where you think you can actually
cover on the order and Rolliston properly or are you
going to need you know, without additional results or are
you going to need additional resource.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
No, we're definitely not going to need additional resource. And
what we have seen throughout this is that we know
that we've got enough numbers to manage the demands in
the district. We just questioned whether we've got them in
the right places. But what we've seen from our people
is some really good suggestions about how we might deploy
to those to actually meet that without actually disrupting people
as their roles.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Yeah, fair enough, Okay, so when are we doing the coffee?

Speaker 2 (02:41):
I might hold that one over you for next time, mate.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
Why not make sure we get an easy interview next time? Tony,
Thanks very much mate, best of luck. That's Tony Hill,
Canterbury District Command is Superintendent. Look, I'm all about declaring
bias and making sure that people understand what's going on
So next time Tony's on the show and you think
I'm going too soft, it's because of what just happen
is because I owe a mc coffee.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
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