an inspection of policing with the community in northern

Policing with theCommunity

An inspection of Policing with theCommunity in Northern Ireland

March 2009

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Policing withthe CommunityAn inspection of Policing with theCommunity in Northern Ireland

March 2009

Presented to the Houses of Parliament by theSecretary of State for Northern Ireland underSection 49(2) of the Justice (NI) Act 2002.

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Contents

List of abbreviations iv

Chief Inspectors’ Foreword v

Executive Summary vi

Recommendations ix

Suggestions for Improvement x

SECTION 1: Inspection Report

Chapter 1 What is ‘Policing with the Community?’ 3

Chapter 2 Implementation: The Challenges 7

Chapter 3 Neighbourhood Policing Programme 11

Chapter 4 Resources into outcomes 17

Chapter 5 Partnership and Community Engagement 27

Chapter 6 Community Perspective:A window of Opportunity 37

SECTION 2: PSNI Action Plan 42

SECTION 3: Appendices

Appendix 1 Methodology 46

Appendix 2 Terms of Reference 48

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ACC Assistant Chief Constable

ACN Active Citizen Network

ACPO Association of Chief PoliceOfficers

CJ Criminal Justice

CJI Criminal Justice InspectionNorthern Ireland

COPS Community Oriented PolicingServices (United States)

CORE Corporate Opportunity forResilience and Efficiency (PSNIproject)

CSP Community Safety Partnership

CSR Comprehensive Spending Review

CSU Community Safety Unit

DCU District Command Unit (in PSNI)

DPP District Policing Partnership

DSD Department for SocialDevelopment

DTO District Training Officers

FLO Family Liaison Officer

GB Great Britain

HMIC Her Majesty’s Inspectorate ofConstabulary

IAG Independent Advisory Group

KIN Key Individual Network

MIT Major Investigation Team (PSNIunit)

MSF Most Similar Force

NCPE National Centre for PolicingExcellence

NhP Neighbourhood Police

NhW Neighbourhood Watch

NI Northern Ireland

NIHE Northern Ireland HousingExecutive

NIM National Intelligence Model

NIO Northern Ireland Office

NIPB Northern Ireland Policing Board

NPIA National Police ImprovementAgency (formerly Centrex)

NISRA Northern Ireland Statistics andResearch Agency

OCMT Occurrence and CaseManagement Team (in PSNI)

OCU Operational Command Unit(in PSNI)

OPONI Office of the Police Ombudsmanfor Northern Ireland

OOC Office of the OversightCommissioner

PACT Partners and CommunityTogether

Patten Shortened term for the reportReport published by the Independent

Commission on Policing in 1999.

PCSO Police Community SupportOfficer

PDO Professional DevelopmentOfficer

POPT Police Officer Part-Time

PPS Public Prosecution Service forNorthern Ireland

PSNI Police Service of NorthernIreland

PwC Policing with the Community

RPA Review of Public Administration

SCNI Supporting CommunitiesNorthern Ireland

TNA Training Needs Analysis

TSG Tactical Support Group

UK United Kingdom

List of abbreviations

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Chief Inspectors’ Foreword

The vision of policing for Northern Ireland stated in the report of the IndependentCommission on Policing (the Patten Report) was one of Policing with the Community atthe core of the service, with officers having been grounded in neighbourhood policing andonly taken into specialist and other functions for limited periods, before returning to thecore function. The Patten Report’s definition of what was meant by community policing was“…the police working in partnership with the community; the community thereby participating in itsown policing; and the two working together, mobilising resources to solve problems affecting publicsafety…” This vision remains as relevant today as it was in 1999.

The implementation of a new approach to policing in Northern Ireland was central to thereform of criminal justice. Its on-going implementation continues to represent challengesfor the police service. Much work has been achieved and significant steps have been takento deliver on the vision for community policing articulated in the Patten document. The relationship between the police and the local community now is very different from what it was when the report was published.

Our review of the delivery of community policing, however, shows that much work remainsto be done to fully embed policing with the community as the core function of the PoliceService of Northern Ireland, and the core function of every police station. There aresignificant challenges ahead to make best use of resources to implement the criticaldimensions of community policing – such as the introduction of more effective callmanagement and the recruitment of police community support officers. The successfuldelivery of policing with the community will not be achieved, however, by additionalresources alone. It will only be achieved when it becomes central to the work of everypolice officer in Northern Ireland.

The Inspection was led for CJI by Bill Priestley and by Dave Jones for HMIC. We would liketo thank on their behalf, all those whom they contacted in the course of the work for theirparparticipation.

Dr. Michael Maguire Ken Williams CVO CBE QPMChief Inspector of Criminal Justice HM Inspector of Constabularyin Northern Ireland Northern Region & Northern Ireland

March 2009

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IntroductionThe report of the Independent Commission on Policing for Northern Ireland (‘PattenReport’) was published on 9 September 1999. It drew on experiences of policing frommany jurisdictions and its radical proposals on police reform were probably the mostcomplex and far-reaching ever articulated. Recommendation 44 stated that, ‘Policing withthe community should be the core function of the police service and the core function of everypolice station.’

The report outlined what it meant by Policing with the Community (PwC) as, ‘… the policeworking in partnership with the community; the community thereby participating in its own policing;and the two working together, mobilising resources to solve problems affecting public safety overthe longer term rather than the police, alone, reacting short term to incidents as they occur.’

Inspection criteria were developed by a steering group comprising representatives fromCriminal Justice Inspection (CJI), the Police Service for Northern Ireland (PSNI), theNorthern Ireland Policing Board (NIPB) and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary(HMIC). The agreed inspection criteria were: relevant Patten recommendations; the fiveprinciples of Community Policing1; progress of the Neighbourhood Policing Programme;and progress against the HMIC baseline inspection of 2006. A breakdown of the inspectioncriteria can be found in Appendix 2.

The Patten vision of policing for Northern Ireland was one with PwC at the core of theservice, with all officers having been grounded in neighbourhood policing (NhP) and onlytaken into specialist and other functions for limited periods, before returning to the corefunction. The recommendations made in the Patten Report regarding PwC and thesubsequent approach by the PSNI to implement them, form the basis of this inspection.

Overall findingsThe overall findings of this report are:• There has been substantial progress of NhP since the HMIC 2006 baseline report

(Appendix 2, annex 3);• There has been substantial progress in implementing the PwC recommendations of the

Patten Report and the principles of Community Policing; and• Progress can be linked to implementation of the NhP programme.

However, work remains to be done to fully embed PwC as the core function of the policeservice and the core function of every police station.

Executive Summary

1 Identified in section 2 of the PSNI PwC policy as: Service Delivery : Partnership: Problem Solving: Empowerment:Accountability

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Progress since the 2006 HMIC baseline reportImplementation of the NhP programme in 2007 had resulted in the appointment of aproject manager for NhP. Corporate guidelines had been consulted on, designed andcommunicated. Each Police District had appointed a Community Safety Superintendent toliaise with the local Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs). There was a communicationstrategy in place that addressed both internal and external marketing of NhP and, for thefirst time, there were tangible PwC goals in the NIPB Policing Plan which included a targetaimed at reducing the time NhP officers spend away from their core duties (abstractiontarget).

Policy and strategyA corporate end goal or vision of PwC had not been clearly identified or communicatedacross all districts. The PwC policy had not been reviewed since being written in 2002when the NhP programme had been instigated. There had been some alignment of servicepolicies to enable delivery of PwC, but there had not been comprehensive implementationof these policies service-wide.

Policy decisions taken by the PSNI in the wake of the comprehensive spending review (CSR)had impacted on the ability of the PSNI to deliver PwC. The proposed recruitment ofPolice Community Support Officers (PCSOs) had been shelved. This, together with fallingnumbers of Reserve Constables, the stalling of recruitment of Police Officers Part-Time(POPT), and deployment issues (including restricted working hours), had impacted on thePSNI’s ability to adequately resource NhP.

PwC could be better supported by a structure that would deliver local accountability forits operational deployment. Under the current structure responsibility for PwC lies withthe Assistant Chief Constable (ACC) for criminal justice, a headquarters-based role. Givingoperational responsibility for NhP to the two regional ACCs or in future to one ACC withservice-wide responsibility for operational matters, would provide better localaccountability for delivery of PwC. Strategic responsibility for PwC should remain withpolice headquarters.

Resourcing PwCInspectors found that many police officers were engaged on tasks that did not require theapplication of the powers of a Constable. Civilianisation and workforce modernisation hadnot delivered the numbers of officers required to effectively resource NhP and whereofficers had been freed up, the focus was not on strengthening NhP teams with full-timeofficers.

Effective call management is a critical enabler of delivering PwC. The current call handlingarrangements are staff intensive. A more effective system of assessing and allocating callswould enable NhP officers to be freed up to undertake more pro-active patrolling in theirareas, thereby improving accessibility and visibility.

Partnerships and community engagementPwC is a shared responsibility between strategic partners. Inspectors found many instancesof excellent partnership work being pursued and sustained locally by the dedication of NhPofficers and community partners often under difficult conditions. The PSNI had provided aPwC fund which had a positive impact on community safety by helping to fund locallyidentified and managed projects. Where DPPs and CSPs were working closely together,there was a more cohesive approach to PwC. The optimum position following the Reviewof Public Administration (RPA) would be as set out in our report into CSPs2. That is tohave one operational community safety/policing tier in each council area.

In England and Wales partnership arrangements are cemented by the Crime and DisorderAct 1998 which established obligatory partnerships between the police, local authorities,probation service, health authorities, the voluntary sector, and local residents andbusinesses. This legislation does not apply to Northern Ireland. Making partnershiparrangements obligatory could help deliver better co-ordinated and integrated localpolicing services.

Individual officers and NhP teams had worked hard to engage with communities and todeliver effective, problem-solving local policing. Community groups provided manyexamples of excellent PwC work being undertaken by officers and there was a realwillingness by communities to work in partnership to deliver effective policing in theirareas. However, community groups articulated a fear that the opportunity for the PSNIto deliver PwC in difficult areas was time limited and may be lost.

Internal partnerships with specialist units such as Tactical Support Groups (TSGs) and withHuman Resources (HR) need to be further developed so there is complete organisationalbuy-in to PwC as the core policing function.

MonitoringThe Northern Ireland Policing Board (NIPB) has a central role in furthering PwC practiceand principles in the PSNI. There were tangible goals for delivering PwC in the policingplan 2008-2011 with associated quantitative targets for NhP. However, performance andtarget setting elsewhere has been evolving towards using a combination of qualitative andquantitative targets such as that outlined in the ‘Policing’ Green Paper3. Measurement basedon quantitative methods alone, does not take account of the effort expended by NhPofficers and community members to engage effectively to deliver local policing solutions.A framework that incorporates both qualitative and quantitative measurement of policeperformance at neighbourhood level needs to be agreed with the NIPB and implemented.

PwC as envisaged in the Patten Report is the provision of local policing solutions for issuesaffecting local communities. Measurement of the performance of local DistrictCommanders with regard to PwC needs to be integrated into their performance meetingswith regional ACCs.

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2 CJI:An Inspection of Community Safety Partnerships; November 20063 Policing Green Paper, published on 17 July 2008

Recommendations

PSNI specific strategic recommendations

• Inspectors recommend that PSNI implement a revised PwC strategy in line with it beingplaced at the core of the policing function and embedded in every policy and process.The strategy should be founded on a clear corporate vision of PwC and should raiseand support its status within the organisation.

• Inspectors recommend that as a matter of urgency PSNI develop and implement aservice-wide call management strategy that reflects advances in technology to enableeffective call handling in support of the delivery of PwC.

• Inspectors recommend that PSNI implement policies regarding:- the recruitment of PCSOs;- the measurement and management of performance in PwC;- corporate structures to support and sustain PwC; and- the allocation of resources to support and sustain NhPthat place PwC as the core policing function.

Other strategic recommendations

• It would be helpful if arrangements could be developed in Northern Ireland whichwould enable the composition of the police service to be set by a tri-partite partnershipinvolving the Chief Constable, the Ministry for Policing and Justice, and the NIPB,whenever Policing and Justice is devolved (paragraph 4.3).

• Inspectors recommend that legislation is introduced, equivalent to the Crime andDisorder Act 1998, to establish obligatory partnerships so that a more cohesive approachto local policing and community safety strategies can be implemented (paragraph 5.12).

Recommendation from CJI report into Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs)

• As regards the future relationship between CSPs and DPPs, the optimum positionpost-RPA would be to have one operational community safety/policing tier in eachcouncil area. We would recommend policy makers to look again at the vision laidout in the Patten Report and echoed to some extent in the Criminal Justice Review(paragraph 5.21).

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Suggestions for Improvement

NIPBCJI does not inspect NIPB, nevertheless we make two suggestions for their consideration.

Evidence collected by Inspectors during this inspection suggests that NIPB should consider theirapproach to assessing police performance. This could be done by using a wider range of qualitativeas well as quantitative indicators and applying the principles of improving police performance asoutlined in Chapter 7 of the ‘Policing’ Green Paper to the PSNI. (paragraph 5.15).

Having a more co-ordinated approach to collecting local information involving all relevant localgroups producing a comprehensive set of data, would help the process of setting local policingplans and priorities for neighbourhoods. Including questions in local surveys on NhP would alsoprovide detailed local data on which to assess the performance of local commanders in deliveringPwC (paragraph 6.4).

PSNIGiving operational responsibility for NhP to the two regional ACCs or in future to one ACC withservice-wide responsibility for operational matters, would provide better local accountability fordelivery of PwC (paragraph 2.8).

It would be helpful if members of the NhP Programme Board would attend each board meeting inperson. Minutes of meetings should be actively communicated and published to the servicethrough its intranet system (Policenet) (paragraph 3.4).

Setting minimum operating levels for NhP teams would help to deliver a better community-orientedlocal policing service and would raise the status of NhP internally (paragraph 3.5).

The work of neighbourhood officers needs to be marketed internally especially by DistrictCommanders who set the policing tone for their area (paragraph 3.9).

The service needs to move to empower and entrust officers within its overall supervisoryframework, so that they can respond more effectively to community needs (paragraph 3.12).

If the service is to continue with allocating POPT to NhP teams as the alternative to using PCSOs,then it should consider ways to better utilise their existing skills and local knowledge, and empowerthem to deliver a better service to the community (paragraph 4.12).

Skills identified by the TNA as being necessary for NhP officers such as developing and managingcommunity relationships, should be interwoven not just into initial officer training, but also intoDetective training, POPT training and other operational training programmes, to fully embed PwCprinciples across the whole service (paragraph 4.14).

