Examination of witness (Questions 740
- 759)
WEDNESDAY 18 MARCH 1998
MR RONNIE
FLANAGAN, OBE
740. What I am concerned to know from you,
Chief Constable, is given the recommendations of your own Evaluation
Unit, there needs to be some continued objectivity of the programme
from that provided on a consultancy basis. What plans have you
to replace the Mediation Network in that regard?
(Mr Flanagan) I have said, Chairman, that what
I want to do is to conduct or to have conducted an external evaluation.
What I want to do first of all is to determine, once we have begun
to spread the benefit of that programme—I think you had
said or suggested there might be questions in that regard—to
see how that is taking root, to see what benefit is derived from
that, to see how training in the community can be merged with
cultural awareness training as delivered to recruits and then
to conduct an external evaluation of those two aspects.
741. Yes, I understand that and indeed accept
those answers in relation to my questions about evaluation, but
I am now talking about continued involvement on a consultancy
basis in terms of reorganisation of the training to ensure—and
I repeat again—the continued objectivity of the programme.
Do you have any clients to put in place in consultancy or any
organisation to ensure the objectivity of the programme given
that Mediation Network no longer provide that?
(Mr Flanagan) We do not have those specific plans
at this stage, Chairman, but what cannot be ignored is the objectivity
and the value of the objectivity provided by those who participate
in the programme for us and of course there are regular debriefs
of those contributors to the programme, of those who are prepared
to participate in the programme on our behalf.
742. Is that a new thing, Chief Constable?
(Mr Flanagan) No, that is not a new thing, Chairman.
743. We have heard evidence from a woman
called Mary O'Rawe who is a barrister in Northern Ireland who
at one stage contributed to the programme but again has withdrawn
from the programme. She said to us quite explicitly in evidence
that there was no formal debriefing of her; all she had was conversations
with people occasionally and there was in fact no formal debriefing?
(Mr Flanagan) I cannot speak specifically in relation
to Mrs O'Rawe's experience, but certainly the objectivity provided
and the opportunity for feedback from those who do provide, through
contributing to the programme, the experience of a very diverse
range of views and traditions within Northern Ireland, is such
that we very highly value it.
744. From my own quite extensive reading
on this programme, including your own evaluation report, I could
find plenty of reference in the evidence and in reports to debriefings
along with the Mediation Network while they were involved and
to the development of the programme with them. I do not see one
reference anywhere in any of these reports to the debriefing of
individual contributors. Is that a formal process?
(Mr Flanagan) It is a formal process as part of
the training and its feedback is a natural form of any training,
Chairman. There are contributors who do this very bravely who
would not necessarily want publicity; who do not in fact want
publicity for it. We value their contributions very highly and
we value very much their feelings and their feedback to us.
745. On the question of training and referring
to evidence that you have already been referred to by my colleague,
Mr Robinson, you will be aware that Her Majesty's Inspector, Mr
Smith, in his evidence to us pointed out several differences,
as he perceived them, between the style and delivery of training
in the RUC and the style and delivery of training in the rest
of the United Kingdom?
(Mr Flanagan) I am aware of his evidence, Chairman.
746. In particular—and to be fair
to Mr Smith as a witness, this was in response to a question in
which I led him to this description—he described training
in Northern Ireland on a comparative basis and the RUC as being
old fashioned and heavily weighted towards drill and I think what
he called a didactic approach as opposed to a holistic integrated
approach. Do you accept that criticism?
(Mr Flanagan) I do not accept that as currently
applied through our Training Branch, Chairman. Traditionally all
police forces probably engage in a didactic approach to training,
but certainly our training now in terms of young officers being
given the opportunity at very early stages of their training to
get out on the job and when they come back to be debriefed on
their experience on the job, to outline their feelings. The whole
exposure that they have through the cultural awareness training
could not, in any sense, be described as old fashioned and could
not in any sense be described as didactic in approach in terms
of the approach that our trainers use in those areas. If you are
talking about drill, for example, we have only recently decided
to reduce the number of hours during training which are devoted
specifically to drill and to use those hours in other areas of
classroom work. Drill remains an important aspect, in my view,
although we have reduced the time that we devote to it.
