Security Clouds North's Police 'Service' Levels

The North's police sees the increasing security threat as a major barrier to delivering good service to communities, a report has said.

The Criminal Justice Inspection (CJI) Northern Ireland said that the security threat affected the PSNI's ability to patrol or attend requests for assistance and this has created a continuing need to use officers for public order duties.

The news came as Army Technical Officers carried out a controlled explosion in west Belfast after police received a report of a suspicious object in the Iris Close area on Thursday morning.

A number of homes were evacuated during the alert, which has since been declared a hoax, and residents allowed to return to their homes.

This latest example of how normal policing is subverted by the continuing security situation was yesterday underlined by the 42-page report, which was published on Thursday, said: "The increasing security threat was a constant background to the work of PSNI officers and was seen as a major barrier to delivering a good customer service to communities.

"The impact of this was widespread, for example in relation to officers' priorities, the ability to patrol or attend requests for assistance, the continuing need to use officers for public order policing and the level of resources required to address the dissident threat."

"It was clear from interviews with a wide range of officers at the point of service delivery that they felt constrained by a variety of issues including perceived pressure of work, the security threat and unnecessary bureaucracy," the report said.

It added: "Supervisors and other leaders spoken to concurred with these observations and indicated that their focus was on what the police could do with resources available to them rather than what could be achieved to meet customer needs."

Obviously, the terrorist murder of Constable Ronan Kerr in Omagh in April and precautions now taken by other members of the force to protect themselves - both on and off duty - have a negative impact on levels of 'normal policing' too as response times must be measured against the threat.

The report also found there was an inconsistent approach in the PSNI into how telephone calls were handled and there were also problems with how victims of crime were kept informed.

CJI Chief Inspector Dr Michael Maguire has called for more consistency: "We found that people would have had difficulty accessing the police. When they arranged to meet someone, the police officer would not be there or they would not be kept informed as to how their case was progressed."

Commenting, a NI Policing Board spokesperson said: "The Board and the community expects the Police Service to deliver a consistent, high quality and courteous service at all times.

"Service delivery is a core issue in this year's Policing Plan and in the various strands of work progressed by the Board with the PSNI in the development of the Policing with the Community 2020 Strategy.

"This report highlights some of the very positive work that has been taken forward across the Service and also some areas where further work is required.

"The new Board will wish to have an early discussions with both the Chief Inspector of Criminal Justice and the Chief Constable on the Report's findings and recommendations," the statement concluded.

Earlier this year, the Government granted an additional £245m to the PSNI to combat the dissident threat.

The overnight alert in west Belfast was only the latest such 'stretch' in the work of the PSNI in the area with Sinn Fein MLA Paul Maskey commenting that those who caused the evacuation of Anderstown Leisure centre on the previous day not only deprived the local community of a resource but also caused disruption to the entire community.

"These people need to get off the backs of the community and realise that the community, which they tell us they are fighting for have rejected them and will continue to reject them and should desist immediately from all their activities," he said.

Such alert are not always hoaxes, with masked men hurling a bomb into a bank in Londonderry last Saturday.

Police evacuated the Diamond area and at approximately 1.20pm the device exploded.

Police continued to check the area and a number of other reported security alerts were not found to be suspicious, with once again, the officers being less able to attend other requests for assistance from the public.

(BMcC/GK)