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Inspectors believe that a more overt approach to PwC principles throughout the trainingprogramme would assist officers and help to embed the principles in the wider police service(paragraph 4.19).

To help to embed the ethos in newly attested officers, PSNI should consider attaching probationerofficers to NhP units for the whole of their 10 week tutorship period (identified as weeks 11–20 inthe probationer management policy) (paragraph 4.20).

The use of the signal crimes perspective and other social indicators may help the PSNI to bettergain community insight and to improve local partnership working (paragraph 5.17).

The reorganisation of police districts and centralisation of call handling places even more onus ondistrict commanders to establish effective and inclusive consultation arrangements with localcommunities (paragraph 6.6).

In order to better manage public expectations, there needs to be more effective consultation,dialogue and engagement with communities by district management teams with an emphasis oncustomer focus (paragraph 6.7).

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1

Inspection Report

Section 1

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What is ‘Policing withthe Community?’

CHAPTER 1:

and gave a detailed assessment ofprogress of the NhP programme ineach police district. Details of NhPresources allocated within all districtswere provided and just prior to thedrafting of this report, an update wasalso made available. For the purposeof inspection we examined fourpolice districts (two urban andtwo rural). A detailed breakdownof the inspection methodology canbe found in Appendix 1.

What is ‘Policing with theCommunity’1.3 Recommendation 44 of the Patten

Report stated that, ‘Policing with thecommunity should be the core functionof the police service and the corefunction of every police station.’ In thefinal OOC report5 published inMay 2007, progress against thiskey recommendation was reportedas, ‘Full compliance with thisrecommendation has not beenachieved. (Substantial Progress).

1.4 The author of the PSNI PwC policy,former Assistant Chief Constable(ACC) Peter Sheridan told Inspectorsthat, ‘Policing with the community needsto be embedded within the PSNI as thecore style of service delivery and shouldform an integral part of every police

Introduction1.1 The aim of this inspection is to

assess the progress of the PSNI inimplementing Policing with theCommunity (PwC) against thefollowing inspection criteria:

• the remaining issues and incompleterecommendations identified by thefinal report of the Office of theOversight Commissioner (OOC).

• the 25 areas of assessment for NhPidentified by the PSNI

• the five principles of Communitypolicing, which are4

- Service delivery;- Partnership;- Problem Solving;- Empowerment; and- Accountability.

• completed Patten recommendations– to verify continuance; and

• progress against the NhP element ofthe 2006 HMIC baseline assessment.A detailed breakdown of theinspection criteria can be found inAppendix 2.

1.2 As part of the inspection process thePSNI conducted a self-assessment ontheir performance in PwC against theagreed criteria. This self-assessmentwas of good quality, detailed and wellpresented. It clearly set out theposition of the PSNI as regards PwC

4 Identified in section 2 of the PSNI PwC policy5 Overseeing the Proposed Revisions for the Policing Services of Northern Ireland - Report 19 - Published 31.05.2007. by the Office of

the Oversight Commissioner for Northern Ireland.

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process. It should be tested at everylevel and role until it becomes secondnature’. The PSNI confirmed thestatus of PwC as a core function byadopting the PwC policy published in2002 which stated that, ‘It (PwC)cannot be properly implemented in anorganisation where reactive policing isthe underlying style.’ The same policysets out the aim of PwC as ‘to improvecommunity safety by reducing crime andthe fear of crime, and tacking anti-socialbehaviour.’ The policy identified thatto fully embed PwC as theoperational practice would requirefundamental changes, ‘If the transitionfrom philosophy to operational practiceis to be realised, fundamental changesare required in the structure and cultureof the police organisation.’

1.5 Former ACC Sheridan saw PwC as astraightforward concept of sharedresponsibility between thecommunity and the police togetherwith a focus on excellence of servicedelivery. The Patten Report proposedthe use of the term ‘Policing with theCommunity’ as; ‘it encapsulates betterwhat most people want to see – thepolice participating in the communityand responding to the needs of thatcommunity, and the communityparticipating in its own policing andsupporting the police.’6

1.6 A former head of PwC for thePSNI addressed this issue in a thesis(published on the PSNI website)7

setting out three defining features:• responsibility for policing society is

not simply the responsibility of thepolice; it is a shared responsibility

between the police and thepeople;

• policing is not simply aboutreacting to calls for service fromthe public once a crime has beencommitted. Rather, it is aboutproactively attempting to addresslocal problems and small issuesbefore they grow into bigger onesand/or crimes; and

• community policing entails greaterofficer discretion with police beinggiven greater flexibility andfreedom over how they do theirjobs and respond to communityneeds, without the need to resortto formal rules and arrestprocedures.

1.7 The development of the ethos ofPwC may best be followed in NorthAmerica where the communitypolicing philosophy is the dominantmodel of policing there. The Officeof Community Oriented PolicingServices (COPS) was created by theJustice Department to supportinnovative work in communitypolicing. One of the main enablersof public partnership in suchprogrammes has been variousNeighbourhood Watch (NhW)schemes. Research in North Americaand subsequently elsewhere hasshown that a major limiting factorin NhW schemes is that thosecommunities who are most in needof them find them the most difficultto access and implement8. This is atheme that is of particular relevancein the Northern Ireland context ofsome communities emerging from along period of disengagement with

6 Report of the Independent Commission on Policing for Northern Ireland, 1999: 7.2.7 Implementing Policing with the Community in Northern Ireland:An Exercise in Strategic Organisational Change. Micaela McGinley

December 2006

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official policing services. To deliverthe PSNI aim of, ‘Making NorthernIreland safer for everyone throughprofessional, progressive policing,’communities should not just bedefined in the geographical sensebut rather should take accountof socio-economic, cultural andethnic factors which impact onthe accessibility of neighbourhoodwatch and other similar schemes.

1.8 COPS defined community policing as‘a policing philosophy that promotes andsupports organisational strategies toaddress the causes and reduce the fearof crime and social disorder throughproblem-solving tactics and police-community partnerships.’ As definedby COPS, community policing focuseson crime and social disorder throughthe delivery of policing services thatincludes aspects of traditional lawenforcement, as well as prevention,problem-solving, communityengagement, and partnerships.The community policing modelbalances reactive responses to callsfor service with proactive problem-solving centred on the causes ofcrime and disorder. Communitypolicing requires police and citizensto join together as partners in thecourse of both identifying andeffectively addressing these issues.

1.9 The Patten Report drew onexperiences of policing from manyjurisdictions and its radical proposalson police reform were probably themost complex and far-reaching everarticulated. The report outlined whatit meant by PwC as, ‘… the police

working in partnership with thecommunity; the community therebyparticipating in its own policing; andthe two working together, mobilisingresources to solve problems affectingpublic safety over the longer term ratherthan the police, alone, reacting shortterm to incidents as they occur.’The recommendations that it wenton to make regarding PwC and thesubsequent efforts at implementationby the PSNI form the basis of thisinspection.

1.10 The Patten vision of policing forNorthern Ireland was one with PwCat the core of the service with allofficers having been grounded inneighbourhood policing (NhP) andonly taken into specialist and otherfunctions for limited periods beforereturning to the core function. Topursue such a change and to meetpublic expectations would haverequired a major shift in existingpolice structures, culture, ethos, andthe skills base of the officers. Theprofile of an officer engaged in PwCwould be markedly different fromthe stereotypical image of an officerapproaching retirement, engaged inwhat many saw as amounting tosocial work. It would require highlyskilled officers adept at engaging withcommunities and using up-to-dateproblem solving methods toeffectively tackle crime and anti-socialbehaviour. Officers would have todeliver results to their communitiesin the form of a reduction in criminalactivity impacting on the quality oflife of the communities they served.

8 Fleming, J. (2005) Working Together: NeighbourhoodWatch, Reassurance Policing and the Potential of Partnerships. Canberra,AustralianInstitute of Criminology: 1

1.11 NhP was described to Inspectors as atactical element of the overall PSNIPwC strategy. Delivering PwCinvolves much more than deployingneighbourhood teams in every policedistrict. Policies and strategies thatgo right across the organisationshould support PwC as the corefunction of the service. These includepolicies and strategies regardingHuman Resources, Estates,Information Communications, CrimeManagement, Community Safety andothers. Inspectors found thatthrough the NhP programme therehad been some alignment of servicepolicies to enable its delivery but,there had not been comprehensiveimplementation of these policiesservice-wide. Many staff withindistricts were not aware of theorganisational view of NhP as atactical element of an overall PwCstrategy. There needs to be bettercommunication of the status of bothPwC as the core function, and of NhPas one of many tactical elementsenabling the PSNI to deliver acitizen-focused service. This couldbe achieved by identifying an end goalor vision of PwC for the organisationand ensuring that this is embeddedthroughout the service.

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External monitoring2.1 Following the recommendations of

the Patten Report on policing a ‘planfor change’ component of the 2002-05 Policing Plan, released in March of2002, committed the NIPB and theservice to establishing PwC as thepreferred delivery philosophy. ThePwC strategic plan together withimplementation and communicationarrangements had been endorsedby the NIPB and commenced inSeptember 2002. Monitoring theimplementation of all the Pattenrecommendations was carried outby the OOC and an early report9

concluded that there had been manyearly initiatives launched by DistrictCommanders demonstrating theiracceptance of PwC as the corestandard of operations. The reportwent on to comment that, ‘In somecases these early experiments hadto be abandoned or suspended due toincreased demands for public orderpolicing. However, this must be balancedagainst a lack of progress in other areas,such as the reduction of sick leave andthe freeing-up of police officers withcivilian staff. Concerted action in both ofthese areas would have reduced resourcepressures experienced by the PoliceService due to public order incidents.’

2.2 The OOC continued to monitorprogress of the Pattenrecommendations reporting threetimes a year up until its finalreport published in May 2007.The progress reported against PwCrecommendations had initially beenpositive and encouraging. Progresshad not been consistent, neverthelessprogress was reported and there hadbeen many examples of excellentlocal policing initiatives aimed atdelivering PwC.

Social and Political context2.3 The period between the publication

of the Patten report and theimplementation of the NhPprogramme in 2007 was not asmooth transition to a normalsociety. In July 2000, there had beenwidespread disorder following theParades Commission ban on anOrange Order parade at Drumcree.Army personnel were back on thestreets in Belfast during Augustfollowing a violent feud between rivalloyalist groups which lasted untilDecember. In the summer of 2001,the Drumcree event passed offpeacefully but there was large scalerioting in the Ardoyne area of Belfastfollowing the Twelfth of July parades.

Implementation: The Challenges

CHAPTER 2:

9 Overseeing the Proposed Revisions for the Policing Services of Northern Ireland - Report 6 - Published 10.12.2002, Office of theOversight Commissioner for Northern Ireland

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Interface violence was alsowidespread, particularly in NorthBelfast where shots were fired duringrioting in a mainly Protestant area ofArdoyne. Further sectarian riotingand interface violence becamecommonplace in the run up to thesummer months of 2002. In 2003,another loyalist feud erupted andas late as November 2004, theIndependent Monitoring Commission(IMC) reported that paramilitaryviolence remained ‘disturbingly high’.

2.4 Policing does not operateindependently of social and politicaldynamics. Cognisance must betaken of the changing politicaland operational policing arena inNorthern Ireland since thepublication of the Pattenrecommendations and progress inpolice reform needs to be seen inthis context. The pace and scope ofpolice reform and implementation ofthe PwC recommendations of thePatten Report may have been affectedby these and other factors10. Thepace of change and implementationof a PwC style had been linked topolitical progress, and at the timeof inspection fieldwork, DPPs hadjust become fully politicallyrepresentative. Over the periodof the OOC monitoring reportsdifficulties in applying the Pattenrecommendations wereacknowledged in the context of anunstable political scene, for example,the comprehensive roll-out of theschools programme into contestedareas.

2.5 Since the inspection fieldworkthere has also been an increase indissident republican terrorist activity,particularly in some border areas.This must be taken into accountwhen assessing progress towardsimplementing PwC as the corepolicing function. It is also true tosay that the threat is not consistentacross the whole of Northern Irelandand opportunities to embed PwC asthe core policing ethos should bepursued as fully as possible. Todeliver PwC as the preferred policingstyle requires that it should beembedded at all levels of theorganisation and deployed as widelyas possible in prevailingcircumstances.

Resources and structures2.6 The Patten Report had made six

recommendations about the size ofthe police service. The most relevantto this inspection recommended that;‘Provided the peace process does notcollapse and the security situation doesnot deteriorate significantly from thesituation pertaining at present, theapproximate size of the police serviceover the next 10 years should be7,500 full time officers’. Thisrecommendation had been achievedand police numbers currently sitaround the 7,500 named full-timeofficer mark and the police budget ispredicated on that number of full-time officers. Total police numbershad been reducing during the periodof implementing the Pattenrecommendations as regards PwC.Progress against the PwC

10 Policing Northern Ireland; Conflict, legitimacy and reform;Aogan Mulcachy, 2006Topping, J. R. (2008) ‘Community Policing in Northern Ireland:A Resistance Narrative’, Policing and Society 18(4), pp. 377-396

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recommendations should be seen inthe context of how that had impactedon the number of officers availablefor operational duties, and difficultiesin realigning officers whilst overallstaff numbers were falling. However,the PSNI had been taking steps toredress imbalances and at the draftingstage of the report, Inspectors weretold that they were beginning toimplement a project to move poststo support the resourcing of the NhPprogramme.

2.7 Throughout the period of the OOCmonitoring reports, many instances ofexcellent PwC work undertaken byindividual officers or NhP teams werereported. Inspectors also found thatthere had been much excellentindividual work undertaken in all ofthe districts by officers dedicated toproviding an effective service to thecommunity. A selection of casesillustrating the achievements ofofficers operating under the PwCethos is presented in Chapter Three.Inspectors were told of cases of goodcommunity-oriented policing by PSNIofficers and members of the public inall of the police districts visited.

2.8 The changes envisaged by Pattenwould have required a major shift inexisting police structures, culture,ethos, and the skills base of officers.There has been substantial changeto the police service since thepublication of the Patten Report asmonitored and reported by theOOC. Upon agreement of the PwCstrategy, overall responsibility for it

had been the responsibility of theDeputy Chief Constable. This hadsince transferred to the ACC forcriminal justice. It had been helpfulto districts to have organisationaldirection on PwC through the NhPprogramme, co-ordinated by theheadquarters-based team, and led byone ACC. Giving operationalresponsibility for NhP to the tworegional ACCs, or in future to oneACC with service-wide responsibilityfor operational matters, wouldprovide better local accountabilityfor delivery of PwC.

