NZTA\u2019s role<\/a> as investor and providing monitoring and assurance in relation to the Road Policing Investment Programme (RPIP) the integrity and accuracy of the delivery against the measures was \u201cparamount\u201d.<\/p>\nForgan instructed the Road Policing Investment team in NZTA to look further into the data integrity issue with \u201curgency\u201d and requested a series of information from police.<\/p>\n
Forgan also took issue with the length of time it took NZTA to be notified.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn addition to the issue regarding the data irregularity, the memorandum of understanding between us clearly states a \u2018no surprises\u2019 expectation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact this issue was first discovered in late August, the Minister of Police was briefed on September 12 and NZTA only informed via the Minister of Transport\u2019s office on September 22 is a clear breach of this expectation. I reinforce NZTA\u2019s expectation that we are to be advised of such matters early.\u201d<\/p>\n
Included in police\u2019s response to NZTA\u2019s request for information they said they had identified some instances where irregular breath tests were recorded against QIDs belonging to officers who were rostered off duty at the time.<\/p>\n
This suggested some devices were used by others without changing the QID.<\/p>\n
The communications plan<\/p>\n
Also included in the documents is a communications plan dated September 30.<\/p>\n
Included in the plan is the strategy in terms of audiences including internally with a recommendation to send an internal memo to staff with an overview of what happened and articulating expectations to staff.<\/p>\n
The plan said \u201cgiven the high likelihood\u201d of internal comms being sent to media, it was preferred to manage external communications through \u201cproactive media\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe recommended approach would be to have a proactive reactive statement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson would be the primary spokesperson, however \u201cif the issue becomes elevated and uncontrolled in the media\u201d consideration should be given to the appropriate Deputy Commissioner or the Commissioner to front.<\/p>\n
The plan identified several risks including the issue leaking prior to internal or external comms, internal comms leaking prior to external comms, and the minister\/Prime Minister \u201cunhappy with behaviour\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u2018Must stop immediately\u2019<\/p>\n
On October 9, Greally emailed the country\u2019s road policing managers following a hui he had been unable to attend.<\/p>\n
He said he understood the managers were waiting for the NRPC to inform them as to what communications they needed to send.<\/p>\n
Greally said the main message was simple: \u201cThe practice of simulating breath tests must stop immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n
About 4000 further tests were discovered after the algorithm looked at tests between August 17 and September 30.<\/p>\n
On October 31, RNZ revealed that 120 staff were under investigation.<\/p>\n
That same day the Road Safety Executives Group met to discuss the breath testing data.<\/p>\n
The agenda item said the distribution of irregular tests over the 2024-25 year showed a sharp rise from July to October, followed by a gradual decline through to June, indicating a \u201cconcentrated period of higher activity in the first half of the reporting year before tapering off\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cApproximately 82% of the QIDs referred for further investigations belong to staff who were in dedicated road policing roles when the irregular testing was recorded.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe remaining 18% were QIDs belonging to staff who were in non-dedicated roles.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Every]()
Every police officer across the country was ordered to do an online training module for alcohol breath testing. Photo \/ NZ Police<\/p>\n
Disciplinary process<\/p>\n
Johnson told RNZ last week police had progressed disciplinary processes for 130 staff members.<\/p>\n
\u201cOutcomes of the process vary between a finding of misconduct or serious misconduct depending on the particular circumstances.<\/p>\n
\u201cA case is more likely to be serious misconduct where the misconduct was repeated a number of times, or the officer involved was of more senior rank.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson said no employees have been stood down for this matter alone.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere has been a small number of employees stood down for additional misconduct issues.\u201d<\/p>\n
RNZ asked police if they could be more specific about the number of staff stood down, what sort of additional misconduct was involved and what rationale staff had given for their behaviour.<\/p>\n
Police replied: \u201cWe will not be supplying these further details as we do not want to risk identifying individuals who are engaged in an active employment process.\u201d<\/p>\n
In relation to what was happening to the staff who committed serious misconduct, Johnson said that was an employment matter and would most likely be a \u201cformal warning of varying lengths, starting from six months\u201d.<\/p>\n
Johnson said none of the cases were considered to be criminal.<\/p>\n
Johnson said a third had already been \u201caddressed and closed\u201d. Those cases were managed as \u201cmisconduct\/employment conversation\u201d with a mix of outcomes, he said.<\/p>\n
The remainder were ongoing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn most cases, the officers have accepted the warning and have acknowledged their behaviour as unacceptable.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor all employees clear expectations from the organisation have been set through organization-wide messaging and updated refresher training specifically on this topic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following RNZ\u2019s coverage, every police officer across the country was ordered to do an online training module for alcohol breath testing.<\/p>\n
Johnson said more than 70% of staff had completed their \u201crefresher training\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Defence Lawyers Association earlier said the revelations called into question the integrity of their current and past work, including prosecutions they had been involved in.<\/p>\n
Te Matakahi Defence Lawyers Association New Zealand co-chairwoman Elizabeth Hall said there needed to be a criminal investigation launched following the \u201cunprecedented\u201d revelations and support a \u201cfull, independent audit\u201d of historical data.<\/p>\n
– RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It found more than 30,000 tests, with more than 80% of the staff under investigation belonging to dedicated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157762,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[30751,82055,14647,104286,104285,42,221,43,691,675,8213,15768,764,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-157761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-30751","tag-breath","tag-discovered","tag-erroneously","tag-falsely","tag-headlines","tag-how","tag-news","tag-or","tag-police","tag-recorded","tag-sherwood","tag-tests","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}