UNDER-pressure Hunter Region police are struggling to respond to 80 per cent of urgent calls in the required 12-minute NSW benchmark, new data reveals.
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Average police response times vary widely across the Hunter, according to the exclusive data obtained by the Newcastle Herald under freedom of information laws.
Police in Newcastle City police district responded to urgent callouts the fastest last financial year, with an average time of 12:19 minutes, followed closely by Port Stephens/Hunter at 12.29 minutes, Manning/Great Lakes at 13.05 minutes, Lake Macquarie at 13.15 minutes and Hunter Valley police district at 14.01 minutes.
Urgent incidents are classified as Triple Zero calls reporting imminent threat to life or property like violent assaults, robbery, domestic violence, sexual assault and break-ins.
NSW Police responded to 157,610 urgent calls last financial year, down slightly from the year before, reaching the scene within the 12-minute benchmark 75 per cent of the time.
Inner-city Sydney areas have the quickest response times in the state, several under 6 minutes, due to geographical size.
While the Hunter's police districts struggled to meet the NSW benchmark, they all achieved the longer individual benchmarks set for the region's police districts that take into account things like geographic size of commands and number of calls.
Officers who spoke to the Newcastle Herald said workloads were intense due to the number of staff leaving the force or off on long-term sick leave who remain on the roster until their injury claims are resolved.
In an effort to increase stagnating police numbers the NSW government launched an initiative on January 1 to pay aspiring officers $3000 to attend the state's academy and the cost of studying online was reduced.
A Hunter-based senior constable said there were a lot of staff on long-term sick leave, which added pressure.
"They remain as numbers on the roster until the matters are resolved with them leaving or eventually coming back to work," he said.
"These type of complex matters can take a long time to resolve."
Time lost due to unplanned sick leave or injuries across NSW jumped from 148 hours per staff member in 2020-21 to 185 last financial year.
Officer staff turnover increased more than 50 per cent from 814 to 1286 over the same time and civilian staff turnover jumped 64 per cent from 457 to 751.
A NSW Police Force spokesman said the service "continually strives" to exceed community expectations in terms of response times.
He said response times were affected by the number of calls, distance required to travel, traffic congestion, weather events and peak periods.
"These factors also vary depending on the location, which subsequently impacts the individual benchmark set for that police district or command," he said.
"Every police area and police district commander is accountable for meeting the individual target response time for their area or district based on their first response agreements, which are benchmarked on international standards."
First response agreements mean that regardless of strength, sickness or leave arrangements, commanders must ensure agreed minimum response standards are met.
"The times are reported at region-level on a monthly basis and where targets are not being met, commanders are required to put strategies in place to improve the times," he said.
"Furthermore, response times are reported along with a range of performance measures to the executive twice a year as part of the Command Performance Accountability System."
Individual police district response times are calculated each financial year based off the time that 80 per cent of urgent calls were responded to in an area as an average over the previous three years.
The NSW benchmark of responding to 80 per cent of urgent calls within 12 minutes was increased from 10 minutes in 2010.
A Hunter Valley officer said it was impossible for some districts to achieve the state benchmark without a "massive" boost in staff.
"Geographically we just can't compete, unless we have police stationed everywhere," he said.
Police Association of NSW's Hunter-based northern region executive member Ian Allwood said staffing, like in many industries, was a big challenge in the current labour market.
Mr Allwood said first response agreements were "rarely breached" and served as "peace of mind" for the community.
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