2.9 Given that there are issues uniqueto Northern Ireland that may in themedium term require an enhancedlevel of police resources (such asthe number of historic cases to beinvestigated) when crime rates arecompared across forces NorthernIreland remains a relatively low crimearea (see Table 1). It has a crime rateof just over 13 crimes per officer,half that of the nearest other policeservice area in the Most SimilarForces (MSF) group in addition to theMetropolitan Police Service.

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PSNI 99118 25054 7500 2.74 13.22

Nottinghamshire 126691 28818 2401 12.00 52.77

WestYorkshire 230067 56580 5740 9.86 40.08

Greater Manchester 300104 75327 7930 9.50 37.84

Northumbria 110074 42572 4063 10.48 27.09

West Midlands 251595 66607 8057 8.27 31.23

Metropolitan 868671 215587 31090 6.93 27.94

Total CrimeMarch 07 toend Feb 08

TotalDetections

March 07to end Feb 08

Numberof officers

Detectionsper Officer

Crimesper Officer

Table 1: Number of crimes and detections per officer

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Neighbourhood Policing Programme

CHAPTER 3:

Programme framework and aim3.1 In July 2007 the PSNI initiated a

formal NhP Programme followingon from its identification as a keypolicing function by the CorporateOpportunity for Resilience andEfficiency (CORE) project. The statedintention of the programme was toembed NhP within the service, andto provide every neighbourhood inNorthern Ireland with access tolocal policing. It also aimed to offeropportunities to influence localpriorities, deliver positiveinterventions with partners to tackleidentified priorities, and provideanswers on what has been done.

3.2 The PwC branch of the PSNI haddeveloped a framework of 25recommendations on NhP. Therecommendations covered criticalthemes such as the identificationof neighbourhoods, communityengagement, performancemeasurement, marketing andabstraction of neighbourhoodofficers. A full breakdown of theelements of the NhP programme canbe found in Appendix 2.

3.3 Inspectors found that one of the maintenets of the programme was thatPwC is a whole organisation activity.This position reflects the assertions

made in the Patten Report that, ‘Wedo not favour separating “communitypolicing” from other policing tasks.It is a central theme of this report thatpolicing with the community should bethe core function of the entire policeforce. We would certainly reject anyidea of an upper tier of policing superiorto neighbourhood police officers, andimplicitly excused from communitypolicing obligations.11’

Implementation3.4 Inspectors found that the programme

had been well structured and hadbeen clearly communicated todistricts. It had also includedfeedback from districts in its designand development. At the time ofinspection the programme had beenin existence for only seven months.The programme had been managedand governed through a programmeboard, corporate implementationteam and district implementationteams. The programme executive wasthe ACC for criminal justice whilstthe board was comprised of seniorusers and the senior supplier. Atthe time of inspection fieldwork, theProgramme Board had met twice.However, for the second meetingsome members had been absentand many of the senior users haddelegated responsibility to more

11 Report of the Independent Commission on Policing for Northern Ireland, 1999: 12.8

junior staff. Between February andDecember 2008 principals attendanceat the Governance Board had been45% and 47% at CorporateImplementation. Inspectors recognisethat senior users have busy schedules;however, having users present whoare empowered to take decisions atboard level would greatly improvethe chances of the programme beingdelivered. It would be helpful ifmembers of the NhP ProgrammeBoard would attend each boardmeeting in person. Minutes ofmeetings should be activelycommunicated and published to theservice through its intranet system(Policenet). This would reinforce tothe service in general, thecommitment of senior staff to thePwC ethos, and to NhP in particular.

3.5 Inspectors found that the PwCBranch, with limited resources, hadbeen actively promoting the NhPprogramme within police districts aswell as to DPPs at public meetings.It had consulted on the developmentof policies and one senior officer in apolice district said that, ‘The PwC teamhas been very good; they have adopteda participative style and kept us in theloop. A real departure for anyheadquarters department.’ The PwCBranch had used a variety of methodsof communication including adedicated section of the internalPSNI website to consult with officerson districts and to keep theminformed. Many officers said therehad been noticeable improvement inguidance and support in relation toNhP, from headquarters. However,lack of guidance on what NhP should

look like in a few years time, and thefact that the CORE recommendationshad not set resource levels for NhPwere regarded by officers in districtsas unhelpful. The decision as to thelevel of resources allocated to NhPvaried between districts and had beenentirely the responsibility of theDistrict Commander. There had beenno corporate prioritisation of theCORE work streams, of which NhPwas one; therefore the effectivenessof NhP within each district wasdependant on the priority given tothe programme by each Commander.Districts had identified the minimumlevel of resources for responsepolicing but no such minimum hadbeen set for neighbourhood teams.Corporately, minimum levels hadbeen set for TSGs and for MITs.The only protection from abstractionafforded to NhP teams was theservice procedure relating toabstraction. They were not protectedfrom abstraction by having recognisedand agreed minimum operating levels.Most forces in England and Waleshad defined parameters for their NhPteams setting out their composition.Parameters varied from force toforce depending on the approach,but the best performing forces had acommon standard of implementationacross the service area12. Settingminimum operating levels for NhPteams would help to deliver a bettercommunity-oriented local policingservice, and would raise the status ofNhP internally.

3.6 One of the major elements of theNhP programme had been theidentification of neighbourhoods.

12

12 HMIC Inspection Report: Lancashire Constabulary; October 2007

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PwC branch had undertakenconsultation internally as well asexternally with the NIPB DPPworking group and the DevolutionStakeholders Group. The work of theDepartment for Social Development(DSD) in identifying NeighbourhoodRenewal areas had been incorporatedinto the police methodology foridentifying neighbourhoods. A set ofguiding principles had been developedbased on internal and externalfeedback and these were flexibleenough to incorporate localcommunity needs. Inspectors foundvarying levels of implementation ofthese principles in districts. Forexample, at the time of inspection,‘A’ district had already establishedneighbourhoods around historicalboundaries and existing estates.To identify some neighbourhoodsthe district had also consulted withBelfast City Council. ‘D’ districthad used existing neighbourhoodboundaries identified around wards.At the same time ‘H’ district had alsobeen mapping neighbourhoods toelectoral wards whilst ‘F’ district hadbeen using a combination of pre-existing neighbourhoods, parishesand sometimes electoral wards.Some areas within the districts hadinvolved community partners indiscussions about identification ofneighbourhoods, for example, inAntrim. However, most areas hadused existing boundaries of one sortor another, and consultation had beenthrough existing channels such aspublic meetings of the DPPs.

Embedding PwC3.7 By March 2008 progress had been

made in embedding PwC principles inoperational units. Inspectors found

that the principles of PwC werepresent in the processes of crimeinvestigations. Policies such as thoserelating to community impactassessments had been deployed onmost occasions when undertakingoperations. Neighbourhood officersconfirmed that consultation withthem prior to, for example, searchoperations, had increased overthe year prior to the inspectionfieldwork. Officers at strategiclevel with crime investigationresponsibilities said that there hadbeen a conscious effort to improvethe effectiveness of operations byadopting PwC principles andcompleting impact assessments usingthe local insight of neighbourhoodofficers. Community impact is astanding agenda item on theirstrategic monthly managementprocess, and positive feedback frommembers of the community on thework of Family Liaison Officers(FLOs) was evident.

3.8 However, although there wereexamples of response officers usingPwC principles and problem solvingapproaches, these were the exceptionrather than the rule. Officers toldInspectors that due to pressures ofthe number of calls allocated tothem, they had little time to employproblem solving approaches. Officershad also experienced difficultyaccessing problem solving folderswhich had restricted their access to arepository of good practice recordedacross the service area. More workis required to be done to fully embedPwC principles throughout the PSNIin all operational units and policies.The principles need to be practicedwidely throughout the PSNI to

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establish it as its core function.Embedding PwC principles by way ofdeployment of policies, driven byleaders at strategic level, needs to besustained and further developedamongst all specialist units followingon from the positive steps alreadytaken with investigative processes.

Challenges3.9 At strategic level within districts

there had been recognition that NhPneeded to be made more attractiveto officers. However, thestereotypical image of neighbourhoodpolicing as amounting to social workand suited to those officers nearingthe end of their career, was stillpresent at operational levels. Manyneighbourhood officers and POPTsaid that their profile within theservice as a whole was not a positiveone, especially amongst officersyoung in service and those engagedin specialist work. Officers toldInspectors that this had beenexacerbated by some seniormanagers dissuading those young inservice that NhP would be a wisecareer choice, and instead promotingspecialist units. The work ofneighbourhood officers needs to bemarketed internally especially byDistrict Commanders who set thepolicing tone for their area.

3.10 PSNI Inspectors had been identifiedby all of the districts as being centralto the success or failure of the NhPprogramme. Some PSNI Inspectorssaid that they were unsure of theirrole in the programme since therank of Chief Inspector had beendesignated NhP lead for the districts.There was recognition within districtsthat the NhP programme needed to

be marketed better to Inspectors orthere was potential for someblockage. Some explanatory briefingshad taken place, for example in ‘F’and ‘H’ districts, but more workneeded to be done to ensure thatthe NhP programme was embracedby disenfranchised officers.

Recognition of good practice3.11 The service had been recognising

excellent work in PwC since 2004.High profile awards held each yearhad rewarded nominees from withinneighbourhood units for what theyhad achieved within communities.These awards had been extended toenable officers from all sections ofthe PSNI to be nominated, and this isto be welcomed as it had promotedthe ethos of PwC as being an integralpart of all policing activities. Thistype of marketing and recognition,which was not feasible when therewere 29 districts, could be furtherdeveloped at district level now thatthere are only eight large districts.Local recognition would improve theimage of NhP internally and mayassist in defining it as a viable careerpath for officers.

3.12 Many examples of excellent workperformed by NhP teams andindividual neighbourhood officerswere related to Inspectors bycommunity members, CSP co-ordinators and DPPs. The fourexamples outlined here are designedto give a flavour of the type ofwork found to be ongoing in eachof the districts visited. This work istestament to the commitment ofindividual officers and teams engagedwith neighbourhood policinginitiatives. Inspectors were also told

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of examples of some officersattending what they considered tobe important community meetings intheir own time, because they hadnot been empowered to adjust theirworking hours to accommodate suchmeetings. The service needs to moveto empower and entrust officerswithin its overall supervisoryframework, so that they can respondmore effectively to community needs.This is happening in some areas ofsome districts but it is not consistentacross the service area.

3.13 Successful PwC case studies include:

Coleraine NhPTeamThe Coleraine team polices a mixedreligion area comprising town centre,rural, private and public housing. Theteam piloted the use of POPT in NhPposts. Each officer is responsible for andaccountable to the communities withintheir geographical area. This includesstaffing police clinics, attending forumsand dealing with Level Two calls (non-response), problem solving, and generalNhP duties. Coleraine area producedevidence of a reduction of reportedincidents of anti-social behaviour (ASB).There was also evidence of partnershipworking and joint enforcement activityinvolving NhP officers, Council employees,Housing Executive officers, and Fire Serviceofficers. Occasionally joint operations hadbeen carried out with National Car Parksofficers and the Driver Vehicle TestingAgency. The team had been involved in ataxi forum, flag forum, neighbourhoodrenewal, community safety committee,midnight soccer, town centre partnershipand residents groups. Partner workingwith the community safety unit includedprojects such as a youth intervention

project in three areas of the town aimedat ASB. There had also been joint projectsaimed at protecting older and vulnerablepeople within the community. Inspectorswere told of the success of these andother projects by community members aswell as members of the DPP. There hadbeen measurable outcomes from thevarious projects in that reports of ASB haddeclined whilst referrals to Youth DiversionOfficers (YDOs) had increased.Community members also told Inspectorsthat NhP officers had policed bonfiresaround the town area which resulted indecreased tensions and a low number ofincidents. The PwC fund had been usedfor projects instigated by individual officers,and a radio link scheme of retailers hadreduced incidents of theft from shops.In various estates around the town,neighbourhood watch schemes had beensupported by NhP officers.

Moyle NhP team and CSPThe rural Moyle area had the highestconcentration of sheep in Europe andover a three year period theft of sheepin the area amounted to around 25%of all sheep thefts in Northern. Ireland.Individual identification of animals had notbeen possible as there had been no costeffective identification method availableto assist in preventing their theft.PSNI neighbourhood officers working inpartnership with the local farmingcommunity, community safety partnershipand the veterinary division of theDepartment of Agriculture and RuralDevelopment (DARD), encouraged farmersto report thefts and the initiative wassupported by consulting with farmersunions, the Agri Food and Bio SciencesInstitute (AFBI), the Agricultural Collegeand the Datatag Company. The

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partnership resulted in a three-tierapproach to the theft problem involvingbiometric scanning, property marking usingtransponder technology, and an alertsystem using text messaging. At the timeof inspection fieldwork, there had been nofurther incidents of theft of sheep in thearea and DARD had recognised thescheme as an example of good practice.

Lower Shankhill NhPA part-time police officer working in LowerShankill neighbourhood policing teamfollowing a contentious parade in 2005proposed she and her beat partner shouldperform a beat as a sign of reassurance tothe wider community and a sense ofreturn to normality. Tensions were veryhigh in the area but the officer was wellknown locally and used her communitycontacts to assess the response to theproposal. There was some resistance to itbut with her patrol partner she performedthe first beat. This was met with someabuse by some community membersbut she maintained her respect for theiropinion and began to establish bettercommunications with the community in atime of high tension. This allowed forvaluable conversations between herselfand the community, opening channels forfurther communication. The officer andher patrol partner maintained the onlybeat patrol of the area for a period ofaround three months continuing to delivera policing service to the community. In2007, the same officer helped to maintaincommunity relations following a series ofpolice searches and established links withcommunity groups. She ensured thatwomen in the area were supplied withpersonal attack alarms following a rape.Her actions had greatly contributed tobetter community relations in the area.

Roadsafe RoadshowThe Roadsafe Roadshow partnershipinitiative began in 2001 as an idea ofRoad Education Officers, part of RoadsPolicing. Successful approaches wereidentified as involving partnership withappropriate agencies, and as a resultother emergency services, Accident andEmergency hospital staff, and victimsof road accidents were approached.A roadshow was designed in consultationwith partners as the medium tocommunicate the issue to members of thecommunity most at risk. Whilst the PSNIare present, they do not take a centralrole leaving the actual presentation to avariety of people including otheremergency services, an A&E consultantand other individuals who have beenpersonally affected by road trauma.The roadshow currently takes the formof a professional stage presentation, witha complimentary educational supportpackage, accredited by educationalauthorities. Funding comes from externalsponsorship from the private sector. At thetime of inspection fieldwork Inspectorswere told that the roadshow had reachedaround 48,000 of its target audience,young people aged between 17 and 24.The roadshow challenges negative youngdriver behaviour in a relevant and non-confrontational way. The roadshow hadbeen adopted by some authorities in otherparts of the UK and the Republic ofIreland and as a cross-border initiativefunded by the European Commission.

