New SA Police recruiting campaign as officer shortage crisis deepens

The deepening staffing crisis within SA Police has prompted drastic changes, as the force dumps its recruiting campaign for a different tack.

Senior police are revamping recruiting strategies as the resourcing crisis deepens, with attrition now double the number of new officers being employed.

The move will see the existing ‘Calling All’ recruiting initiative replaced with a new campaign designed to attract a wider range of applicants launched – along with new policies to assist applicants in the process.

The growing urgency to solve the crisis has prompted Police Commissioner Grant Stevens to take an Assistant Commissioner offline to oversee the accelerated program to enlist new recruits.

The Advertiser can reveal over the past seven months 159 police officers either retired or resigned from SAPOL, but only 79 have graduated from the Fort Largs Police Academy – a shortfall of 80 officers.

Police Commissioner Grant Stevens. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Naomi Jellicoe

The recruiting deficit has contributed to a total shortfall of 172 full time officers – the resourcing shortages are affecting many CIB units and forcing some operational service areas to run at just 80 per cent of capacity.

SAPOL has a funded establishment number of 4674 officers on June 30 each year, but as of last Friday there were only 4502 officers employed.

SAPOL People, Culture and Wellbeing Director Kim-Sherie Summers confirmed at the present recruiting rate the establishment number would not be reached until 2026.

“We are not alone in this, our peer jurisdictions also have similar figures, if not higher, in this space,’’ she said.

Ms Summers said SAPOL had no immediate plans to resume recruiting police officers from the United Kingdom as WA police announced a fortnight ago to counter recruiting shortfalls it was experiencing.

“The Calling All campaign has worked really well, but we are now wanting to take it to the next level using a real refresh in our approach,’’ she said.

SAPOL People, Culture and Wellbeing director Kim-Sherie Summers

“We are aware we need to be more creative in how we bridge the gap, how to be the career choice for people against other career choices available.’’

The new recruiting campaign is still being developed but is likely to focus on recruiting youth and also to increase the intake from culturally diverse groups and backgrounds in the community.

Other initiatives including reviewing the cadet course curriculum, the testing and assessment of recruits and providing literacy support for applicants were also being introduced to accelerate both recruitment and progression of successful applicants.

Last May The Advertiser revealed a shortage of applicantshad forced the delay of three cadet courses – 80 officers – which prompted the police union to urge the government to permanently fund 168 police security officers temporarily hired in 2021 for Covid duties.

In response to the crisis Mr Stevens also moved to use PSOs for many traditional police roles, such as guarding crime scenes, traffic duties and guarding prisoners, to enable sworn officers to be redeployed the frontlines roles.

Premier Peter Malinauskas has established a taskforce to examine the resource shortages and recommend solutions – likely to involve more PSOs and sworn police officers.

Police Association president Mark Carroll declined to comment at length because the Premier’s taskforce was still sitting, but said resourcing was “a constant topic.’’

“We are in constant contact with members who are struggling to keep up because of the worsening situation in frontline numbers,’’ he said.

“We have previously commented on the situation and it remains dire. We will be presenting full details of this to the Premier’s taskforce in our final report.’’

Originally published as New SA Police recruiting campaign as officer shortage crisis deepens