When it comes to the police, it appears women are the minority on the beat, but make up a clear majority when it comes to support and non-sworn staff.

Latest personnel data published in the New Zealand Police annual report shows of the 9000 strong constabulary, fewer than one in five of those officers are women.

They're also under-represented in senior ranks - fewer than 18 percent of Police Superintendents are women and fewer than 13 percent hold the rank of Inspector.

No women are among the nine top ranked police officers. 

But the trend undergoes a a major reversal when other police employees, outside of frontline staff, are looked at. Two thirds of the more than 3000, are women.

However, Police Minister Judith Collins believes things are getting better when it comes to women in the force.

Ms Collins said police are constantly trying to improve their gender balance, and it's a priority for Police Commissioner Mike Bush.

"Last year, women made up 35.9 percent of their recruits, so that's up from 24 percent in 2012," Ms Collins said. "There's been a 41 percent increase in women promoted to Senior Sergeant over those two years."

She said there are also now far more women in senior operational roles, with four of 12 district commanders female.

Ms Collins said work is also underway to relieve pressure on police in their security vetting work.

While priority checks are being done on time, the police's annual report reveals only 64 percent of general requests are being processed on time.

Ms Collins said demand for police vetting has grown exponentially.

Around half a million vetting requests are made every year and there has been an eight percent increase in demand over the past two months.

She said legislation currently before Parliament will allow police to recover some of the costs of their vetting work.

The annual report also reveals police fielded more than 843,000 111 calls in the last financial year. That's a 6.5 percent rise on the previous year.

Ms Collins said police believe some of the demand is being driven by the fact almost everybody now has a mobile phone.

"There's also obviously an increase in mental health instances that police are called to, and police are the 24/7 default service for any emergencies, so what tends to happen is that people call police."