There are serious concerns about officer shortages in the nation's biggest police force, potentially endangering the general public, a leaked memo from a senior NSW officer reveals.
The message prompted a renewed pledge from the premier and police commissioner on Thursday to do more to boost recruitment and ease pressure on frontline officers.
Assistant Commissioner Brett McFadden estimated 4000 available positions in the force, noting the "deteriorating" shortages affecting western Sydney.
"(We) are experiencing an exceptional staffing challenge arising from current vacancies and exposure to officers on long-term sick report and not returning to the workplace," he wrote in the memo.
Senior police were being pulled from specialist units resulting in a "general degradation of capability and management of crime prevention", Mr McFadden said.
The internal memo was a request from the senior officer, who oversees an area covering much of Sydney's west and southwest, to Commissioner Karen Webb to defer the transfer of staff out of his region.
Mr McFadden described the situation as an exceptional circumstance, adding that current recruitment strategies to fill vacancies in police ranks were not working.
"The current operational staffing levels are at critical levels and require immediate corporate support," he said.
The memo was leaked to independent MP Rod Roberts, a former NSW Police detective and prominent critic of Ms Webb.
In a statement, the commissioner said increasing staffing across the state was a priority.
"The level of pressure on the frontline is unacceptable and nobody is more determined to solve that issue than myself," Ms Webb said.
Officers in some parts of southwest Sydney began pushing back against non-urgent tasks in October to prioritise urgent calls due to what the Police Association of NSW described as excessive workloads.
Ms Webb said various recruitment strategies had boosted NSW Police applications by 50 per cent in 2024, adding that work was being done to ensure tasks were appropriately triaged or referred to other agencies where appropriate.
The force was 2279 recruits short of full strength in August, according to official data - a shortfall the state Labor government was trying to fix with measures including paying police trainees during their study and interstate and overseas hiring blitzes.
Premier Chris Minns said the onus was on his government to fix the issue of police resourcing, flagging that more measures could be introduced soon to boost officers' ranks.
"We've got to cop the criticism and we have to make a change - I'll have more to say about it soon," he told reporters.