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Resources into outcomes

CHAPTER 4:

PCSOs4.1 Police services in England and Wales

rely heavily on PCSOs to staffneighbourhood teams. One of thebest performing forces in this arena isLancashire which had adopted astructure of about 1000 smallneighbourhood teams. Feedbackfrom members of the public toLancashire police was that the smallteams had been extremely accessibleand involved at the street or estatelevel. Customer feedback on theperformance of these teams had beenregular and often carried out by wayof a telephone survey of a randomsample of people encountered by theteams. This sort of structure hadprovided for genuine accountability atneighbourhood level.

4.2 PSNI plans had been well advancedto recruit 400 PSCOs with a view tothem performing similar roles to thatundertaken in England and Wales.However, following recent fundingdecisions, the PSNI had decided notto recruit PCSOs. The decision notto recruit PCSOs coupled with thereduction of Reserve Constables, thestalling of recruitment of POPT anddeployment issues (includingrestricted working hours), hadimpacted on the PSNI’s ability toadequately staff NhP. There wereclear differences in approach as tohow resources may be found to

implement NhP. The view of thePSNI after exploring options with thefunding department, the NorthernIreland Office (NIO) was thatresources were fixed and this had ledto the decision not to recruit PCSOs.The Patten vision of placing PwC atthe core of all police activity wouldrequire a greater focus on realigningexisting resources to reflect thatapproach. PCSOs are unlikely to berecruited in the near future althoughat the time of report drafting,Inspectors were told that the PSNIwere investigating alternative ways offunding some recruitment. Duringthe fieldwork period some districtshad begun to supplement NhP teamsusing POPT.

4.3 The Patten Report suggested thatpolice numbers in NI should behigher than the (then) average of 1officer per 390 head of population inEngland and Wales. It proposed thatthe figure should be around 1 officerper 220 head of population and thatthis should be reviewed after a periodof ten years. The present number of7500 officers equates to 1 officer per226 head of population. The currentaverage figure in the MSF group(excluding the Metropolitan Police) is1 officer per 362 head of population.The report also stated that ‘it is animportant proposition of this report thatthe Chief Constable should have some

4.6 Police resources in NI compare veryfavourably with similar forces in

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discretion as to the precise numbers andranks of officers and civilians who shouldbe employed within the budget at his/herdisposal; so the figure of 7,500 is anotional one, which we believe shouldform the basis of the budget given to theChief Constable.’ Police services inEngland and Wales have greaterinfluence over the use of theirfunding and the composition of theirwork force. Officer numbers aredetermined by each service inconsultation with the Home Officeand the local Police Authority. Theparticular make-up of police servicesis a function of a tri-partiteconsultative process and not pre-determined. To enable the flexibilityof composition of the police servicedescribed in the Patten Report itwould be helpful if arrangementscould be developed in NorthernIreland which would enable thecomposition of the policeservice to be set by a tri-partitepartnership involving the ChiefConstable, the Ministry forPolicing and Justice, and theNIPB, whenever Policing andJustice is devolved.

Allocation of resources4.4 In October 2004 the PSNI reported

that there were 120 NhP teamsoperating with 875 officers assignedto community beat teams across the29 DCUs, and 775 consultativeforums of all types reported byDistrict Commands. Table 2illustrates the numbers of officersdeployed on NhP duties at the timeof the PSNI self-assessment inDecember 2007, compared to thefigures available as of 7 July 2008.Across the service, total numbers ofall ranks deployed to NhP decreased

from 616 to 562 in 2008. However,there was an increase of POPTdesignated to NhP teams. The overalltotal including POPT rose from 1140to 1335 between December 2007and 7 July 2008.

4.5 Resourcing was often raised by policeofficers as an issue whilst carryingout the inspection fieldwork. It wasalso raised on many occasions byconcerned members of the publicwho felt that the numbers of policeallocated to delivering local serviceshad declined. Without exception,community groups visited perceivedthat in the latter half of 2007 manyofficers engaged in neighbourhoodpolicing had been moved and thoseremaining had additional duties orneighbourhoods allocated to themwhich meant that service deliverywas spread much more thinly. Thisseems to be at odds with the figuresreported to Inspectors in the PSNIself-assessment and up to the periodof drafting the inspection report(Table 2). However, the perceptionamongst people receiving the servicewas based on their individualexperiences. Inspectors were told byofficers and members of the publicthat NhP officers had been removedfrom particular areas to bolsterpolice resources, for example, at nightclubs. The fact that this had beenhappening on the same evenings eachweek had been noticed by the publicand by those in the area engaged inanti-social behaviour. Members ofcommunities told Inspectors that theyfelt more vulnerable during the timesthat NhP officers were absent.

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Insp Sgt Const POPT

A District (North & West Belfast)

Pre Inspection (Dec 2007) 69 50

Post Inspection 10 43 53

B District (South & East Belfast)

Pre Inspection (Dec 2007) 9 13 85

Post Inspection 73 97

C District (Ards, Castlereagh,

North Down & Down)



D District (Antrim, Lisburn,

Newtownabbey & Carrickfergus)

Pre Inspection (Dec 2007) 8 14 64 95

Post Inspection 8 14 57 165

E District (Armagh, Craigavon,

Banbridge, Newry & Mourne)



F District (Cookstown, Omagh,

Fermanagh, Dungannon & S.Tyrone)


Post Inspection 9 42 44

G District (Foyle, Limavady,

trabane & Magherafelt)

Pre Inspection (Dec 2007) 9 15 67 68


H District (Coleraine, Ballymoney,

Moyle, Ballymena & Larne)



Total Number all ranks 616

Pre InspectionTotal 26 75 519 520 1140

Post InspectionTotal 21 57 498 759 1335

Total Number all ranks 562

Table 2 Officers in Neighbourhood PolicingTeams: 07/07/08

Great Britain (GB). Table 3 illustratesthe number of officers per head ofpopulation and it can be seen thatthe PSNI is still well ahead of all GBforces. The PSNI has 1/10th of anofficer more (per 1000 population)than the Metropolitan Police andover 2 officers (per 1000 population)more than Nottinghamshire Police.It is accepted that NI still has policingissues that are unique and which arerooted in the many years of conflict.Apart from legacy issues otherfeatures such as being unable, whennecessary, to share resources withneighbouring forces, and having aninternational land border to police,have impacted on budget andresource allocation. However, themove towards normalisation has beenrapid and represents an opportunityfor the PSNI to reassess itsstructures to reflect a changing workarena.

4.7 On visiting police stations duringfieldwork it was apparent toInspectors that many police officerswere engaged on tasks that did not

require the application of the powersof a Constable, for example, in policestation reception areas, Occurrenceand Case management Teams(OCMTs), and in call handling teams.It should be possible to free upofficers to undertake PwC activitiesby pursuing civilianisation as partof a wider process of workforcemodernisation. However, this longrunning programme had not deliveredthe numbers of officers required toeffectively deliver PwC. Themonitoring reports of the OOCreported little progress in freeing upofficers by using civilian staff whereappropriate and Inspectors foundthat this was still the case. Whereofficers had been freed up, it wasapparent that the focus was not onstrengthening PwC activities bybolstering neighbourhood policingteams. Table 2 illustrates thatnumbers of full-time NhP officershad decreased and teams had beensupplemented by using POPT.Inspectors found that call centreswere being staffed by teams of policeofficers when they could just as

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Table 3: Comparative numbers of officers per head of population using the MSFgroup and the Metropolitan Police

Population Officers* Officers per1,000 population

PSNI 1,698,000 7,500 4.42

Nottinghamshire 1,041,380 2,401 2.31

West Yorkshire 2,118,579 5,740 2.71

Greater Manchester 2,500,000 7,930 3.17

Northumbria 1,500,000 4,063 2.71

West Midlands 2,630,000 8,057 3.06

Metropolitan 7,200,000 31,090 4.32

* January 2008 figures from Home Office United Kingdom (UK) Police Directory to aid direct comparison.

effectively be staffed by non-policepersonnel with police expertise onhand as required. Officers werebeing used to staff OCMTs, someperforming the role of inputtinginformation which did not requirepolice powers. Officers fromspecialist units such as MajorInvestigation Teams (MITs) and TSGsprovide support to police Districts indealing with major crime and publicdisorder as well as other regularoperational support. However, thereis opportunity for more effective useof officers from specialist units tosupport PwC as the core function.

Police Officers Part-Time (POPT)4.8 Whilst these figures indicate an

increase in total officers assigned toNhP, Inspectors found that particularissues arose when deploying POPTto NhP teams. POPT had broughtadditional attributes to NhP teams.Similar to the concept of PCSOsoperating in GB police forces, Part-Time officers had been recruitedlocally to serve in their local area,where their skills and knowledgecould be used to the full. This hadprovided advantages in enhancedlocal knowledge and familiarity withlocal issues that may take Full-Timeofficers years to develop. However,Inspectors found that Part-Timeofficers often had limited availabilityto perform duty, partly due to theirother work commitments. Incontrast, PCSOs are full timeemployees without the samerestrictions of POPT as to theiravailability for duty.

4.9 Inspectors spoke with over 50 POPTin the four districts visited. Theirexperience of operating on the

ground differed markedly from theconcept of PwC proposed in thePatten Report. There wererestrictions on the total amount ofworking hours POPT were allowedto work. For most POPT, this hadbeen restricted to between 16 and20 hours a month. Their experiencewas that they had been used mainlyat night, due in part to them havingother work during the day, but somewhose full time employment involvedshift work said that they had notbeen deployed on day time policeduties except for special events.Only a handful of those interviewedhad any involvement with communityengagement initiatives, and most hadnever attended meetings of localcommunity groups in their POPTcapacity.

4.10 Whilst Inspectors found that POPThad been nominally deployed to NhPteams their supervision in somecases was allocated to a particularSergeant on their home station. NhPSergeants did not consider the Part-Time officers’ general supervision tobe within their remit whenever therewas an allocated Sergeant to performthat task. POPT interviewed in thetwo urban areas said that althoughthey were allocated to NhP teams,they did not feel an integral part ofthe team. They had usually beenallocated patrol duties accompanyingother POPT and rarely withFull-Time officers. NhP Sergeantsregarded them as additional supportrather than part of the team. ManyPOPT said that their experience ofregular officers was that they hadlittle regard for the skills andexperience of local issues theycould bring to the service.

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4.11 POPT were being attached to NhPunits more frequently as shownin Table 2. POPT bring a widerange of skills to the police family.Empowering them to use the skillsthey have as well as those they havebeen trained in, would support moreeffective deployment of NhP. Noneof those interviewed by Inspectorswere aware of any attempt to utilisetheir existing skills for the benefitof delivering a policing service inpartnership with the community. Askills audit had not been undertakenand NhP Sergeants in some areaswere not aware of the potential skillsavailable to them through theseofficers. Some POPT spoken to hadteaching qualifications but had notbeen considered for use in the PSNIschools programme. Examples werealso given of the under-use of POPTin relation to the training they hadreceived. All the officers spoke highlyof their training except for the factthat none had received a promisedaccreditation certificate from theUniversity of Ulster. However, POPTindicated that much of their traininghad remained unused. Sergeantsexplained this to Inspectors as beingdue to their limited availability whichcould cause delays in submittingessential paperwork. For example,POPT said that they had receivedtraining in how to deal with cases ofsudden death. However, none ofthose spoken to by Inspectors haddealt with such a case. Some POPTsaid they had often been deployedwithout having had adequate briefingand, since the reorganisation of theservice into eight districts, to areaswell away from their locality.

4.12 The views of POPT as regardstheir deployment and lack ofempowerment were consistentacross the service; however, thoseinterviewed in the two rural districtswere more positive about theircontribution to PwC. Whilst therewere particular localities in the ruraldistricts where all the issues raisedpreviously existed, for example,Ballymena, Larne, and Omagh, therewere other areas such as Enniskillenand Coleraine, where POPT felt thatthey were an integral part of the NhPteams and contributing significantly toPwC. If the service is to continuewith allocating POPT to NhP teamsas the alternative to using PCSOs,then it should consider ways tobetter utilise their existing skills andlocal knowledge and empower themto deliver a better service to thecommunity.

Training4.13 NhP officers felt that they had not

been sufficiently empowered todeliver local policing solutions totheir communities. Officers said thatthere had been little training forofficers deployed to NhP units sincethe demise of the Community BeatOfficers’ course in 2004. Sometraining had been delivered locallythrough District Training Officers(DTOs), for example in both ‘A’ and‘H’ districts. However, this traininghad been limited in its scope andcould not deliver training onidentified gaps such as negotiatingand influencing skills. At the timeof inspection there had been areview of training for neighbourhoodofficers and there was an intention

13 Topping, J. R. (2008)Training for Neighbourhood Policing:Views from the Front Line; and,Topping, J. R. (2008)Views from theCommunity Sector

to conduct a training needs analysis(TNA) with a view to designing anaccredited training package. This is anaspiration which Inspectors believeneeds to be pursued to equip NhPofficers with essential skills todeliver the ethos of policing withthe community effectively.

4.14 Results of the TNA, conductedamongst officers as well as withinthe community sector13, were madeavailable during the drafting ofthis report. It had found thatcommunities and officers recogniseda need for a more structuredcommunity involvement in trainingto build relationships as well asproviding the local context suchas knowledge of communityinfrastructures. Outsourcing of sometraining to the community sector wassuggested as a way of achieving this.It had also identified that there was aneed for more time to be spent onthe concepts of NhP during officer’straining and probationary periods.Skills identified by the TNA as beingnecessary for NhP officers, such asdeveloping and managing communityrelationships, should be interwovennot just into initial officer trainingbut also into detective training, POPTtraining, and other operationaltraining programmes, to fully embedPwC principles across the wholeservice.

4.15 In June 2005 the OOC reportedthat the recommendation that ‘allprobationary police officers shouldundertake the operational phases oftheir probationary training doing teampolicing in the community’ could not beimplemented. The Commissionerreported that the requirement had

proved impractical. At that time therole of NhP officers had not beenclearly articulated and thereforeprobationer officers’ developmentwas being impeded by a lack ofopportunity to apply basicenforcement and investigative skillsand, ‘This practice in effect clashed withthe requirements of the instrument usedto direct and assess probationerperformance.’ In March 2008 the roleof NhP officer had been betterdefined under the NhP programmeand had been expanded to includemuch of the policing activitiespreviously unavailable to probationersundertaking NhP work.

