Police begin testing new approach to 111 calls, pulling back on social harm callouts

Police have begun testing a new way of weighing up harm and risks when they take emergency 111 calls, which will see fewer responses by officers to social harm calls.

The changes extend to the way in which all non-emergency calls are prioritised, too.

This could lead to the national rollout of the different system being approved by the end of the year.

It is the most significant move to date in the shift, which police signalled months ago. It aims to reduce their response to social harm callouts in order to save resources for crime call-outs.

Officers would still respond to priority one calls, police told RNZ.

"Those needing immediate police help will continue to get a response."

But priority two and three calls were now being assessed by calltakers under a new risk-harm framework.

RNZ had asked if the way family harm callouts were prioritised was being changed.

"The new risk-harm framework is for all calls, not just family harm or child protection," police replied.

"Last week, NZ Police began a two-month pilot for a new risk-harm framework to support decision making for triaging all emergency and non-emergency calls for service."

Police gave the government notice months ago that officers were being overwhelmed by social harm and family harm callouts where more often than not, no criminality was involved.

"NZ Police need to re-focus on our core business.

"Where calls for service are not for police (such as those in the social service or tenancy support space) they are re-directed to an appropriate agency or organisation that is better placed to meet the need of the caller."

Calltakers in the pilot were given training in August, and so far, police had received positive feedback.

At the end of two months, in November, if the police executive approved, then they expected to extend the pilot or seek permission for a national rollout.

Police at the end of August unveiled their plan to pull back on mental health callouts, starting from November, though at that time they did not mention the new calltaking risk-harm framework.

Mental health callouts constituted 11 percent of calls in 2023, but only five percent of those had a criminal element, they said.

"It impacts on our ability to deliver core policing services," Commissioner Andrew Coster said.

Earlier, in his briefing to incoming Minister Mark Mitchell in November, Coster revealed the intent to pull back, detailing the impact of the growth in competing demands from non-criminal callouts.

"Over time, this has resulted in increasing the threshold for our attendance and for commencing an investigation," Coster told Mitchell.

It had increased how many incidents went unattended, the load on staff working beyond their capacity, and eroded performance, such as longer call waiting times, he said.

The unsustainable demand was mostly evident in family harm, mental health and child protection callouts, creating "pressure and risk" for calltakers, he said.

Meanwhile, frontline officers were "constantly making deliberate trade-offs".

The police pullback pivots on other agencies, such as the Ministry of Social Development, taking up more of the work.

Coster has repeatedly said that police would still go to callouts where there were immediate risks to life and safety.

"Police communicators and dispatchers have always made decisions, based on the information received from callers, as to what action to take. They will continue to do so," police said in a statement.

"NZ Police is committed to providing the best possible service to the community and that includes keeping people safe."

RNZ has asked for more details about the new risk-harm framework.