‘No escaping the fact’: Victoria Police shake up gets uniformed staff off the desk

Victorian police officers will spend less time saddled with paperwork and intelligence gathering will be centralised in a major overhaul of the state’s police force, the Chief Commissioner has announced.

Announcing the shake-up on Monday, Chief Commissioner Mike Bush pointed to rising crime levels as the motivation to get more officers out on the beat.

“We have a crime problem here in Victoria. There is no escaping this fact,” he said.

“The levels of offending we are seeing in our community are entirely unacceptable.

“Good people, innocent people going about their everyday lives, are being victimised on the streets and in their own homes. This cannot continue.”

The state’s annual crime data was released last month, showing the number of offences in the 12 months to July rose 15.7 per cent – 86,587 more crimes. The nominal increase represents a 13.8 per cent rise when adjusted for population.

The shake up is centred around getting more non-sworn police employees, and retired officers, to handle more arrest paperwork. Every day, uniformed officers spend 4000 hours on station front counters, the Chief Commissioner said, equalling 1.4 million hours a year.

“Those things are really important but they don’t need to be done by frontline police officers,” he said.

“They are loaded past their capacity, burdened by bureaucracy and systems that don’t talk to each other.

“If we are to prevent crime, then it starts with properly resourcing and enabling our frontline police officers … We need to police differently. We need a reset.”

The sworn officers will be incrementally pulled off front counters as part of a trial over the coming three to six months.

The flip side of more officers out of the stations onto the streets is streamlining police’s departments.

A new state crime co-ordination centre will open in the first half of next year, which will crunch data to bring intelligence and operational deployment into a central hub.

Victoria Police’s backroom executive units are also being slimmed down. The number of commissioners will be cut from six to four. A new deputy commissioner role will focus mainly on youth crime.

Chief Commissioner Bush began the top job in June, after serving as New Zealand’s chief commissioner.

The Victorian opposition said Monday’s overhaul was good news, but the government should also focus on filling “2000” vacancies in Victoria Police.

The police union said it would take time to analyse the changes, but supported a frontline and preventive focus.

“This is a challenging time for the Victorian community and we understand the need to meet that challenge,” Police Association secretary Wayne Gatt said.