Is the development of policy in New Zealand based on Prevention First?

The New Zealand Police, in response to the global financial crisis and escalating operating costs, implemented in 2008 the first of a number of change programs to increase its service delivery efficiency and effectiveness. The programs concentrated on reallocating resources from reactive service delivery to more proactive or preventative activities. By 2012, the change in emphasis enabled the police to reduce its organizational costs and achieve a number of government outcomes. It was hypothesized that owing to the success of the New Zealand Police, other New Zealand Government departments have adopted a preventative approach to reduce long-term social costs. By analyzing the strategic documents of three randomly selected, nonjustice sector government agencies, it was found that all three agencies had changed the focus of their service delivery to concentrate on specific prevention outputs with the intention of improving services and decreasing operating costs