 Today I announce the restructure of the Queensland Police Service as part of an ongoing review which started with the Government's initiative for a review of all public sector agencies in Queensland. The restructure will result in more police on the street, enhanced supervision and experience at the operational levels, a more agile and flexible organisation based on mobility and enhanced decision making, and enhanced community satisfaction. The drivers for these changes and restructure includes an increasing complex and evolving environment in which we operate, a need to manage the increasing demands for service, the need to focus on our front line, place and case management is a very important philosophy for our organisation into the future, reduced layers of management and technological innovation. The proposed key changes will see our regions reduce from 8 to 5, our districts from 31 back to 15, there will be four new commands, one new division and a fourth deputy's position to drive strategy, innovation and change. There will be an impact on our organisation internally with up to 212 non sworn staff and up to 110 commissioned officers being offered redundancies, some redeployment of staff from current to future roles and our new structure is time to be in place by one July this year. I need to thank and acknowledge all of the staff of our organisation for their contribution but we will lose some good people as a result of these changes, certainly our sworn and unsworn staff are unparalleled in the skill sets and their commitment to the people of Queensland. I want to thank the unions, all of the unions involved in this restructure process, I appreciate their position and their support and I should point out that the consultation process with the unions in particular is still ongoing. And I want to thank the community, we all need to keep pace with the changes that are occurring in our own environments and I thank them, the community for understanding that there will be a need for significant issues, retraining and refocusing of our staff during this period. And for those of you in the community who are hiring, we have very, very skilled individuals who will be leaving the organisation and certainly I would suggest that they would make wonderful employees. Finally, I undertake for our organisation to not lose sight of our core business during this period of unprecedented change. We will be a better and stronger organisation for undertaking the changes and certainly our focus to stop crime, to make the community safer and to build relationships every day will be centrepiece throughout this period and into the future. I'm happy to take questions, thank you. I do and I can certainly, depending on the discussions with the unions and final decisions on those, I'm happy to share those ultimately but as I said, across the service at the moment there are up to 212 non-spawn and ultimately about 110 commissioned officers who will be offered redundancies. We know where those will occur but I don't have that detail with me and certainly ultimately though I am happy to share that with you. Our focus is about ensuring that every dollar of the community's money, every dollar of the government's money is spent in the most appropriate way. Value for money has been key, a key factor in this restructure, there's no doubt about that. One of the areas that we're looking at in the restructure is to be fair and equitable we may have to spill positions and ask people to reapply for their job, yes, but that is not certain yet and it will depend on a whole range of other factors. Certainly there are a number of parallel reviews occurring and I think that you're all aware of those, reviews of fleet, reviews of certainly our air wing for instance and reviews of other administrative areas of the organisation. Whether that ultimately means asset sales I can't comment at this stage. Certainly it's early days yet and I'm waiting with interest for an indication of that. Early days suggest that we probably won't get 110 or up to 110 at this stage but until we actually put out the official expression of interest which will occur reasonably soon we won't know the answer to that question. Legislatively for sworn officers that's correct, I don't know yet I'll have to wait until I see what the uptake is in the in the voluntary arrangement. Certainly the five Brisbane North and South will become greater Brisbane so there will be only one regional office here in Brisbane. The South Coast will retain their regional office, Tuumber will retain a regional office in the Rockhampton area, for Central Queensland we'll retain a regional office and Townsville, they're the five. Was it a Fitzgerald that recommended the eight regions and to be centralised at this time and does this go, you know, I think you understand? No thank you for that question. The restructure is actually going to structure is actually going to strengthen I believe Fitzgerald's intent. We're not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, we are keeping a regional structure and we are keeping a district structure. Fitzgerald created eight regions based on the fact that that would help prevent corruption rearing its head again within the organisation. In fact he created eight separate police agencies within the state. What Fitzgerald didn't have and could never have imagined is the impact of technology on performance management and oversight. CCTV was virtually non-existent 20 years ago in comparison to where we are today. The internet didn't exist, our systems of being able to input data, particularly performance data and crime data and have that lifetime available to our own officers didn't exist. What we're doing is taking the innovations that exist now and where we believe they'll be headed and strengthen the Fitzgerald philosophy of still having regions but certainly making the span of control much more appropriate in those regions. Kathy all I can say is that we haven't had a major change like this for a very long time. Our environment changes on a daily basis. I am confronted with the issue that we've had a very long period of stability and we've certainly had a lot of progress in that time but I believe and certainly the theory and the practicality of where we go for the future of making sure that we can manage the demand that I know is out there, getting police back onto the street, getting decision-making back down with those officers where it should be is all part of the philosophy of this restructure. Look I think the unions have a very very important role to play in making sure the best arrangements for their members and certainly we're trying to work with the unions, certainly consulting with them on all of the changes that we're making. We're sharing information with them and as I said we are now