ACT Policing to gain extra 25 officers per year under $107 million funding boost

Crucially for police, an additional team will be funded for the Pacer initiative (police, ambulance, and clinician early response) in 2023-24, allowing a more effective response to people with mental health-related issues during the day shift, rather than just during the evening and overnight.

The new $107 million comes on top of the $17 million per month paid to the Australian Federal Police under its rolling contract with the ACT government to provide policing services to the territory.

Part of the budget's police finance package will be allocated to assessing where Canberra's future police stations will be located, the government favouring City and Woden locations.

A City Police Station replacement is well overdue as the London Circuit building - which includes the underground multi-cell watch house - first opened in 1966 and offices on the ground floor have flooded on several occasions.

Full refurbishment to suit modern policing needs has been difficult because the building has heritage values.

While City Station is the oldest of the ACT police facilities, the Winchester Police Centre at Belconnen - Canberra's technical college back in the 1960s and 70s - is also showing its age and has many structural issues.

The Winchester Centre also sits on a huge section of prime Belconnen property bordered by Benjamin Way, Lathlain and College streets. The enormous site belongs to the ACT government and is ripe for residential redevelopment given the close proximity of the upgraded Belconnen markets and the Bunnings hardware store.

ACT chief police officer Neil Gaughan has made no secret of his support for moving ACT Policing headquarters into the city, so a combined operational station and a headquarters which would also house the current Belconnen-based communications team seems a likely fit.

"This comprehensive evaluation will ensure that our police force operates from modern and fit-for-purpose facilities, further optimising their ability to protect and serve the community effectively," the government statement said.

The ACT government's investment in more front-line police officers - which equates to around one more dedicated ACT police recruit class per year from the AFP's Barton College - addresses a long-running shortfall in operational numbers compared with all other jurisdictions, which had been the subject of blunt and unflattering commentary by both the police association and Deputy Commissioner Gaughan.

The police staffing issue had reached such a crisis point two separate independent reports had been commissioned by the Australian Federal Police - which contracts its police officers to the government - and its Commissioner Reece Kershaw to present to the ACT government.

ACT Police Minister Mick Gentleman admitted two weeks ago he had seen both these staffing reports, however, they have still not been released to The Canberra Times under an official freedom of information request lodged with the AFP seven weeks ago.

Mr Gentleman described the funding boost as the biggest by the ACT government. It comes after the acute embarrassment of police failing to achieve both their priority one and priority two response targets last year, problems the chief police officer firmly reefed down to a huge increase in "calls for service" and not enough staff to manage them.

Deputy Commissioner Gaughan last December broke ranks with the government, describing the demand for ACT police services as "exceeding supply", saying there was a need "to balance that up" with more resources.

Repeated Productivity Commission reports have revealed the ACT to have a dramatically lower operational police-to-population ratio than anywhere else in the country, one well down on the national average.

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"This is a strong investment in ACT Policing," Mr Gentleman said.

"Our crime rate is going down but there are a lot of things that police do that are not reflected in the crime statistics. They are those interactions with the community at the early point which are so important.

"Having these interactions at the earliest possible time, offering a different pathway, and preventing people from entering the criminal justice system has been incredibly successful in other jurisdictions."

Chief Minister and Treasurer Andrew Barr aims to "empower our officers to confront the evolving challenges of crime prevention and enforcement effectively".

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