New Zealand Police has won a prestigious World Class Policing Award for its ‘more street than station approach' Mobility programme, which has saved millions of hours of officers' time.

Use of smartphones, other devices and Police-specific apps has resulted in productivity gains of more than 500,000 hours per year.

New Zealand was one of five jurisdictions to win from 54 finalists, drawn from more than 100 outstanding entries from across the globe, at the inaugural World Class Policing Awards final in London today.

"Mobility uses smartphones and apps to help frontline officers access and share the latest information and react quickly to developing events and incidents. This time-saving enables our people to redirect their time into prevention focused activities," says Police Commissioner Mike Bush.

'Our Mobility programme is world–leading, making life easier for our officers on the street, and it's seen a huge reduction in the time our staff used to spend processing information at stations.

"We are focussed on continuously improving and making it easier for our staff to do their jobs and spend more time working with people in their communities.

'It also means our staff can make decisions in real-time with the latest information, policies and procedures at their fingertips."

Mobility has brought productivity gains of at least 30 minutes per officer per shift – totalling over half a million hours per year. These hours are redirected into prevention-focused activities.

One part of the programme, the CheckPoint app, was introduced in the hours following the terrorist attack in Christchurch in March 2019.

It provided officers with quick access to content on policy, procedure and religious protocols to support them making reassurance visits to places such as educational facilities and places of worship.

Another application has replaced a 13-page paper form.

The World Class Policing Awards specifically recognise and celebrate the collaborative nature of policing - whether that is a brilliant investigation, a business change project or a multi-agency partnership - in delivering the most effective and efficient way to keep our communities safe.

Also among the finalists in London were teams from British police forces, the UK's National Crime Agency, Australian Federal Police, Queensland, Dubai and Chile.

Earlier this week, two New Zealand Police initiatives were among the finalists at the Herman Goldstein Problem Oriented Policing Awards in Santa Cruz, California.