This document is classified IN CONFIDENCE.

Family harm is a significant issue for New Zealand and comprises a significant proportion of the demand that Police respond to daily. While family harm-related calls for service have risen considerably over the last five years and now make up a significant proportion of Police’s overall demand picture, the number of family harm investigations with offences has remained relatively unchanged since 2017. In the 2021/2022 fiscal year, Police on average attended a family harm event nearly every three minutes and a total of 175,573 family harm investigations were conducted over the same period. These facts demonstrate the persistent nature of family harm and the
demand generated for Police. This high demand creates a backlog of calls for service that not only creates a demand issue for frontline, but more importantly, impacts service delivery for victims.

In December 2022, Police officially launched the Family Harm Non-Emergency Triage (FHNET) Proof of Concept (POC) and evaluation. This work required a telephone response by constabulary officers to family harm events (5F) that were assessed as lower priority and not requiring an
immediate frontline response. The trial sought to alleviate the ever-present backlog of ‘5F that were lower than Priority 1’ (5F
This report comprises the data analysis of the Family Harm Non-Emergency Triage (FHNET) data for the period between 1st December 2022 and 1st June 2023. The report is intended to provide insight into how the trial worked and to identify any improvements that can be made in future
iterations of this workstream. The report will also endeavour to identify the observable impact of the FHNET trial during this period. Please contact the Evidence Based Policing Centre to obtain this report. (From the document). Record #8618