Restructuring for Queensland Police

Commissioner Ian Stewart’s media conference this morning. Queensland Police Video

• 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.

A reduction in management structures will occur with the current eight regions being reduced to five and 31 Districts being reduced to 15.
Three Assistant Commissioners will be removed from regional offices.  At this stage it is likely that Cairns, Maroochydore, and Mt Gravatt will no longer have regional offices located there.  However, Chief Superintendents or Superintendents will remain in these locations and an Assistant Commissioner will remain in charge of a larger overarching region.
“These changes are aimed at reducing bureaucracy and delivering a more efficient policing service to the community,” Commissioner Stewart said.
“Ties to local communities are critical if the QPS is to be effective.  The Deputy Commissioners and I intend making personal contact with as many key stakeholders as we can to explain the benefits of the proposed restructure, to ensure all stakeholders know who the key senior officer is to support their needs, and to ensure open lines of communication through the change process,” Commissioner Stewart said.
Deputy Commissioner Ross Barnett, who will lead the implementation process, said the new structure was designed to help officers on the beat stop crime and improve safety for the whole community.
“Contacting police will become easier over time and we will improve how we respond to the community.”
A new Road Policing Command will drive safety on our roads and target criminals using the road network.  A new Community Contact Command will be responsible for traditional media, call taking, social media, e-reporting, and links to support services and community policing programs (e.g. Neighbourhood Watch and Crime Stoppers) as well as Communication Centres.
An Intelligence, Counter Terrorism and Major Events Command will be created to have a statewide approach to problem identification and better use of the collective knowledge of the law enforcement community.