Civilians rather than police officers will answer triple-0 emergency calls as part of the biggest shake-up in South Australia's police structure in 20 years.

A police department reform program will also see a new centralised command structure for 24-hour patrol coverage and an increase in resources for domestic violence incidents.

The plan was today delivered to SAPOL's staff of more than 5,000 for consultation.

It included the consolidation of SAPOL's six Local Service Areas into three districts and replacing general duty patrols with response teams.

SA Police Commissioner Grant Stevens said police would not take triple-0 calls under the changes but would still be responsible for dispatching patrols.

He said using civilians to answer emergency calls had been successful interstate.

"We currently have a system in place where our 131 444 phone calls are answered by civilians and they do an excellent job," he said.

"We see this as an opportunity to take police away from the phones and put them into an operational frontline environment.

"We're also proposing to put more resources into domestic violence response teams as well, to ensure we provide the level of service that people expect when responding to and dealing with domestic violence."

The changes follow the closure of eight suburban police stations across Adelaide in the middle of this year.

SAPOL argued the stations were not utilised enough by the public and staff would be of greater use being redeployed to operational duties.

SA Police Association president Mark Carroll said some employment issues would arise from the new model, due to be implemented by mid-2016.

"Obviously we are concerned with what that might look like in relation to rank structures, industrial issues such as rostering, where someone might be working," he said.