Bukit Aman’s Management Director Zulkifli Abdullah said the force was in need of more professionals to help them with research and studies, among others.

“We have applied to the government to hire more professionals, not only to assist the police in management matters, but also to provide certain types of expertise, such as in accounting, information technology and counselling.

“This will allow uniformed officers to focus on operational work while the professional civil servants can help conduct research and studies.

“They (the civil servants in the police force) have been our backbone and played an important role in our success,” he told a press conference here today.

He said currently there were less than 10 per cent professionals in the force’s civil service and despite the need for more, the government’s hiring freeze made this impossible.

Zulkifli said there were more than 1,000 vacancies for civil servants in the force.

This is especially so as the number of uniformed personnel had increased and was expected to reach over 100,000 by next year.

“The work burden of the civil servants in the force is increasing in line with the number of new recruits.

“Even with computer systems, we still need more people to help with the management.”