moving from the release of these facts officially to a period where we will consult more generally with all of the unions right up to the day that we put this new structure in place which will be the 1st of July and there may be movement based on that consultation. In terms of net staff loss the specific numbers I haven't got with me but what you will see is that we will reduce the number of commissioned officers at ESC and replace them with staff of other rank. Certainly that will be a significant focus of the new crime command that will evolve out of this. When I talk about place and case management and boundaryless policing this is a philosophy that is becoming synonymous with contemporary policing. It means having your police in the right place to attack particular types of crime or particular incidents. Now state crime has grown over a long period of time what we believe is that by reducing the size of that command putting those detectives back out where they're needed is a much better philosophy for the future. Organised crime stays within that area and in fact it will grow in terms of its central responsibility for other organised crime groups like for instance a major crime group on the Gold Coast it will actually fold in under the management of the state crime command. About a third if my memory serves me properly in terms of I'm not I'm all I'm doing is redeploying the resources from there we're not shrinking in terms of the numbers in that command but putting them out where they should be out working with the frontline troops. Absolutely more detectives out on the street but we will still have an organised crime group within that and just as we have today there will still be people responsible for organised crime and the different other specific crime areas. Certainly there is well the if you're talking about this document absolutely I mean that's only an overview document I mean there is a lot of detail that will come underneath that and that information will be released gradually to all of you as we do the further consultations and sorry and simply finalise the numbers. I mean there is a document of about 150 pages that goes with the organisational structure that actually explains where those numbers will be in the future. I think people have got to understand there is going to be no reduction in the number of sworn police officers out there in fact we will have more sworn police officers out on the street out on that front line doing the job we will have a greater level of supervision so so we will have the police where the work is rather than potentially bottle up in in specialised groups they will be out there working with the troops on on the front line. Again I don't have the all of the specific data with me but Hydra is a very very important task force that we have and in fact one of the philosophies into the future will be a greater reliance on task forces as you've seen over the years certainly Operation Seymour which was a task force on the Gold Coast last year Operation Escalate which is a task force in Cairns right at the moment and Hydra which is a task a standing task force these will be enhanced over time as we need to to fight specific crime types or specific groups of criminals no there will be a blanket offer made what will then occur is a process of decision making about who actually takes those and it's a two-way deal it's both the the person and the agency who are involved in those decisions look that some of the timing of this depends on negotiations with the union so I'm not going to put a time frame on it but certainly what I am saying is that by one July this year we want a new structure in place there will be staff changes right across the organisation there's no doubt about that I mean Townsville's perhaps the easiest one because it already has a regional office at Munningborough and so that will remain there but in places like the North Coast for instance as you're probably well aware that that is no longer going to be a regional office so that entire regional office will will disappear basically it's not we don't own that building so we'll make decisions based on you know business just normal business acumen it means that we're going to be able to take some of the staff to sworn staff from those offices and put them out on the street so the public will see more police on the street they will have better supervision on the on the street um as you can see we're talking about the 212 at the moment yep okay okay you can't by just simply removing 212 from the equation that wouldn't work this restructure enables us to take away some of those bureaucratic layers that we've had and certainly the the realignment of services the economies of scale that we we will get from having the less number of regions in particular certainly allows us to reduce the size of the workforce but at the same time not reduce the service delivery to the public which is critical sorry this the public sector renewal board and the initiative by the by the government started about mid last year we undertook when that became known to us we undertook to commence a review process within this organization so certainly the review process got underway during commissioner Atkinson's time but most of the significant changes have been worked through in the last few months if we if we were to simply make 110 commissioned offices redundant and not replace them the cost of that would probably be in the vicinity of I think it's off the top my head about 18 million dollars that's not our intention and certainly not we've not what we've asked the government for as you probably understand there'll be no net loss in numbers within the organization on the sworn side so for every commissioned officer who takes a redundancy we will replace that position with a person at a different level at a different rank in the non-commissioned area so that's constable to senior sergeant by doing that we there will be a saving and it probably be in the vicinity of say five million dollars a year but i'm also hopeful the government may allow me to utilize that money certainly to reinvest it in policing activities i'm sorry no 18 18 million that's right yes that's exactly um look i acknowledge that for every senior officer who walks out the door there are years and years of experience and and commitment to this organization i certainly acknowledge that our difficulty is that that that experience is currently in the wrong place and what we need to do is to get that experience back out onto the street now we have many junior officers of senior constable sergeant senior sergeant who have just as much experience in that operational management area and certainly it's about growing those skills that skills base and that experience base that where it's needed on the front line that's