4.16 The PSNI probationer managementpolicy states that probationer officersmust spend a minimum of 12 weeksduring their two year probation withcommunity police teams. During theinspection fieldwork, officers onNhP units said that they rarely hadprobationer officers attached to themand when it did happen it was for avery limited time only; typicallytwo days to one week. However,Inspectors were told by supervisorsthat once the officers had beenabsorbed by sections they had to‘sink or swim’ and that any ethos ofcommunity policing was likely to beswamped by the high demands ofresponse policing with limitedresources.

4.17 Some districts, for example, ‘H’district, were moving to havingprobationer officers spend their first2 weeks on district with NhP units,co-ordinated through ProfessionalDevelopment Officers (PDOs). Thisis a positive development. All thesupervisors spoken to as part of the

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inspection recognised that the firstfew weeks spent on district werevery important in helping to formnewly appointed officers’ approach.

4.18 NhP officers had been dealing withvirtually the same range of incidentsthat probationers would encounteron response duties with theexception of being the first attendeesat a scene. The majority of skills thatprobationer officers are expected toprovide evidence of in theirdevelopment portfolio would beencountered whilst performingneighbourhood duties. Any gaps inthe skills base, such as firstattendance at scenes, could becovered by short attachments toresponse policing. This structurewould better reflect the Patten visionof PwC being the core of policing towhich officers could return followingshort development opportunitieselsewhere in the service.

4.19 To embed PwC principles takeslonger than a period of a few weeksand more than a series of lessons,however good or well integrated theyare within the curriculum, deliveredat the Police College. Theknowledge, understanding, skills,attitudes, and behaviour articulatedduring initial training requires anurturing approach when officers firstengage on patrol work so that theybecome ‘second nature’ as espousedby former ACC Sheridan. At thetime of inspection fieldwork, someprobationers had been undertaking aperiod of 10 weeks tutorship onarrival at districts which includedshort attachments to some specialistunits such as the case building teams.This followed training at the Police

College and a 10 week period ofoperational training both of whichhad integrated elements of PwC inlessons throughout the programme.The PwC elements often had notbeen overtly identified or measuredin terms of lesson objectives orevaluations, and at the time ofinspection fieldwork the foundationprogramme was under review.Inspectors believe that a moreovert approach to PwC principlesthroughout the training programmewould assist officers and help toembed the principles in the widerpolice service.

4.20 The focus of officers’ developmentneeds to move from response toPwC so that it becomes embedded asthe preferred policing ethos of theorganisation. To help embed theethos in newly attested officers, PSNIshould consider attaching probationerofficers to NhP units for the wholeof their 10 week tutorship period(identified as weeks 11–20 in theprobationer management policy).This should include shortattachments to response policingco-ordinated by the PDOs, so thatthey can better assimilate the skillsrequired to effectively deliverpolicing based on PwC principles.Probationer officers should then berequired to undertake a further twofour week periods of attachment toNhP teams. The first should be justprior to their attendance at StageFour of their training, and the secondshould be just prior to theirconfirmation in the rank of Constable.

Abstraction4.21 An issue that was raised repeatedly

with Inspectors during fieldwork

25

was that of officers being removedtemporarily but frequently fromNhP duties (abstraction). Officers(including POPT) spoken with in allthe districts visited said that the focuswas on supporting response policingat the expense of NhP teams.For example, shift changes hadbeen imposed on NhP officerspurely to provide minimum numbersfor response teams. The issue ofabstraction had also been a recurringtheme of the OOC reports, whichfound that officers allocated toNhP work were often redirecteddepending on local demands.Officers told Inspectors that this hadoften been done to deal with specificincidents of public disorder or toprovide additional police at nightclubs away from the NhP officers’normal patrol area. Officersundertaking locally delivered NhPtraining had also been abstractedto perform other duties when therehad been a shortage of personnel.

Call Handling4.22 Districts had centralised their call

handling facilities. For example, ‘H’district’s call handling centre hadbeen relocated to Coleraine whilst‘D’ district had located theirs inAntrim. Local DPP members andother people from community groupssaid they had been told local issueswould continue to be dealt with bystaff that possessed relevant localknowledge based in the central callhandling facility. However, membersof the public who had contacted thepolice for assistance gave severalexamples of problems in makingreports to the call handling centres.In many cases, it was apparent to themember of the public that the call

handler had no appreciation of whatthey believed to be relevant localinformation. This often related torepeat occurrences such as persistentanti-social behaviour in a particularlocale, or of damage to property andeven dangerous driving. Thecomplainants said that this comparedunfavourably with previous, morelocally delivered services.

4.23 Lack of effective call handling hadimpacted on the ability of the PSNI toeffectively discharge PwC obligations.Members of the community andDPPs concluded that it had affectedservice delivery, exacerbatingproblems caused by already thinlyspread resources. From discussionsInspectors had with members of thecommunity, this situation hadnegatively affected public perceptionof the police. Call handling had beenidentified by the PSNI as an area fordevelopment.

4.24 The PSNI had instigated ProjectUnity, to deliver effective call handlingand call management by 2010.However, in August 2008 followingthe CSR this project, in the same wayas the PCSO project, had been put onhold. DPP and community groupmembers had been briefed on ProjectUnity and many told Inspectors thatthe delay of this project was oneamongst many examples of thepolice, ‘over promising but underdelivering.’ Effective call handling iscentral to delivering PwC. Underpresent arrangements, Inspectorsfound that NhP officers in some areashad become a second tier responseunit, dealing with calls that wouldotherwise have been allocated adifferent police response. Inspectors

26

found that the call handling systemcurrently in place was staff intensiveand had created lists of incidents forNhP officers to deal with when theyreturned to duty. This had resulted inofficers spending much of their dutytime following up calls that had notbeen subject to adequate scrutinyand categorisation. This meant thatthe time NhP officers could spendactually pro-actively patrolling theirareas had been reduced. A moreeffective system of call managementwould enable NhP officers to befreed up to undertake more pro-active patrolling in their areas therebyimproving accessibility and visibility.

4.25 During the drafting of this reportInspectors were told of a schemebeing implemented by ‘H’ districtdesigned to enhance their callhandling arrangements. The schemehad been well thought out andconsultation had taken place withpolice headquarters. Although thescheme was not sophisticated in thatit would rely on existing technology,it nevertheless would provide callhandlers with the means to dealmore effectively with callmanagement decisions. The proposalshad been designed to enable themore effective delivery of PwC as thecore of police activity in ‘H’ district.The scheme went live in December2008, therefore Inspectors are unableto comment on its effectiveness.This initiative is commendable anddemonstrates the district’sdetermination to deliver a betterservice for its public. Inspectorswere confident that the schemewould help deliver better callhandling services for ‘H’ district.The project in H District had been

developed in consultation withProject Unity and the PSNI intendedthat it should be implemented as aproof of concept, designed tofacilitate early thoughts on corporatestrategic direction. Call managementis a service-wide problem on whichall districts need to be supported aseffective call management is a criticalenabler of PwC. Inspectorsrecommend that as a matter ofurgency PSNI develop andimplement a service-wide callmanagement strategy thatreflects advances in technologyto enable effective call handlingin support of the delivery ofPwC.

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Partnership andCommunity Engagement

CHAPTER 5:

Introduction5.1 Partnership in policing is an

important factor in makingcommunities safer and in helpingpeople to feel safer within theircommunities. The Patten Reportconstantly referred back to theBelfast Agreement regarding‘constructive and inclusive partnershipswith the community at all levels’ andmany of the report’s recommendationshad been designed to provide aframework for such partnershipworking arrangements. Morerecently, the importance ofpartnership working was recognisedby the Criminal Justice and PolicingMinister when he paid tribute tomembers of the CSPs and DPPs fromacross NI ‘for the crucial and valuablecontribution they are making in creatingsafer communities’.

5.2 Internal partnerships are alsoimportant in pursuing the PwCethos. This had been recognisedby PwC branch in implementingits consultative and inclusiveprogramme to work through the25 recommendations to embedneighbourhood policing. The workit did to establish agreement onapproaches across the eight policedistricts was recognised as helpful bysenior officers on districts as well asby local DPPs. Internal partnerships

between the PwC unit and otherspecialist operational roles, as well aswith Human Resources in the PSNI,could be further developed so thatthe status of PwC becomes elevatedto become the core function of thewhole service. Without buy-in fromthese internal strategic partners,embedding PwC as the core policingfunction will not happen. Just asexternal partnership is central toaccountability, internal partnership iscentral to effective deployment of anyagreed PwC strategy.

Building engagement with localcommunities5.3 Frameworks for developing external

partnerships were set out in thePatten Report and had been centralto the development of properaccountability. The creation of anindependent policing board (NIPB)provided a tier of accountability forthe new policing service. Furtherpartnership tiers were added by theformation of DPPs and following the2000 Review of Criminal Justice, CSPsbecame fully operational from 2004onwards having been piloted in someareas, such as Antrim. Developmentof Neighbourhood Watch andassociated schemes in partnershipwith the PSNI had also been animportant element of policing inpartnership.

5.4 The development of the CSPs hasalready been commented on by CJIin our report published in November200614. PwC inspection fieldworkwas aimed at establishing the extentto which NhP had interacted with theactivities of CSPs and how cohesivethe approach to establishing safercommunities was. The same can besaid of the inspection approach toDPPs. Although their function differssignificantly from CSPs, they areimportant contributors to publicconfidence in delivering the NhPprogramme.

5.5 Inspectors found that there had beenmany instances of excellent workbeing progressed locally under thedirection of CSP co-ordinators andwith the active participation of localpolice. Many projects undertakenlocally aimed at improving communitysafety had been instigated by localNhP officers and at least partfinanced by the PwC fund. This fund,which had been started in 2005, hadapproved over 277 partnershipprojects that had received matchedfunds from other statutory andvoluntary organisations. The grossspend at the time of inspection wasaround £2.8 million pounds whichhad contributed significantly todelivering PwC to local communities.However, Inspectors were told thatthe future sustainability of the fundwas in question following thespending review. Loss of the fundwould deal a blow to thesustainability of projects financed byit and overall could impact on theeffectiveness of how PwC is deliveredin local communities.

5.6 Partnership is one of thecornerstones of effective policing.Inspectors found that the PSNI hadbeen developing and maintainingpartnerships with many of the mainstatutory groups, and that individualofficers had forged relationships withlocal community groups. Much of thedevelopment in this area was inprogress during inspection fieldwork.A ‘policing in partnership’ programmedesigned to build trust betweencommunities and the police was inoperation. This had been deployed asfar as District management teamswith aspirations to extend it tooperational level. Independentadvisory groups (IAGs) had beenformed and had been working closelywith the police with regard to youth,older people, disabled people, andmulti-cultural communities. Forexample, four separate district basedIAGs for youth had been establishedwithin ‘C’, ‘E’, ‘F’ and ‘G’ districts.Since inspection fieldwork, a businessadvisory forum had been formed tofurther implement the business crimestrategy approved by the ChiefConstables Forum (CCF) and theNIPB. In addition, a PSNI PartnershipPolicy had been approved in June2008.

5.7 The establishment of Key IndividualNetworks (KIN) had been veryeffective in developing NhP in forcesin England and Wales. KINs areusually a representative cross sectionof individuals who play a key role inthe community (e.g. communitywardens, rangers, business ownersand shop keepers, faith grouprepresentatives, young people,

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14 An Inspection of Community Safety Partnerships; CJI, November 2006

residents and those who work andcommute in the area). The PSNI haddecided to use the term ActiveCitizen Network (ACN) to moreaccurately describe what theyintended to establish along the samelines as KIN. Although the termACN was not widely known amongstneighbourhood and other policeofficers, the NhP officers had beeneffectively developing networks intheir local areas. At the time ofinspection fieldwork the developmentof these networks was well underway in most districts building onpreviously established links.

5.8 Despite the myriad of projectsInspectors found had beenundertaken locally such as; theSmartwater project, Crumlin; thetrailer marking project in Omagh;and the Seafront Rangers project inBallycastle; we found little evidenceof overall co-ordination of theseactivities within the wider PwCagenda. Evaluation of theeffectiveness of projects had only juststarted in some areas, such as Antrimand Ballycastle, whilst in other areas,evaluations had not got past theplanning stage. The interaction of alarge group of partners includingcommunity wardens, security staff,rangers, police, council officers andcommunity volunteers in effectivelypolicing with the community was, inmost areas, ad-hoc and without anoverall focus. Despite this Inspectorsfound that community memberswere aware of the existence ofvarious projects, though often nottheir origins or detail, and had beenwelcoming of them.

Structures for engagement5.9 The PSNI had re-organised into eight

operational districts ahead of the finaloutcomes of the RPA. Inspectorsfound that the move from 29 districtsto eight had an impact on communityperception of policing services.The majority of people from thecommunity that Inspectors spokewith said that they now felt moredistanced from the police than theyhad done previously. Many attributedthis to their experience of callhandling in districts since the re-organisation. However, some alsosaid that they had felt more distancedbecause of less contact with DistrictCommanders, and perceived thatthere had been a decrease inopportunities to consult directlywith officers empowered to makedecisions regarding use of localresources. Re-organisation of thedistricts from 29 to eight had alsoresulted in some mismatching ofboundaries with partner agencies.A decision to move to 11 councilareas had caused further uncertaintywithin the PSNI at district level, as toboundaries and identification of localpartners to enable them to developand sustain the delivery of PwC inthe future.

5.10 In some districts the structure ofconsultative meetings had beenretained along the lines of pre-existing Community Police LiaisonCommittees (CPLCs). One of the25 recommendations of the NhPprogramme was to establish aneighbourhood consultative forum ineach neighbourhood in accordancewith Partners And Community

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Together (PACT) principles.Inspectors found that PACT wasbeing pursued in different ways by thedistricts. ‘H’ district had used PACTprinciples as an umbrella structurefor what had already been happening.The district had formed a strategicfocus group with representation fromall 5 DPP’s in the district. At the timeof fieldwork, the focus group hadbeen charged with establishing aworking definition of NhP whichshould assist with the properrecording and monitoring ofabstraction rates of NhP officers.

5.11 The variation in approach by districtsreflected a flexible approach by PwCBranch. Each district had beenexpected to develop a consultativeforum based on PACT principles, buttaking account of local communityneeds. Districts visited had broadlydelivered on this expectation.However, members of the communityspoken to by Inspectors weregenerally not aware of this approach.Communication with localcommunity groups needs to be clear,open, and comprehensive to avoidalienating people who already feelmore distanced from police followingreorganisation into larger districts.The onus is on police DistrictCommanders to find more effectiveways of communicating withcommunities and either fulfilling,where possible, or managing theirexpectations of local policing.The formulation of a districtcommunication strategy based onPwC principles, would help thefurther development of communityengagement.

