Examination of witness (Questions 720
- 739)
WEDNESDAY 18 MARCH 1998
MR RONNIE
FLANAGAN, OBE
720. If recruitment is to come from the
Catholic community in greater numbers, then the confidence that
the RUC is generally held in in Northern Ireland begins to be
important. The confidence in the RUC will be built upon numbers
of factors including how it is perceived in terms of operating
lethal force, plastic bullets, etcetera. There have been reports
in The Independent to say that the RUC has looser control
of the use of plastic bullets than operates within the rest of
the United Kingdom and that it is holding up efforts to adopt
a United Kingdom wide code of practice in terms of their operation
and lethal force. Are these reports accurate?
(Mr Flanagan) Absolutely not accurate, Chairman.
If I could deal with the question of confidence and acceptance
if you like, I must say I took some encouragement from a recent
survey report published by the Police Authority for Northern Ireland,
a report which indicated that 69 percent of those people surveyed
thought the police were doing a good or very good job. What was
particularly encouraging about those results in terms of 1997
compared with 1996 was that in terms of those respondents who
were from the minority community, the figures had jumped from
something of the order of 44 percent in 1996 to 55 percent in
1997. So there is a deal of encouragement to be derived from that
increasing perception and increasing confidence within the minority
community. On the specific issue of our use of plastic baton rounds
vis-a-vis controls and regulations that apply in Great
Britain, I absolutely reject any suggestion that what we are doing
is slowing up a set of guidelines which would have universal application.
In fact, I would say we are very much facilitating a process and
it is my view that we are almost at the point where there will
be accepted a set of guidelines that have that universal application.
721. But are there not distinctions between
the guidelines that operate within Northern Ireland and those
that operate within Great Britain which might mean it is difficult
to fit the two patterns together?
(Mr Flanagan) I think what the question relates
to, Chairman, is probably the suggestion that in Great Britain
the guidelines do not specifically allow the use of plastic baton
rounds to defend property when there is not a significant threat
to life, whereas our existing guidelines allow the use of plastic
baton rounds where there is a serious threat to property. And
I stand by that, Chairman. I will not have my officers stand by
while town centres are burnt to the ground where if the minimum
use of force to prevent that would be the use of plastic baton
rounds. What we owe officers who have an individual responsibility
for the use of plastic baton rounds and the subsequent individual
accountability is a precise set of guidelines outlining the degree
of risk that must pertain before they can be used. We, I think,
have virtually reached that point where there will be agreement,
where there will be a set of guidelines that have universal application
not only in Northern Ireland but throughout Great Britain. My
colleagues in Great Britain have been very fortunate not to have
to use these items. I would love to reach a position where we
do not have to use them either. I very much abhor the circumstances
that give rise to a need on our part to use plastic baton rounds.
I can tell this Committee that if we had not had access to plastic
baton rounds, I have no doubt that many more lives would have
been lost and that many more millions of pounds in property would
have been lost as well.
Mr Browne
722. Chief Constable, you may or may not
recollect that when we met on 12 November I asked you some questions
about community awareness training. On that occasion, I think
in response to a question I asked you, you explained that community
awareness training was your Force's training response to what
you described as a subtle but significant realisation of the diversity
within the community of Northern Ireland. You also went on to
say that the purpose of that training was that it imbued in your
officers an understanding of different traditions and different
backgrounds. I have to say, Chief Constable, that since then we
have—certainly I have—asked a number of questions
of other people who have been involved in delivering community
awareness training and have a number of concerns about the model
that you employ. In the first instance, when you were answering
questions in November and you referred to the use of consultants,
were you meaning the Conflict Mediation Network?
(Mr Flanagan) It is Mediation Network for Northern
Ireland; those are amongst the consultants that we have used in
this programme. In addition to that we bring into the programme
a whole range of people from diverse backgrounds in society in
Northern Ireland, members of various religious denominations,
and we use those as consultants. We use journalists in some instances
to give our officers a true perception of cultures perhaps other
than those in which they grew up.
723. I would like to try as far as possible,
Chief Constable, to be quite specific about the questions I ask
you. When I refer to consultants, I mean people who are brought
in on a consultancy fashion to help you design the programme.
I do not mean contributors to the programme?
(Mr Flanagan) In that respect, if you are not
talking about contributors, Chairman, I have to say that in the
original design of the programme Mediation Network played a very
prominent role.
724. I think in fact that was the evidence
that we heard from Mediation Network themselves. I want to ask
you, Chief Constable, what qualifications you thought that organisation
had to help you design such a programme?
(Mr Flanagan) Well, as their name suggests, Chairman,
this is an organisation which works within the auspices of the
Community Relations Council, but who have an independence, who
have contacts with the various communities in Northern Ireland
and I think they were very well qualified to help us design a
programme of cultural awareness training. Indeed we still have
very strong contacts with Mediation Network and we use them currently
in terms of reflecting to us the views of diverse members of society
in Northern Ireland, in terms of helping us devise an appropriate
community policing model, for example, and I think they are extremely
competent and well qualified so to do.
725. We have heard evidence—and in
particular I am referring for the purposes of the notes—to
questions around about 608 and I am sure, Chief Constable, that
you will be aware of the evidence we have heard from them. In
particular, the representatives of the Mediation Network were
asked by me if they had any previous experience of designing or
helping to design a programme for community awareness and the
quite clear answer to that was that they did not. Did you know
that they had no such previous experience when you invited them
to be involved with your officers to design your programme?
