Media release

16 October 2012

Horizon Research says Assistant Police Commissioner in error

Horizon Research says Assistant Police Commissioner Viv Rickard has attacked its methodology and poll results on how New Zealanders think the police are performing without first checking the facts.

Horizon says a statement from Mr Rickard today wrongly alleges

· The “company involved is owned by a representative for individuals involved in a current complaint investigation by Police”. Not true.

· People associated with a widely published complaint against the police for an incident three years ago during which a young man had his neck broken were able to somehow get people onto the Horizon Research adult panel to skew results. Not true

· Horizon survey results don’t reflect police surveys on trust and confidence in the force. Not correct.

Horizon Research’s Principal and sole owner, Graeme Colman, says Mr Rickard is attacking the messenger, rather than dealing with the issue.

“This is unfortunate given our survey shows very high levels of support for the police.

“These results mirror those found by independently conducted annual research commissioned by the police.

“Horizon’s fully weighted, highly robust survey of 750 adult respondents nationwide over the weekend finds 73% have the same or more trust in the police than five years ago.

“The police survey finds 77% of New Zealanders continue to have high levels of trust and confidence. The Horizon and police survey results mirror each other and are within each survey’s margin of error,” Mr Colman said.

Horizon’s scientifically conducted fully-weighted survey finds that police performance in carrying out some of their main duties scores highly:

· protecting life: 87.1% well, 10.2% poorly

· road safety: 86% well, 12.3% poorly

· protecting the peace: 84% well, 11.6% poorly

· protecting property: 67.1% think they perform well, 28.7% poorly.

These results compare with 2011-2012 citizen satisfaction research conducted for the Police, showing 82% overall satisfaction with service delivery.

Police supporters who are critics of the survey are not attacking those results.

The survey also found 80.7% of respondents, weighted to represent the adult population at the 2006 census, want complaints against police investigated independently and for the Independent Police Conduct Authority to have powers to initiate prosecutions against police rather than just make recommendations to them.

“The police are highly regarded by the public and it’s sad they are attacking the messenger rather than dealing with the issue, without with referring first to check facts with the business they are publicly maligning. The police should release – or conduct – their own research on whether or not New Zealanders want complaints against police investigated independently and whether or not an independent authority should have power to prosecute where it thinks this necessary. The results will be very similar to Horizon’s,” Mr Colman said.

It is hard to fathom the motive for such an erroneous and surprise attack on a private company without first checking the facts.

Mr Rickard infers that because Mr Colman has known Wellington public relations firm Managing Director Iain Morrison for a number of years and Mr Morrison consults with Mr Colman from time to time on projects that this automatically leads to “engineered bias”. Mr Morrison is a father of daughter who is serving police officer in Australia and a young man involved in an incident in Wellington three years ago. In that incident another young man had his neck broken, allegedly by a police baton.

“Horizon agreed last week that the issues covered in the research merited a place in our free public-good research programme. The questionnaire design and development was undertaken by a Horizon staff member who has been working in the industry since 1973. The survey did not mention the broken neck investigation in Wellington.

A group, pre-weighted to represent the 18+ population at the 2006 census, was selected from among tens of thousands of pre-registered HorizonPoll online panel members to receive an invitation to complete the survey.

It was physically impossible for anyone not on the panel before the weekend to register and receive the survey invitation before results were taken at 8am Monday for analysis and reporting in the Dominion Post on Tuesday. The survey remains open to all other panel members to complete online.

Horizon has invested substantially in developing fast, lower cost and accurate online research systems and it’s a market leader in this field. Some in the research industry have been slow to adopt the electronic business model, as banking and other industries have done. While Horizon also undertakes telephone research, it is becoming increasingly more difficult and costly to use older research methods. Horizon can undertake research projects within hours, and produce fully weighted results very quickly which are as accurate as or more accurate than some of the traditional methods – generally at a third of the market cost.

The company was beginning to get e-mail from the public this evening in reaction to Mr Rickard’s statement and political blogs and ex-police attacking the firm, including an ex-police officer on Radio New Zealand National’s afternoon programme.

One message to Horizon reads: “Thank you for conducting a truly independent public survey on our NZ Police force. A reliable survey researching investigations against police misconduct is well overdue. I hope you will continue this survey on an annual basis. Thanks for your efforts, time and investment.”

Horizon will make unique online access available to the police, if the force wishes, through which it can instantly analyse and report results by more than 19 demographic and scores of other profile filters. They can also view the more than 28,000 words respondents have left to explain why they hold their particular views.

“As it is public interest research we will make it available free, in the public interest. The police are welcome to look into it and discover why it has found largely the same results as its own survey.”

BACKGROUND

Horizon Research main findings are reported below. The survey interviewed 756 adults between midday Saturday and 8am Monday (October 13-15, 2012).

Results are weighted by age, gender, ethnicity, region, employment status, personal income and party vote 2011 to provide a representative sample of the 18+ population at the 2006 census. At a 95% confidence level the maximum margin of error is +/- 3.6%.

Horizon’s survey shows:

60% have the same level of trust in the Police as they had 5 years ago. 13% have more confidence than they did 5 years ago - total 73% with the same or more trust in the police than they did 5 years ago.

Mr Rickard's statement that says “The latest results of the Gravitas survey of 9,706 people released last month shows 77 per cent of New Zealanders continue to have high levels of trust and confidence in Police – up from 72 percent in 2008/2009.” Within margin of error, the surveys agree.

Horizon’s survey shows low levels of dissatisfaction with the Police management of various types of crime (this does not measure trust and confidence):

Murder: 9%

Assault: 16%

Child Abuse: 32%

Theft: 29%

Burglary: 31%

Car Theft: 30%

Drunkenness: 23%

Horizon’s survey shows dissatisfaction with the Police management of complaints to be at similar levels:

Complaints against the police: 27%

Complaints against public figures: 31%

Only 12% of respondents had ever made a complaint against the Police

On complaints:

35% disagree that they have full trust in the Police force's ability to impartially investigate any complaints about the Police.

Only 3% disagree that the Independent Police Conduct Authority should have the power to initiate a prosecution itself; 76% agree.

36% agree and 36% disagree that they trust the Police to impartially decide if a member of the force should be prosecuted.

Only 16% disagree that the IPCA is completely independent from the Police force it investigates.

49% think complaints take too long to investigate

31% disagree that complaints are handled quickly and efficiently.

72% disagree that a police officer should be able to investigate other officers that they know and have social contact with.

81% think all complaints should be investigated independently.
ends

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