5.12 In England and Wales partnershipsare cemented by legislation (Crimeand Disorder Act 1998) whichestablished obligatory partnershipsbetween the police, local authorities,probation service, health authorities,the voluntary sector, as well as localresidents and businesses. No suchlegislation exists in Northern Ireland.Inspectors were told by the majorityof community groups, DPP membersand CSPs that such legislation mayhelp to get people moving in thesame direction, thus providing aco-ordinated approach to reducingcrime and anti-social behaviour at alocal level. The present situationencountered by Inspectors haddelivered some good partnershipworking, but often this had beeninconsistent across the service areaand within districts. Communitymembers in rural areas felt that theyhad been involved only on theperiphery, and only because of theirown determination to enhance thepolicing service that they hadexperienced in their area. Followingon from the RPA, making partnershiparrangements obligatory could helpto deliver better co-ordinated andintegrated local policing services.Inspectors recommend thatlegislation is introduced,equivalent to the Crime andDisorder Act 1998 to establishobligatory partnerships so that amore cohesive approach to localpolicing and community safetystrategies can be implemented.

Monitoring5.13 The NIPB committed to delivering

PwC by establishing NhP in allDistricts as set out in the PolicingPlan 2007.

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Policing Plan 2007 – 10Domain 2.0 To ensure that PwC isat the core of the delivery of the policingservicePerformance indicator 2.1Implementation of the PwC strategy byestablishing the NhP model in allDistricts

The NIPB monitors theimplementation of the PwC strategyby requiring the PSNI to report to itsCommunity Engagement Committeetwice yearly, in particular, to establishthe extent to which PwC has becomethe ethos in all areas of policing.The NIPB had commissioned workon a framework for measuringprogress of PwC and NhP whichhad been carried out by a formermember of the OOC. The reportprovided the NIPB with exampleperformance measurements on bothPwC and NhP. The PSNI arereporting to the NIPB against targetsset out in the framework and expectthese to be further refined followingfeedback on their operation.

5.14 One of the NIPB continuousimprovement targets was ‘To increasethe engagement of neighbourhoods inthe prevention of crime’. Measurabletargets had been set and publishedwithin the policing plan 2008 – 11 fordelivery of PwC:

To demonstrate our contribution to theestablishment of community engagementmeetings in line with Partners andCommunity Together (PACT) model in allneighbourhoods, reporting twice yearly tothe Board.

9.1.2 To ensure that NeighbourhoodOfficers work at least 80% of their dutyhours on neighbourhood policing duties.

5.15 NIPB has a central role in furtheringPwC practice and principles in thePSNI. Performance targets set out inthe policing plan have become thefocus of police activity and resourcesand structures are aimed at deliveringagainst these targets. Inspectorswere told that performance againstprevious policing plan targets hadbeen integrated into DistrictCommanders’ performanceassessment with regional ACCs.Targets had been quantitative and thePSNI had performed well againstthose targets over the past few years.However, performance and targetsetting elsewhere had been evolvingtowards more qualitative styletargets. For example, Chapter 7 ofthe Green Paper15 sets out how theGovernment intends that policeservices in England and Wales willdeliver improved performance. Itconcentrates on developing lessreliance on top down targets, and anemphasis on a system in which policeservices are held to account muchmore at local level and assessedusing a qualitative framework. Localarrangements in Northern Irelandfocus not on local accountability(paragraph 4.11) but on DPPs:• identifying community concerns

regarding the policing of thedistrict;

• providing views to the policeconcerning the policing of thedistrict; and

• making arrangements for obtainingthe co-operation of the public inthe prevention of crime.

The development of a system toimprove local accountability inNorthern Ireland using a qualitative

15 Policing Green Paper, published on 17 July 2008

framework of measurement wouldreflect the maturation of the systemin England and Wales. Inspectorsrecommend that the principlesof improving police performanceas outlined in the Chapter 7 ofthe ‘Policing’ Green Papershould be extended to NorthernIreland.

DPPs5.16 The Patten report described real

partnership between the police andthe community as: ‘a partnership basedon openness and understanding; apartnership in which policing reflectsand responds to the community’s needs’.The mechanisms for creating such apartnership proposed by the reporthad been the NIPB and DPPs.However, Inspectors were told bymany DPP members that thepartnership between them and thepolice had not been an equitable one.This message was consistent andwent across political divides. It wasexpressed to Inspectors in differentways but the message was the same.DPP members felt that they were notbeing listened to by the police.They said that especially during publicmeetings, but also at other times thepolice had been very defensive, hadused what they described as the‘excuse’ of lack of resources todefend their position, and, were notresponding to community concernsproperly raised. There werefrustrations amongst many DPPmembers over what they saw aslack of progress in adopting a PwCethos. Conversely, police officerstold Inspectors that they regardedDPP members as too parochial and

lacking understanding of many of therestrictions that the PSNI operatedunder.

5.17 DPPs were active in partnership withthe police in their other areas ofresponsibility, for example, identifyingcommunity concerns regarding thepolicing of the district and providingviews to the police concerning thepolicing of the district. However,other groups spoken to by Inspectorshad also provided very similarinformation to local police. Forexample, Loughgiel CommunityAssociation had provided informationon anti-social behaviour in an effortto boost local policing services.CSPs such as Ballycastle had alsoundertaken projects identifying areasof concern to local people. Theseand many other initiatives instigatedby local groups, indicated a realwillingness on the part of localcommunity groups to engage withthe police, and to provide informationon those incidents which had a highimpact on quality of life but hadoften gone under-reported. Such highvolume, under-reported incidents orcrimes have been termed ‘signalcrimes or signal disorder16’. The useof the signal crimes perspective andother social indicators, may help thePSNI to better gain communityinsight and to improve localpartnership working.

5.18 DPP members admitted that attimes their understanding of policeprocedures and restrictions couldhave been better, and at those times,they felt less able to effectivelymonitor police performance against

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16 Innes, M. (2004) “Signal crimes and signal disorders: notes on deviance as communicative action”, British Journal of Sociology.(55/3) pp. 335-55

local policing plans. There was acertain frustration amongst DPPmembers that the role as definedunder the Police (Northern Ireland)Act 2000 (as amended), did notinclude responsibility to hold localpolice to account for theirperformance. This role is assigned tothe NIPB. Given that, DPP membersrecognised the extent of theiractivities, but regarded effectivemonitoring of performance as beingable to ask searching questions oflocal police. To an extent this hadbeen happening by being able to tablequestions in advance and receivinganswers. However, this was whereDPP members had experienceddefensiveness on the part of thepolice, and many said that they feltunder prepared as regardsunderstanding some of thetechnicalities of policing. Inspectorsexperienced this at first hand duringan open meeting where a questionhad been answered in terms thatmembers of the public, and DPPmembers present, found difficult tounderstand.

5.19 DPP managers told Inspectors thatthe PSNI had developed a knowledgesharing project to encourage theexchange of ideas and problem-solving initiatives, both internallyand externally, to promote public co-operation with policing. Workshopscovering subjects such as youthissues, damage, burglary, and violentcrime had been held for DPPmanagers in 2006. The workshopsincluded input from communitypolice officers setting out initiatives

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they had undertaken to deal withcrime and the fear of crime. DPPmanagers said that the workshopshad been useful and that they wouldlike to see the initiative expanded toinclude other groups external to thePSNI. The NIPB Annual Report intoHuman Rights17 reported that ‘Weconsider that the knowledge sharingworkshop is a very positive initiative,demonstrating pro-active partnershipdevelopment by the PSNI’. The reportwent on to recommend that ‘ThePSNI consider extending this modelto a variety of partnership agencies’.The NIPB 2008 Annual Report intoHuman Rights18 stated that therecommendation had beenimplemented. This is a very positivedevelopment that should help tofurther develop effective partnershipworking and empower partnerscharged with monitoringresponsibilities to effectivelydischarge their obligations.

Wider community engagement5.20 Partnership between the PSNI and

community restorative justice groupswas sporadic. In some areas, forexample, the Twinbrook area ofBelfast, there had been goodexamples of partnership workingbased on clear understanding ofeach others’ respective roles, and ongood personal relationships betweenneighbourhood officers and schememembers. However, the sustainabilityof such relations was questioned bycommunity partners followingredeployment of police officers toother duties. In other areaspartnership working with restorative

17 Monitoring the compliance of the PSNI with the Human Rights Act 1998:Annual Report 200718 Monitoring the compliance of the PSNI with the Human Rights Act 1998:Annual Report 2008

justice schemes had not beenadvanced as far, but this shouldimprove when the schemes areaccredited. Partnerships in areaswhere policing services hadpreviously been limited, are veryimportant to produce conditions thatcould help deliver PwC in localcommunities. It was these same,often socially deprived areas that hadthe least coverage of NhW schemes.

5.21 The amount of information providedto the police from disparate sourceshad made it more difficult for DistrictCommanders to identify localpriorities and deliver policing basedon community needs. As outlined inthe CJI report on CSPs19 there aremany local partnerships impactingon policing. These include: LocalStrategic Partnerships; NeighbourhoodRenewal Partnerships;AreaPartnership Boards; BelfastRegeneration Office; DPPs and CSPs.In those areas where DPPs and CSPsworked closely together such as inAntrim, Coleraine and Enniskillen,there was more of a cohesiveapproach to providing the police withlocal input and securing co-operation.However, following on from the RPA,Inspectors believe now would be anopportune time to implement therecommendation set out in ourreport into CSPs that: ‘As regardsthe future relationship betweenCSPs and DPPs, the optimumposition post-RPA would be tohave one operational communitysafety/policing tier in each councilarea. We would recommend policymakers to look again at the visionlaid out in the Patten Report and

echoed to some extent in theCriminal Justice Review.’

5.22 Inspectors found that NhP officershad been actively engaged indeveloping partnerships withcommunity groups, statutory andnon-statutory bodies, often in theirown time. Individual officers receivedmuch praise from community groupsin all of the four districts visited forthe commitment they had given todelivering PwC in local areas.The actions of these officers wereamongst the most positive aspectsof the inspection fieldwork. In thewords of one community memberbut echoed by many others, ‘they haddone the same as some of us and tookrisks to make the community safer.’However, members of variouscommunity groups had providedexamples of officers cancelling theirattendance due to being abstractedaway from NhP duties or beingunable to adjust their shift patternto enable them to attend. This hadresulted in disappointment amongstsome community groups and aquestioning of the organisation’scommitment to PwC as the corepolicing function

NeighbourhoodWatch5.23 The importance of NhW schemes in

the North American context wasreferred to in Chapter 1. Just priorto the inspection fieldwork, NhWschemes had been reported on in areport commissioned by the NIPB onbehalf of a partnership supportingNhW comprising the PSNI, NIPB andthe Community Safety Unit (CSU) ofthe NIO20. The report recognised

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19 An Inspection of Community Safety Partnerships; CJI November 200620 Research into the Views and Experience of People Involved in Neighbourhood Watch Schemes in Northern Ireland: November 2007

NhW initiatives as having animportant role to play in communitysafety and Inspectors found thatwhere there were schemes inoperation, members of thecommunity said they felt betterconnected to local policing services,for example, in the Coleraine area.Some NhP officers had been active inhelping NhW co-ordinators andmany community groups werepositive about the work they did.The CSU reported that there wereover 300 schemes in operationcovering around 30,000 households.However, in many areas schemes hadbeen difficult to set up often due tohistorical mistrust. Inspectors foundthat NhP officers had beensupportive of schemes but weretold by many officers that theirinput had been limited due to otherpriorities, both core neighbourhoodissues and other policing duties.A recommendation of the NIPBcommissioned report was that, ‘PSNIstandardises the police approach toNeighbourhoodWatch schemes. Thiscould include appointing designatedpolice contact(s) in each commandunit and for all NeighbourhoodWatchschemes. The police officer(s) shouldensure that a variety of means ofcontact between the police and schemeare made available including meetings,phone and email etc.’ Whilst somepolice officers had been veryactive with local NhW schemes,Inspectors did not find evidencethat a standardised approach hadbeen deployed across the service.Inspectors believe that implementationof the recommendation in the CSUreport to standardise the approachto NhW schemes, would helpimprove PwC.

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Introduction6.1 To establish community perceptions

of how policing with the communitywas being delivered, Inspectorsexamined public survey data as wellas conducting many face to faceinterviews with individuals and focusgroups. These groups represented awide variety of communities, urbanand rural, across the four policedistrict areas included in theinspection fieldwork. The fieldworkfocused on obtaining information asto how police were perceived locally,and in particular, how PwC wasbeing delivered through the NhPprogramme and other initiatives.

6.2 In 2000, nationalists were reported asbelieving there was a deep rootedantipathy towards them within thepolice (at that time the Royal UlsterConstabulary), whilst unionistsbelieved that the police gavepreferential treatment tonationalists21. The communityconsultation carried out byInspectors indicated that bothnationalists and unionists werekeen to engage effectively with thePSNI to help deliver local policing.

Survey data6.3 During the drafting of this report the

most recent public attitude surveyfigures were published by the NIPBbased on the questions contained inthe Omnibus survey carried out bythe Northern Ireland Statistics andResearch Agency (NISRA)22. Many ofthe questions in the survey relate tooverall performance of the PSNIacross Northern Ireland. However,for the first time in the survey therewere three questions particularlyaimed at neighbourhood policing.NISRA reported that 64% ofrespondents had heard of NhP.Of those who had heard of it, 26%thought it was working well or verywell, and 29% said that they knewthat a neighbourhood/communitypolicing team operated in their area.Whilst overall performance may bemeasured from such a baseline, theinformation cannot be disaggregatedinto more useful local data for useby police District Commanders.

6.4 Whilst it is useful to have suchsurvey data, it provides only high levelinformation which is of limited use topolice District Commanders who do

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Community Perspective:A window of Opportunity

CHAPTER 6:

21 Attitudes to the Criminal Justice System; Review of the Criminal Justice System in Northern Ireland March 2000; Research report 12:Seamus Dunn,Valerie Morgan and Helen Dawson

22 Full report available at http://www.nipolicingboard.org.uk/index/publications/omnibus-surveys.htm

not receive a local detailedbreakdown of the figures. In stepwith the moves in England and Walesto drive accountability to a morelocal level, it would be useful tosurvey less often (presently twice ayear) and with more local detail. Thiswould provide District Commanderswith detailed information so thatpolicing services could be betterdirected towards those issues thatare of particular local relevance.Providing local data is presently oftendone by DPPs, augmented by CSPs,and various local community groups.For example, in 2008 a DPP surveyreported that 8% of people knew thenames of or recognised the policeofficers policing their local area.Having a more co-ordinated approachto collecting local information,involving all relevant local groupsand producing a comprehensiveset of data, would help the processof setting local policing plans andpriorities for neighbourhoods.Including questions in local surveyson NhP would also provide detailedlocal data on which to assess theperformance of local Commanders indelivering PwC.