the that's the challenge that we've been faced with and this is the way that we're dealing with that by actually replacing them there are some places where we'll be doing that a good example of that is Torres Strait we'll be putting a an inspector into the Torres Strait that is part of our restructure but but more generally we we do have the difficulty that we've got we will have a large number of people at at a particular level commission officer level that we actually will be surplus so we'll need to look at replacing them with those lower ranks that's an ongoing discussion um there are always robust discussions when it comes to dollars all right it's too early no there certainly hasn't been an offer made yet I know that the commission officers union have and I'm very grateful to them they've been out and asked their members their views I'm not privy to the to the response from that other than that I believe that there have been a number who've expressed interest at this stage but but certainly it won't be until a formal offer is made and the actual the actual package is known that I would expect that anyone would you know seriously be putting up their hand no I said before we do know we do know in general terms where people who will be offered redundancies are from in this in the non-sworn areas but I don't have that detail with me but it will become it will become obvious and and available over you know over the next couple of weeks oh look there are implications right across this organization this is this is a massive change in terms of district officers for instance you know you have a district office at Cairns and how that that's affected on the basis that the regional office will disappear and what we do with the number of commissioned officers in that area and this is where we have the difficulty where people perhaps will not want to move their residents and how we equitably manage a situation where we might have five positions for instance for commissioned officers and we currently have eight commission officers even after a redundancy is offered so we we need to manage that in a in a sensitive way in a fair way and inspector most of them have senior management roles certainly for instance in in the in the regions superintendents would in the main be what we call district officers some of their positions will in the future because we're amalgamating some districts their positions will actually become as a district officer will become a become a chief superintendent because of the the size and the complexity of the district so we're actually not getting rid of ranks I think that needs to be said right up front there is no rank that's disappearing but the roles of individuals will change dramatically under the new structure so superintendents are very senior managers most chief superintendents of what we call an operations manager they normally don't have a lot of line control but they're there to support the operations of a particular area whether it's a command like state crime operations command or whether it's a current region for instance southern region or the southeastern region I'm not going to confirm specific figures because the smaller the the smaller the numbers get the more volatility there will be with those figures but certainly there are a number of of positions which will become surplus to our requirements in in both those ranks no what I'd simply say is this we until such time as we understand what the expression of interest for for voluntary redundancy is I won't have any idea of what it means in terms of spill we may have we may have a redundancy package which is oversubscribed I just don't know how that will will pan out yet so I may have I may end up with vacancies at my chief level or I may end up with vacancies even at superintendent level however you know however you know possible that is or I'm not sure it's likely but it is possible that that would be oversubscribed then we have to look at how we we backfill in that way this is about people making choices about their future the same sorts of choices that you know people from all walks of life have to make every day and certainly I am grateful and I acknowledge the contribution of every one of the people who will ultimately leave our organization and we will try and absolutely minimize the the loss of people who wish to stay and have full employment with us that's our philosophy we will try and minimize that as wherever we can but at the end of the day this is about more police on the street decision making where it needs to happen and experience and supervision where it needs to happen so this reshaping of the organization will not come without some pain and there's no doubt about that absolutely I do I mean Birdsville at the moment is managed from Townsville so when you start looking at those figures and those those distances I think you'll realize that whilst we've reshaped things this is not uncommon for our people to deal with significant distances that exist in Queensland thank you for that interesting question and I'll have to get back to you on that now this young lady over here we're certainly providing levels of support I think you know that the the state government through their processes have actually put in place a series of support mechanisms to help people make decisions about their future but not only that I mean if people don't want to take redundancies there and their job becomes surplus to requirements there is a period of time where they can go into a redeployment pool they can be picked up by other agencies ultimately though when they leave the organization we will do whatever we can to support them in in helping them try and find other other opportunities the there is a standard redundancy package that the state government provide and we will be providing that standard package look into the future our our mode and our style and our models of operation will probably need different styles of police buildings and perhaps what we have now it's it's a bit of a misnomer everyone raises the issue of of their local police station but in fact that's not where we want the police to be we want the police out on the front line we want the police out with the public we want the police out doing their job and that's what the future of mobility is all about it's about mobile offer the mobile office for police without allowing them to get access to all the information they need out on the road we will certainly over time be looking at the siting and the types of buildings that we have but that is a that they are discussions which will go on for many years as they have many years in the past the other the other thing is and I think most of you in the room know this that many of our police stations exist in in in areas where historically they were needed they