(Mr Flanagan) What was not so important, Chairman,
was whether they had experience in designing a particular programme
but the benefit of their experience that they could bring to a
programme. So it was very much a collaborative effort between
my officers who have responsibility for training working in conjunction
with Mediation Network. I have to say, Chairman, this was an innovative
scheme; there were not any particular models elsewhere from which
we could draw and indeed many others have shown tremendous interest
in our scheme in terms of what perhaps they might learn from it,
so if this Committee or if the questioning Member has consultants,
has experts, has model schemes from which we can learn then my
opening remarks to this Committee and my evidence on the last
occasion is that I would be delighted to learn those lessons.
And if there are lessons from which I can learn I would be delighted
to engage in that learning.
726. At the moment, Chief Constable, rather
than answering your questions, I am interested in you answering
mine?
(Mr Flanagan) I have told you, through the Chairman,
that I considered that organisation to be competent and able and
experienced in helping us to design our cultural awareness programme.
727. But we have established in evidence
from them that they had no such experience. We have also established
in evidence from them that the officers from your Force who they
were engaged with in designing a programme had no such experience
either?
(Mr Flanagan) Chairman, when you are starting
off on a new venture and there is not necessarily any model elsewhere
that you can draw on, then what has been described is not perhaps
surprising.
728. We have also established from them,
Chief Constable, they made no inquiries abroad to see if there
was a model anywhere else in the world that they could draw from.
Did you make such inquiries?
(Mr Flanagan) I did not personally at that time,
Chairman. I am not seeking to absolve any responsibility. I did
not have particular responsibility——
729. Were you aware of any inquiries being
made on your behalf or on behalf of your senior officers to see
if there was a model somewhere abroad on which you could have
drawn?
(Mr Flanagan) Chairman, I have had the opportunity
to look at policing all over the world and many other of my colleagues
have had that opportunity. I am not aware of the specific quest
anywhere in the world for a cultural awareness training programme,
but undoubtedly I would have had contacts throughout the world
as would have had many of my other colleagues.
730. So you could establish no doubt from
your Force's records whether such inquiries were made and let
us know?
(Mr Flanagan) Absolutely, Chairman.
731. Thank you. Now the community awareness
programme that was developed was evaluated by your own Training
Unit?
(Mr Flanagan) That is correct, Chairman.
732. Has that community awareness programme
at any stage been evaluated by any independent organisation?
(Mr Flanagan) No, it has not, Chairman.
733. Is it your intention to have it evaluated
by an independent organisation?
(Mr Flanagan) It is, Chairman.
734. Where will you find such an organisation
if you are not aware of any organisation with that experience?
(Mr Flanagan) I intend to seek advice through
the network of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary. They
maintain, for example, registers of best practice—and if
it exists anywhere I have certainly not learned up to this point—but
there are educational institutions who without necessarily having
a grasp of a particular training programme can nonetheless assess
the impact and the value of that given programme and I would intend
that that assessment would be conducted externally. I should say
that of course we are engaged at the moment very much in extending
that programme beyond delivering it to recruits in training.
735. Maybe we could come to that in a moment,
Chief Constable, but at the moment I want to pursue this line
of questioning. The evaluation report which your own Evaluation
Unit prepared recommended among other things that your Force must
maintain in the context of the Community Awareness Training programme
its links with the Mediation Network. Are you aware of that recommendation?
(Mr Flanagan) I am, Chairman.
736. It went on to say that the future development
of the course should move towards police trainers assuming responsibility
for organising the programme. Mediation Network should be retained
on a consultancy basis to ensure the continued objectivity of
the programme. You will be aware of that recommendation, too?
(Mr Flanagan) I am, Chairman.
737. You will also be aware that despite
the fact that Mediation Network still have some involvement with
your Force in relation to other matters, they withdrew from the
Community Awareness Training programme in 1996, at about the time
of Drumcree?
(Mr Flanagan) That is right, Chairman.
738. What consultancy organisation has been
involved with the Community Awareness Training programme, if any,
to ensure the continued objectivity of the programme since they
withdrew?
(Mr Flanagan) There has not been external consultancy
in that regard, Chairman. I have maintained my contact with Mediation
Network. At the time they felt that they would have to withdraw,
I was engaged in personal discussion with them. I have been engaged
in personal discussion with them since to determine how best we
can work collaboratively in terms of increasing the quality of
the policing service that is delivered. We decided jointly that
that collaboration could best be brought about in the field of
working operationally rather than necessarily merely in the field
of training. I do not use the word `merely' to reduce in any sense
the importance of training. I use the word `merely' because up
to that point it was largely in the field of training where Mediation
Network had assisted us.
739. My understanding of their evidence,
Chief Constable, is the fact that they have no continued involvement
with you in the field of training?
(Mr Flanagan) That is correct, Chairman. That
is what I have described, that following discussion at that time
between myself and members of Mediation Network we decided that
the best way we could work collaboratively would be in the operational
field, would be to look at devising a community policing model,
they having given us what I consider to be tremendously valuable
assistance in the training field up to that point.
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