The New South Wales police force is falling behind other states in its efforts to curb domestic violence and needs to implement systems to support work on the frontline, according to the state’s auditor general Margaret Crawford.
An audit report released on Monday also found the system used to record and manage domestic violence incidents was “cumbersome”, and so “onerous” that police had even less time to deal with rising rates of domestic violence.
Crawford said the computer system – slated for replacement in four years – needed to be improved so that “related events and individuals are automatically connected” to help improve outcomes.
The auditor-general also said that while the force had “implemented initiatives to improve domestic violence policing”, it had not provided enough centralised policy resources to support them, nor sufficient reviews to work out what was and was not working.
Just six dedicated domestic and family violence policing policy staff were expected to support 280 domestic violence specialists and advise about 12,000 police officers across the state on the complex issues.
“The NSW police force has not dedicated the same level of resources or organisational authority to domestic violence policing as other Australian jurisdictions,” the report read.
“After review processes in both Victoria and Queensland, these jurisdictions established standalone domestic and family violence commands.”
The auditor general also recommended a complete overhaul of the way officers investigate claims of domestic violence made against former or serving members of the force to “mitigate conflicts of interest”.
Between January 2017 and April 2021, 166 complaints of domestic violence were lodged against police. About a quarter of those were sustained, either in court or warranting internal disciplinary action.
NSW police respond to more than 140,000 domestic and family violence calls for assistance every year.
The audit also found limited centralised workforce planning made it harder to calculate whether there were enough specialist domestic violence officers to deal with workload demands.
While the force had almost doubled its domestic violence specialist workforce over the past five years, those efforts were being undermined by a lack of structural support from within the organisation, including a lack of compliance checks.
The audit also found the state’s police force does not monitor the training around or aptitude in responding to domestic violence issues of the broader workforce beyond specialist officers.
Routinely asking for feedback was among the key recommendations from the auditor general, alongside improvements to data collection and analysis to help meet demands.
Opposition domestic violence spokesperson Jodie Harrison said the government needed to act on the recommendations.
“We cannot effectively address the issue if we don’t have a clear picture of what is happening,” Harrison said. “These recommendations must be addressed to improve police response, prevent domestic and family violence and better support victim-survivors.”
Domestic Violence NSW (DVNSW) interim chief executive Elise Phillips echoed those calls.
“It is imperative that the NSW police force is capable of delivering a consistent response so that victim-survivors feel safe and confident to call police seeking help,” she said.
A DVNSW report looking at the experience of specialist domestic and family violence services across the state will say that “policing is inconsistent across NSW”, with particular concerns for regional and remote areas, when it is released on Tuesday.
It will call for more consultation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people for cultural awareness training to be undertaken by all police officers.
In a statement, NSW police said it had accepted the recommendations and had made improvements in recent years.