The community perspective6.5 Because this was the first time NhP

questions had been included on theomnibus survey, it was not possible torefer to previous figures with regardto comparing police performance inthese three question areas. However,Inspectors collected a large amountof qualitative data from meetings withDPPs, CSPs, community groups, andtenants associations. A wide range ofissues were raised regarding policingwith the community and numerousexamples were provided to

Inspectors that could not always beverified. However, from all of themeetings there were three mainissues that were common to all fourof the police districts. They were:

• Accessibility;• Engagement and consultation; and• Visibility.

Accessibility6.6 The rationale of closing some small

PSNI stations had been understoodby many members of the communityspoken with by Inspectors. However,promises of effective alternativearrangements had, in many cases, notbeen delivered, for example, mobilepolice stations and police clinics.Where these had been providedsuch as in ‘F’ district and parts of ‘H’district, members of the communitywere positive about their experiencesof them, whilst recognising they gavelimited access to opportunities offace to face contact. Communitymembers said they felt moredistanced from the police followingreorganisation into eight districts andthe centralisation of call handlingarrangements. Many communitymembers spoken with said thatthey had experienced difficultiesin obtaining response to incidentsthey had reported to the police.They attributed this to a lack ofunderstanding of local issues onthe part of the call handler. Peoplecontrasted this with previousexperiences of being able to access acall handler with knowledge of localissues. Incidents of repeat anti-socialbehaviour, including minor damage,nuisance and driving incidents, had inthe views of members of the public,not received the appropriateresponse. Most community members

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spoken with perceived that DistrictCommanders had become moreremote since reorganisation. Policehad experienced a similar situation inEngland and Wales followingcentralisation of call handling andthe establishment of larger districts.This places even more onus onDistrict Commanders to establisheffective and inclusive consultationarrangements with local communities.

Engagement and consultation6.7 Within communities Inspectors found

that there was a willingness to engagewith the PSNI and recognition ofsome excellent local, often individualwork, being undertaken by NhPofficers. The overwhelming view ofpeople was that the present situationrepresented an opportunity to fill thepolicing void in some areas where ithad been seriously lacking in the past.But there was also a strong viewthat this opportunity would not last.Inspectors were given examples ofincidents that had not been resolvedby the police and where paramilitarygroups had been approached bymembers of the community to dealwith, for example, anti-socialbehaviour. Members of thecommunity said that this had arisenout of frustration with perceived lackof action on the part of police.These claims were made by severalmembers of different communitygroups in areas where traditionallythere would have been at least tacitsupport for the police. Inspectorswere told by people in thesesituations that they feared that thistrend would continue, and that theopportunity for police to engage anddeliver PwC in their areas, was timelimited. Inspectors were told that

the approaches had not resultedin any action, but that people incommunities were apprehensive of areturn to this style of ‘self-policing’.Inspectors found that within thesecommunities, there was an eagernessfor real engagement with the policeto deal with issues such as anti-socialbehaviour, that severely impacted onquality of life issues.

Consultation by the PSNI wasregarded by many community groupsas an exercise in ‘fait accompli’ withan attitude of ‘PSNI know best’. Theydid not consider the ethos or style ofthe PSNI to be community focused.All of the groups spoken to believedthe Patten vision for policing with thecommunity had not been delivered.Group members who had in theirown words been, ‘putting their neckson the line to make a difference’ saidthey would like to see PSNI engagebetter with their communities.The overall perception was that thepolice were not really committed tocommunity policing. In order tobetter manage public expectations,there needs to be more effectiveconsultation, dialogue andengagement with communities bydistrict management teams with anemphasis on customer focus.

Visibility6.8 Communities had recognised that

there had been neighbourhood teamsoperating in their areas. Membersof groups said that they knew theofficers allocated to their area byname and that these officers hadbeen very active in delivering policingusing the PwC ethos. However, mostgroups at the time of inspectionfieldwork, said they had detected a

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decrease in the visibility of officers intheir area. The advantage of knowingofficers by name had meant thatcommunity members had been ableto identify very clearly when theywere absent from the area.Community members said thatneighbourhood officers had beenallocated extra areas to police andalso had regularly been taken awayfrom the area to provide police coverat events and to police nightclubs.For example, Inspectors were toldof officers being moved to providepolicing outside night clubs in thePortrush/Portstewart areas and inOmagh. These abstractions had leftgaps in NhP teams, especially in ruralareas, and residents in these areassaid that they felt more vulnerable,especially to incidences of anti-socialbehaviour at these times. Communitygroups and DPPs knew their localneighbourhood officers, includingPOPT, and recognised that they hadcontributed very positively todelivering PwC locally. However, theyalso were aware that POPT andother officers, had often beendeployed away from their area tobolster police resources elsewhere.

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PSNI Action Plan

Section 2

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42

PSNI Action Plan

PSNI Specific Strategic Recommendations Police Response and Action Plan

Inspectors recommend that PSNI implement a The PWC Strategy will be refreshed during 2009revised PwC strategy in line with it being placed and will have a corresponding Implementation Plan.at the core of the policing function and embeddedin every policy and process. The strategy should befounded on a clear corporate vision of PwC andshould raise and support its status within theorganisation.

Inspectors recommend that as a matter of urgency Project Unity was put on hold until funding couldPSNI develop and implement a service-wide call be secured in August 2008. The current position ismanagement strategy that reflects advances in to deliver a series of transitional improvements bytechnology to enable effective call handling in mid 2009 and a strategic continuation of Callsupport of the delivery of PwC. Management will follow on from this to be

delivered 2012/2013. The scope and shape ofthis strategic direction will be determined in 2009.

Inspectors recommend that PSNI implement The recommendation of PCSOs under thepolicies regarding: Neighbourhood Policing Framework (NFP) is being

• recruitment of PCSOs; kept under review. Funding is currently unavailable• measurement and management of for PCSOs.

performance in PwC;• corporate structures to support and Police Officer’s Annual Performance Review will

sustain PwC; and, reflect PWC Principles from April 2009. This will• allocation of resources to support and be considered for all support staff during the

sustain NhP PWC Strategy refresh.that place PwC as the core policing function.

Corporate Structures are currently under reviewby the CORE Project.

Suggestions for Improvement Police Response and Action Plan

Giving operational responsibility for NhP to the Regional ACCs will be given responsibility fortwo regional ACCs or in future to one ACC with Neighbourhood Policing, the tactical arm of PWCservice-wide responsibility for operational matters once the NPF has been implemented, but not forwould provide better local accountability for delivery the PWC Strategy. The Strategy covers theof PwC (paragraph 2.8). whole organisation, Police and Support Staff and

to be placed with Regional ACCs would give it anoperational element only.

It would be helpful if members of the NhP Programme Minutes of the Corporate and Governance BoardBoard would attend each board meeting in person. meetings are currently published on the internalMinutes of meetings should be actively communicated Policing with the Community web page.and published to the service through its intranet system(Policenet) (paragraph 3.4).

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Setting minimum operating levels for NhP teams would District Commanders have the autonomy for thehelp to deliver a better community-oriented local operating levels within their Neighbourhood Teams,policing service and would raise the status of NhP which is reflective of the needs of individualinternally (paragraph 3.5). neighbourhoods, and the District as a whole.

The work of neighbourhood officers needs to be As part of the Neighbourhood Policing Framework,marketed internally especially by District Commanders (Recommendation 25), each District has awho set the policing tone for their area (paragraph 3.9). Communication and Marketing Strategy which

deals with internal and external communication.This recommendation has been implementedthroughout all Districts.

The service needs to move to empower and entrust Through PACT principles, neighbourhood issuesofficers within its overall supervisory framework so are identified, prioritised and actioned bythat they can respond more effectively to community neighbourhood officers, community and partners.needs (paragraph 3.12).

If the service is to continue with allocating POPT to Neighbourhood Sergeants will maintain their ownNhP teams as the alternative to using PCSOs, then database of POPTs skills and local knowledge,it should consider ways to better utilise their existing enabling better productive use of their expertise.skills and local knowledge and empower them todeliver a better service to the community(paragraph 4.12).

Skills identified by the TNA as being necessary for The Police College is committed to the continuedNhP officers such as developing and managing integration of PwC principles into trainingcommunity relationships, should be interwoven programmes. Consultation recently took place withnot just into initial officer training but also into a small number of community groups on the NhPdetective training, POPT training and other operational TNA. The TNA, community consultation, togethertraining programmes to fully embed PwC principles with the current CLDP (Core Leadershipacross the whole service (paragraph 4.14). Development Programme) Neighbourhood Police

training modules, will form the basis of a new NhPOfficers course. Once shaped, this should buildupon the integration of PwC that already existswithin training. When finalised, further consultationwith the various training programmes, can takeplace to establish how best to extend the PwCprinciples within all training.

Inspectors believe that a more overt approach to PwC The Police College has recently sourced andprinciples throughout the training programme would conducted a pilot training course for Call Handlingassist officers and help to embed the principles in the in conjunction with Lancashire Police – Dec 2008.wider police service (paragraph 4.19).

Work is currently ongoing regarding theconstruction and delivery methods of a new NhPcourse. The College would see these twoprogrammes as important to the progression ofPwC within training. This could place PwC moreinto context for many front-line officers and staff.Other recent initiatives include, taking forwardinnovative and customer led PwC training such asthe joint DPP/DCU Command events conducted atthe ‘Hydra Minerva’ suite at Steeple.

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To help to embed the ethos in newly attested officers, The current Policy Directive is currently underPSNI should consider attaching probationer officers to review. The area of probationer officers into NhPNhP units for the whole of their 10-week tutorship teams is being examined as to how best progressperiod (identified as weeks 11–20 in the probationer this within Districts.management policy) (paragraph 4.20).

The use of the signal crimes perspective and This area is incorporated into PACT and EVAs,other social indicators may help the PSNI to better (Environmental Visual Audits) are one of the manygain community insight and to improve local engagement tools available to neighbourhoodpartnership working (paragraph 5.17). officers, their partners and community.

This places even more onus on District Commanders The establishment of PACT principles in eachto establish effective and inclusive consultation neighbourhood, with a dedicated neighbourhoodarrangements with local communities (paragraph 6.6). officer, will provide a named point of contact. The

completion of neighbourhood profiles will ensurethat the appropriate level and form of engagementwith the whole community is achieved. In additioneach District has a Marketing and CommunicationsStrategy and a Community Engagement Strategy inregards to neighbourhood policing.

In order to better manage public expectations, there This is being managed through the PACT Principlesneeds to be more effective consultation, dialogue and at neighbourhood level, where engagement isengagement with communities by district management community led, representative of the community,teams with an emphasis on customer focus partnership involvement and action not talk. In(paragraph 6.7). addition each District has a Communication and

Marketing Strategy and an Engagement Strategy,which are both completed recommendationswithin the Neighbourhood Policing Framework.

Appendices

Section 3

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46

Appendix 1: Methodology

This Inspection commenced in December 2007 when a steering group consisting ofrepresentatives from the PSNI and NIPB convened in the offices of CJI and agreed theterms of reference for the inspection. A self-assessment was proposed as the starting pointof the inspection based on the 25 NhP criteria identified in the PSNI neighbourhoodpolicing framework.

The PSNI produced a self-assessment in January 2008 which was used to identify specificareas to focus the inspection on. Whilst the self-assessment covered service wide activity itwas agreed that four of the eight police districts should be inspected in depth; two ruralareas and two urban areas. The police areas inspected are listed below.

PSNI District

A District North and West Belfast

D District Antrim, Lisburn, Newtownabbey and Carrickfergus

F District Cookstown, Omagh, Fermanagh, Dungannon and South Tyrone

H District Coleraine, Ballymoney, Ballymena, Moyle, and Larne

Fieldwork with the PSNI commenced in February 2008. A team from HMIC joined twoteams from CJI to conduct individual and focus group interviews in each of the four policedistricts as well as with key headquarters based personnel. The following is a list of thepersonnel, by post, interviewed during this phase of the inspection fieldwork in the fourpolice districts:

District Commanders:District Superintendents Community Safety;Area Commanders;District Inspectors focus groups;District heads of HR;District Constables focus groups;District Sergeants focus groups;District crime analysts and higher crime analyst; andCall handling staff.

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The following headquarters based staff were also interviewed:

Deputy Chief Constable;Assistant Chief Constable crime operations;Assistant Chief Constable criminal justice;Assistant Chief Constable operational support;Head of HR;Head of Northern Ireland Police College;Police college staff;Members of NhP implementation team;Head of PwC branch;Members of PwC branch; andSuperintendents Crime Operations.

As part of the fieldwork Inspectors made unannounced visits to two stations to observe theday to day functioning of neighbourhood policing. Following the period of fieldwork in eachdistrict, focus group interviews with POPT were conducted during which time a total of 52part-time officers contributed to the inspection.

During February to May 2008 an extensive programme of community consultation wasundertaken to establish the community views on PwC. A series of structured and semi-structured interviews with 14 DPP managers and 11 CSP co-ordinators was completed.Inspectors also conducted focus group interviews with 14 DPPs across the four policedistrict areas. A total of 115 DPP members took part in these focus groups.

Eighteen community groups comprising over 150 individuals across the four districts wereconsulted by way of focus group interviews. These included both rural and urban basedgroups and members of various tenants associations. The organisation SupportingCommunities Northern Ireland (SCNI) also organised a focus group session involvingrepresentatives from Lurgan, Portadown, Enniskillen, Coleraine,Antrim, Lisburn, Bangor andOmagh; together with three SCNI staff and a Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE)representative.

Inspectors also had access to information collected as a result of other CJI inspectionactivity in the geographical areas that we were examining, including fieldwork evidence fromrestorative justice scheme assessments and other research work being carried outindependently in those areas.

Inspectors shared emerging findings from the inspection with the Chief Constable, the PSNIChief Constables’ forum and members of the Community Engagement committee of theNIPB. Draft reports were shared with interested agencies prior to finalising the report forministerial permission and publication.

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Appendix 2: Terms of Reference

Terms of Reference for inspection of Policing with the Community

IntroductionRecommendation 44 of the Patten Report stated that, ‘Policing with the community shouldbe the core function of the police service and the core function of every police station.’ In thefinal report of the Office of the Oversight Commissioners (OOC)23 progress against thisrecommendation was reported as, ‘Full compliance with this recommendation has not beenachieved. (Substantial Progress).