were very busy areas and now the need has really moved on and there is a different view about where those police stations perhaps should be but that's a discussion for the future I'm sorry I understand your question now absolutely and it will absolutely be have enough space because we're also the style and mode of operation of a region or of a regional office in particular and also our district offices will change dramatically under the new model they will be downsized and there will be a lot of the work that was done at those regions will be brought back centrally under a corporatized model and there's simple reasons for that one is that we can do it because we have the electronic systems that allow the exchange of information and documentation very easily and the second one is the economies of scale that give us we can do just as just as good if not an enhanced job using a corporatized model oh look that it's an associated question but most of you would know I think we've got 23 current comm centers around the state there are other models where we could provide that same level of service to our people and the same safety of our offices and and the community by having a far reduced number of comm centers however that's not being part of this particular arrangement because that's a that's a that's a much longer discussion because of the technology that that would need to be in place before we could move on that state crime has somewhere in the vicinity 600 to 700 officers and we'll be reducing that back to around that forward to 500 officers so as I said it's about a third a third off the top but having said that again it's not about reducing the ability of us to do the job it's it's it's talking about a different model and philosophy and how we operate so we see those detectives working much more readily in task force operations where where and if you go back to Fitzgerald Fitzgerald actually recommended a task force model should fundamentally underpin everything police agencies do and this is one of the reasons that I I absolutely concur with that philosophy and I want to move the organization more into that type of philosophy so it means when there's a problem or when there's an issue or an incident we develop a task force to either proactively attack it or reactively address what's occurred that's exactly right and and we have a standing task force called task force hydro which does that I don't have those figures in front of me I'm sorry I don't understand no any movement in any movement in in levels within the organization who's done on a merit-based system so people would have to apply for jobs if they were moving up up a rank level and that won't change under the restructure process I am bearing in mind that most of our 15,000 odd staff are certainly focused on delivering services to the Queensland community I would hope that they will all get behind this because at the end of the day this is about doing our job better look so far it has been positive I mean as I said at the start the unions have a very very important role to play in ensuring that their members get the best deal from any restructure or any changes in the organization and I understand that but certainly from individuals I think there is a real a real feeling of almost excitement out there that we are going to see a new way of doing business that finally a lot of that layer of management that perhaps has been an inhibiting decision-making where it should occur is going to be removed so I would hope that the majority of our people will see the benefits for them and for the organization and for the community look obviously in there was there's always a cost I don't have a figure in front of me at this stage the redundancies as I said they will certainly cost us money there's no doubt about that but this is about investing in the future of the organization and there will be other obviously associated costs with retraining reskilling in some cases but these are these are costs which the organization bears normally anyway in training our people that that training will just be redirected to making sure that all the all officers and all staff members who are going to be redeployed into other roles have the right skills base and the right knowledge and the right tools to do their job in the the boundary of the Gold Coast or what we call southeastern region remains unchanged there are differences though it has been the region in terms of the districts we have changed the the structure of the districts within the within the region there will be some slight ones but the staffing levels the net staffing won't sorry the staff that people see on the road will change there'll be an increase on staffing on the road in terms of net staffing there may be some differences in in numbers associated with the region but the num because we are corporatizing some of those positions meaning those positions will stay in the Gold Coast or or Logan or and they will be managed out of Brisbane so there is there may be some apparent changes in numbers but the staffing on the ground will actually be enhanced the service that the community sees will be enhanced I'll see more police on the road no both for instance with the creation of the road policing command for the state those bodies the traffic police who are currently attached to particular districts and regions they will be on paper transferred to the new command but they'll operate where they are today that's right I'm picking up a phone and talking to someone talking to the police is easier now than it's ever been the the models of and communication channels are so vastly different now I mean we expect people to use SMSs to contact us and we make allowance for that and that will be enhanced in the future I mean we have people contact us by Twitter by Facebook using social media so that happens every day certainly picking up the phone they'll always get to speak to a police officer I actually don't need the police officer to be in the station though and the police officer can be out on the road and talking to mobile phone I mean it's as simple as that in fact in the future and please don't get me wrong about this mobility having having access to information doesn't necessarily mean a police car with a great big computer in it it might be as simple as giving them a a smartphone with all of that information and all of the apps on it that they need to access our system securely it might be an iPad or a Samsung Galaxy it might be a police push bike with you know someone carrying that smartphone that's the type of mobility I'm talking about access to our information when and where they need it it and that's right across the board in everything we do folks unless there's anything else thank you very much for being here today appreciate it very much thank you