January 7, 2013
A massive restructure of the Queensland police force announced today by Police Commissioner Ian Stewart will affect all South Burnett police from July 1.
Currently, most South Burnett police stations – with the exception of Yarraman – are within the North Coast Region which will be abolished under a new boundary system.
Police stations located within the boundaries of the South Burnett regional council area, plus Cherbourg, will be shifted into a new super-sized Southern Region that extends from Toowoomba to Birdsville and north to Winton.
Other former North Coast Region stations, including Goomeri and Kilkivan, will be included in a new Central region which extends from Beerwah to the Whitsundays.
The District structure will also change, with most South Burnett police stations shifting into the Darling Downs District.
Local stations outside the South Burnett regional council area – including Kilkivan and Goomeri – will be included in a new Wide Bay Burnett District.
Superintendent Chris Sang, head of the current Gympie District, said it was the “right time” for change, particularly with the introduction of new technology.
“We have been under this structure since the the Fitzgerald Inquiry,” he said.
“The big thing will be mobile data… police officers won’t have to type things up more than once. They won’t have double up or triple up on their reporting.”
Supt Sang said the changes would also bring the local police boundaries more into line with other government authorities.
“At the end of the day, medical and health issues for the South Burnett are run out of Toowoomba. (Gympie) has been a bit of an anomaly as far as police boundaries go,” he said.
He said the changes would not impact Officers-In-Charge in how they respond to calls, however their reporting structure would be changing dramatically.
“The commissioner is looking for more efficiencies,” he said.
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Under the new structure, Queensland will be divided into five regions: Northern, Central, Southern, South-Eastern and Brisbane, incorporating 15 police districts.
The current Gympie District will disappear under the changes.
Up to 110 commissioned police officers and 212 staff members across Queensland will be offered redundancies as part of the changes.
However, Commissioner Stewart – who was appointed to his role in September – said the re-structure was aimed at improving frontline policing services to the community.
He said there would be no net reduction in police numbers across Queensland and members of the public should notice more police out on the street.
“This new structure will put more police officers on the frontline and allow decisions to be made more quickly at the coal face,” he said.
He said the restructure would continue the reforms from the Fitzgerald Inquiry but in a modern context where better technology was available including CCTV and the internet.
“The QPS has had the same basic structure for 20 years while the business of policing has become increasingly complex. To meet these demands we require better use of technology, officers’ time and resources across all facets of policing, from general duties to the most complex cyber-crime,” Commissioner Stewart said.
“The changes to the structure are largely about removing layers of management and bureaucracy, and making better use of our assets.”
Commissioner Stewart said the commissioned officers would be replaced by officers of a lower rank and an extra 50 sworn positions will be moved to the front line sooner than planned.
“Unfortunately we will lose some good people,” he said.
“We will acknowledge their contribution to the people of Queensland but we must go through some pain to make sure we get as many people on the frontline as we can.”
Commissioner Stewart said the Police Service had liaised with unions, and these discussions were continuing.
He said the police force was still on track to deliver on the commitment to 1100 extra officers over the next four years.
Supt Sang said the redundancy offers had not yet been distributed but he believed that all commissioned officer positions would be “spilled” within the next few weeks.
“Then commissioned officers will have to make a decision whether to apply for a redundancy or to apply for a position,” he said.
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There will be four Deputy Commissioners under the new structure who will report directly to the Commissioner.
The four roles will be:
- Regional operations – the core of general duties service delivery at the local level;
- Specialist operations – there is an increasing need for police to have specialist skills and operational capability to meet new types of crime and to respond to community, road safety and legal expectations. These specialist areas include technology facilitated crime, major event management, specialist emergency response and forensic services;
- Strategy, policy and performance – which provide the building blocks of how police services will be delivered, managed, measured and reformed. This area has the capacity to reduce red tape and drive significant productivity improvements; and
- Corporate support – required to support a 24/7 service delivery environment with redundancy for catastrophic events such as natural disasters.
[UPDATED: 3:30pm]
- Download a summary of the changes – released January 10 (1.31Mb PDF)