The PSNI confirmed the status of Policing with the Community (PwC) as a core functionby adopting the PWC policy which stated that, ‘It (PwC) cannot be properly implemented inan organisation where reactive policing is the underlying style.’ The same policy sets out theaim of PWC as ‘to improve community safety by reducing crime and the fear of crime, and tackinganti-social behaviour.’ The policy outlined the five principles of community policingin Northern Ireland as:• Service Delivery;• Partnership;• Problem Solving;• Empowerment; and• Accountability.

The Northern Ireland Policing Board (NIPB) committed to delivering Policing with theCommunity (PwC) by establishing Neighbourhood Policing (NHP) in all Districts as set outin the Policing Plan 2007.

Policing Plan 2007 – 2010Domain 2.0 To ensure that PWC is at the core of the delivery of the policing service.

Performance indicator 2.1Implementation of the PWC strategy by establishing the NHP model in all Districts.

The NIPB states that it monitors the implementation of the PWC strategy by requiringthe PSNI to report to its Community and Human Rights Committee every six months, inparticular to establish the extent to which PwC has become the ethos in all areas ofpolicing. The NIPB has recently commissioned a piece of work on a framework formeasuring progress of PwC and NhP which was carried out by a former member ofthe OOC.

23 Overseeing the Proposed Revisions for the Policing Services of Northern Ireland - Report 19 - Published 31.05.2007.

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ContextProgress of PwC was monitored through the functions of the OOC from its formation in2001. The role was extended by a further two years in 2005 by the then Secretary of Statefor Northern Ireland, Paul Murphy so that the full implementation of the reforms set outby the Patten Report could be independently verified. The OOC ceased operations in June2007 having signed off the majority of Patten recommendations. From 2001 to May 2007,the OOC produced 19 reports which included progress against the recommendations ofthe Patten Report on PwC. The OOC recognised that ‘substantial progress’ had been madeagainst Recommendation 44 of the Patten Report and detailed those areas which requiredfurther effort.

PwC was flagged as an area for inspection by CJI/HMIC and discussed at length during theCJI Stakeholder Conference in January 2007. Plans to conduct such an inspection werediscussed with the PSNI and in further consultation with HMIC, it was agreed that a jointinspection of PwC should be carried out during the latter part of 2007 and early 2008following agreement of a terms of reference.

Inspection criteriaThe aim of the inspection is to assess the PSNI’s progress in implementing its PwC policyagainst agreed inspection criteria. CJI and HMIC propose four main inspection criteriabased on:

1. Remaining Issues and incomplete recommendations identified by the final OOC report;2. Areas of assessment for NHP;3. The five principles of Community policing24 – Service delivery;

Partnership;Problem Solving;Empowerment;Accountability;

4. Completed Patten recommendations – to verify continuance; and5. Progress against the NHP element of the 2006 HMIC Baseline Assessment.

1. OOC remaining issues and incomplete recommendations

‘A framework for measuring performance and accountability requires early attention by the PoliceService and the Policing Board.’

‘As matters stand, lack of an adequate call management system is a risk to public acceptance ofeffective policing throughout Northern Ireland’.

‘The Policing Board and DPPs will have to maintain a close scrutiny with respect to the outcomesof the new structures and the impact they have on policing with the local communities.’

24 Identified in section 2 of the PSNI PwC policy.

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Incomplete Patten recommendations

Patten Rec 44. Policing with the Community should be the core function of the policeservice and the core function of every police station.Lead Responsibility: Chief Constable/District Commanders

Patten Rec 45. Every neighbourhood (or rural area) should have a dedicated policing teamwith lead responsibility for policing its area.Lead Responsibility: Chief Constable/District Commanders

Patten Rec 49. NHP teams should be empowered to determine their own local prioritiesand set their own objectives, within the overall Annual Policing Plan and in consultationwith community representatives.Lead Responsibility: Chief Constable/District Commanders

2. Areas for Assessment re NHP element

This inspection will not grade PSNI performance as ‘Excellent, Good, Fair or Poor’.The specific areas to inspect regarding NhP have been specifically adapted to theNorthern Ireland context and implementation time line.

3. The five principles of community policing

Performance will be measured by using existing quantitative data such as response rates;crime figures; incidences of ASB etc., as well as qualitative data. There is also a possibility ofcommissioning or conducting a survey prior to the inspection fieldwork in February 2008 toestablish community perceptions in those areas that are to be inspected during inspectionfieldwork. Presently, public perception/confidence is measured in the twice yearly omnibussurvey which cannot be broken down into locality specific information. In addition,qualitative data will be gathered during the fieldwork phase of the inspection throughinterviews with stakeholders and key officers on District as to their perceptions of PwC,their satisfaction levels and their perception of the status of PwC within the PSNI as awhole.

4. OOC completed Patten recommendations to verify continuing compliance(annex 2)

These areas will not be the main focus of the inspection. However, it is important to beable to report to the public on the continuing implementation and development across theservice area of recommendations previously assessed as completed.

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5. Progress against HMIC Baseline Assement

Areas for Improvement (AFI’s) identified in the baseline assessment are set out in annex 3.

MethodologyFollowing agreement of terms of reference the PSNI will be invited to conduct a self-assessment on their performance in PwC against the agreed criteria. This self-assessmentshould be presented to CJI/HMIC by 1st February 2008 and will form the basis fordevelopment of hypotheses and of specific inspection questions. The self-assessment shouldbe evidential based and should make judgements on where the PSNI is with regard toachieving the stated aim of PWC. Where possible evidential material should be includedalong with the self-assessment together with any other supporting evidence of PWC activitythat is relevant to the inspection.

During January 2008 Inspectors will gather evidence and submissions from identifiedstakeholders of PwC and may conduct the proposed public survey if approved. Evidencefrom the self-assessment and stakeholder consultation will be used to formulate hypotheseswhich will be fine tuned by the Inspectorates prior to inspection fieldwork.

Inspectors will conduct the fieldwork visit in the week commencing 18th February.Fieldwork will consist of a series of semi-structured interviews with key officers and staffwho can provide informed comment on PwC. Strategic level interviews will be conductedwith the Deputy Chief Constable and with the ACC lead for PwC. Inspection visits will beconducted in four police Districts, two urban and two rural. Individual interviews will beconducted with those officers responsible for delivering PwC in those areas; ChiefInspectors and Inspectors. District Commanders will also be interviewed individually.Focus group interviews will be conducted with at least two PwC/NhP teams and separatefocus groups of their first line supervisors in each of the areas visited. Additional interviewswill be conducted with staff in the PwC branch of the Criminal Justice Department.Members of the NhP Programme Board and the corporate implementation team will alsobe interviewed. The inspection will also involve interviews with members of the PSNICrime Operations department. A draft framework for an inspection fieldwork programmeof interviews will be prepared in partnership with staff at the PSNI Inspection and ReviewDepartment and agreed in advance. For the inspection fieldwork there will be two teamsof two available from the Inspectorate with a third team being used to conduct anyadditional interviews as well as speaking to stakeholders.

Evidence from all of the interviews will be used to assess the validity of the PSNI self-assessment and to check other qualitative data gathered during the inspection process sothat Inspectors can begin to make judgements about PSNI progress with PwC.

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Steering GroupThe inspection will be treated as a thematic though the great majority of it will beconcentrated on the PSNI delivery of PwC. However, the involvement of other partnerorganisations and stakeholders in PwC is an important integral part of the inspection.A Steering Group will be formed for the duration of the inspection. A Steering Group isadvisory to the Chief Inspector: It does not share corporate responsibility for the contentof the report. However, members of the Steering Group are selected for the contributionthey can bring both personally and as representatives of their organisations, and the ChiefInspector aims to ensure that their advice is reflected in the report.

The Steering Group for this inspection will comprise one representative each from theNIPB and PSNI together with a nominated support officer or deputy if required. It isanticipated that there will be four meetings of the Steering Group over the course of theinspection as detailed below.

Members of Steering Group:

Chief Inspector and Deputy Chief Inspector of Criminal Justice;Lead and Deputy Lead Inspector;HMIC Inspector;PSNI nominated member and/or deputy; andNIPB nominated member and/or deputy.

Meeting 1 5/12/07 Terms of reference

Meeting 2 TBA Agree terms of reference

Meeting 3 TBA Emerging issues

Meeting 4 TBA Draft report

Writing up reportAt the emerging issues stage of the inspection (anticipated early/mid March) a meeting ofthe Steering Group will be convened to guide the interpretation of data prior toformulation of a draft report. The drafting of the inspection report will commence afterthe second meeting of the Steering Group and regular contact will be maintained with thePSNI and the NIPB to allow for early accuracy checking of data.

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Annex 1

25 Areas for assessment re NHP element of PWC

• Ownership

• Project Plan

• Identification and establishment of neighbourhoods

• Neighbourhood Profiles

• Key Individual Networks

• Linkage with NIM

• Neighbourhood teams

• Named officer

• Resource allocation

• Abstraction policy

• Leadership

• Role profiles

• Training

• Police family

• Community engagement

• Consultation

• Partnerships

• Problem Solving

• Reward & Recognition

• Community Impact assessments

• Evaluation of project

• Philosophy or style of policing

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Annex 2

Patten Rec 46. Members of the policing team should serve at least three and preferably fiveyears in the same neighbourhood. They should wear their names clearly displayed on theiruniforms, and their uniforms should also bear the name of the locality for which they areresponsible.Lead Responsibility: Chief Constable

Patten Rec 47.All probationary police officers should undertake the operational phases oftheir probationary training doing team policing in the community.Lead Responsibility: Chief Constable

Patten Rec 48.Where practical, policing teams should patrol on foot.Lead Responsibility: Chief Constable/District Commanders

Patten Rec 50.The Northern Ireland police should, both at a service-wide level and atpatrol team level, conduct crime pattern and complaint pattern analysis to provide aninformation-led, problem solving approach to policing. All police officers should beinstructed in problem-solving techniques and encouraged to address the causes of problemsas well as the consequences (the priority being to train beat managers and their teams); andthey should be regularly appraised as to their performance in doing so.Lead Responsibility: Chief Constable/Policing Board

Patten Rec 51. DPP members and other community leaders should be able to attend policetraining courses in problem-solving techniques.Lead Responsibility: Chief Constable

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Annex 3

HMIC 2006 baseline Assessment Areas for Improvement

• Whilst there is an overarching PwC strategy there are no corporate guidelines withinwhich DCU Commanders work when developing neighbourhood policing (NP) withintheir DCUs. There is no clear understanding as to what NP should look like or indeedwhat the expectations are of the chief officer group (COG). Is it teams of officers andstaff lead by Inspectors or is it, at the other extreme, one community officer working abeat? Whilst there can be benefit in letting individual DCUs develop their own model attheir own pace this is unlikely to be sustainable in the long term and in the new DCUstructure.

• The recent change from the DCC’s portfolio to that of the ACC (criminal justice)coupled with the decision on the new DCU structure provide an ideal opportunity toundertake a fundamental review of PwC and NP. It would:- assess progress to date;- build on best practice both within the province and in England and Wales that accords

with the 10 national centre for policing excellence (NCPE) principles and practiceadvice;

- agree a clear vision and understanding of PwC in Northern Ireland; and- give DCU Commanders clear corporate guidelines regarding the expectation of the

chief officer group.

• There is currently a central steering group to oversee strategic issues in relation toPwC but this is unlikely to deal with day-to-day issues associated with any review.The Service should consider the appointment of a project manager to oversee anychanges, drive the implementation and develop an effective communication strategy.

• Working in partnership, problem solving, addressing quality of life issues and reducingcrime and the fear of crime lie at the heart of any neighbourhood policing strategy butthese are driven by effective performance and delivery. The monitoring of performanceis essential and there is currently no effective performance framework that assesses thework of officers or staff engaged on PwC. In some DCUs, individual Commanders haveintroduced local indicators but a corporate model needs to be developed to effectivelydrive performance.

• The relationships between the DCUs and the CSPs are varied. In some areas there iseffective engagement and progress whilst in some there is little or no engagement, withthe bulk of DCUs lying somewhere on this continuum. The advent of larger DCUspresents significant opportunities one of which is to adopt a liaison officer based in thelocal authority/CSP. In a number of forces, there have been tangible benefits from thisappointment with the post pitched at Inspector or Chief Inspector level and known asthe local authority liaison officer (LALO). The individual would be charged with forging

links with the authority, the CSP and other partnerships and accessing funding on behalfof the DCU Commander. This should be considered during the design andimplementation of the new structure.

• The abstraction of officers from the NP teams is a concern expressed by DPPs, localauthorities and DCU Commanders. It has also been mentioned repeatedly by theOversight Commissioner (OC), most recently in his report dated June 2005. The causeis related to both abstraction and the shift system adopted across the Service. HMIunderstands that the 12-hour shift system is currently the subject of review which shouldaddress concerns in relation to officers’ rest day patterns but the abstraction for otherduties clearly still needs to be addressed. The demands on the Service are significant,especially during the marching season but the restructure should allow for someeconomies of scale to the benefit of NP. PSNI should develop a clear abstraction policyfor staff engaged on NP in order to maximise the time spent with their communities.

• NIM processes are predominantly crime based and little attention is given to quality oflife issues that are generally of far greater concern to the community, local councils andpartners. It is important that the NIM approach is adopted and utilised for non-crimeissues to drive effective delivery. There are examples where this is working effectivelybut overall it is not universally embedded effectively. The review and Service restructureonce again offer opportunities to take cognisance of the need to embed communityintelligence at the heart of any neighbourhood policing style.

• Community intelligence is the lifeblood of neighbourhood policing and processes fordealing with the collection and assessment of such intelligence and how it informsdelivery via the NIM are vital. The process is currently patchy and not as effective as itcould be. In the design of the new DCU structure the Service needs to ensure thateffective processes are put in place to develop, collect and assess community intelligenceso that it better informs the NIM and results in tangible activity that addresses theconcerns of the community.

• Good partnership arrangements are essential for a neighbourhood policing style andeffective problem solving. In some cases local authorities and partners view this as theright thing to do however in some there is a reluctance to engage effectively. In Englandand Wales, Section 17 of the Crime and Disorder Act places the onus on localauthorities to work effectively with the police in tackling issues. The absence of suchlegislation in Northern Ireland is an inhibitor to progress and PSNI should continue tourge the NIO to pursue similar legislation as the political situation stabilises.

• While reassurance is at the core of all media and marketing communications it isrecognised by PSNI that there is an absence of a specific communications strategy forPwC. This should be developed not only to inform the communities but also toeffectively inform all staff within PSNI what PwC is all about, what their role iswithin it, what is expected of them and the support they can, in turn, expect.

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