747. Mr Smith did make reference to that
in his evidence and he advised us that although he was aware that
you had the intention to reduce the amount of hours devoted to
drill, in his view it would still be more than any other police
force in the United Kingdom. Why is that?
(Mr Flanagan) Well I think it has an important
role to play. We have actually made that reduction, Chairman.
The last group of recruits who were passed out were the last who
will engage in continuity drill training, for example. But drill
in terms of discipline, in terms of encouraging esprit de corps
I think would remain as an important facet of training in the
eyes of most trainers, not only in Northern Ireland but throughout
Great Britain.
748. So have there been, Chief Constable,
significant changes in the way in which you deliver training—I
mean over and above community awareness training—since 4
February when Mr Smith gave evidence here?
(Mr Flanagan) Not significant changes since 4
February, Chairman, except the extension of course of that training
through the Training in the Community, Training with the Community
programme which is the extension of that cultural awareness to
ranks other than recruits in training. The other change which
has taken place is the reduction in the time devoted to drill
during probationers' initial training.
749. With the Chairman's permission, may
I move on to the last subject I want to ask you about which I
flagged up earlier? In your evidence in November and now you have
made repeated reference to taking community awareness training
out to Divisional level, that is, taking it beyond recruits, have
you taken it to the Reserve Force?
(Mr Flanagan) What do you mean by the Reserve
Force? Do you mean the full time Reserve constables?
750. Yes, full time Reserve constables?
(Mr Flanagan) I ask the question, Chairman, because
Reserve Force is an old title that related to mobile support units.
I take it that is not to what you refer?
751. I certainly was not referring to mobile
support units?
(Mr Flanagan) What we have done is taken it out
to officers at this stage up to the rank of Inspector. It is all
very easy to be wise after the event and to suggest how things
could be better and to suggest how a new initiative can be enhanced
and if anybody has recommendations to make to me I will be delighted
to hear them, Chairman. And it might well have been said that
what we should have done is start with the organisation first
and then worked our way down towards recruits. We decided to embark
on this at recruit level first. Over the past year we have undergone
a programme whereby we have extended that up to the rank of Inspector.
From April of this year—in other words, next month—we
intend extending that to Chief Inspectors and above so that the
entire organisation has the benefit of this cultural awareness
training.
752. I take it that that answer was in the
context of the RUC Reserves since the question was about the RUC
Reserves?
(Mr Flanagan) That is right, Chairman.
753. So whether officers are in the RUC
Reserve or in the RUC proper——
(Mr Flanagan) Full time Reserve Constables have
been given the benefit of this through Divisional training programmes,
Chairman.
754. Could you describe in a few sentences
how many hours are involved and what that training involves as
far as those officers are concerned?
(Mr Flanagan) What I will do is get for the Committee's
benefit a precise breakdown indeed of the programme and the content
of that programme, but it involves again external contributors,
contributors from a very diverse range of traditions, cultures
and viewpoints within the Province and those contributors coming
along to Divisional training classes to give officers the benefit
of their perception, to give officers a high degree of this importance
of respect for individuals' diversity, of respect for people from
differing traditions. In that internal way we see great benefits
in that, Chairman. We see that if we operate internally as an
organisation whose members respect that individual dignity, that
individual diversity and I think we are taking the lead in this
regard in the Province. I think other organisations could learn
from what we are doing in this regard and if we operate on this
basis internally then of course we will operate on that basis
in terms of those who are most important to us, those who are
the consumers of the policing service, those whom we exist to
serve. That is what really counts for us.
755. When you are providing us with the
detailed information, Chief Constable, can you provide us also
with information as to how many of your officers up to the rank
of Inspector, if that is the rank that it goes to, have actually
had some experience of this training and how many hours of training
they have undergone?
(Mr Flanagan) Absolutely, Chairman.
Mr McWalter
756. I would like to focus my questions
really on the general problem about the relative disaffection
of still a very significant number of people in the nationalist
community and how they perceive the RUC. When you last gave us
evidence you answered a series of questions about perceptions
by some members of the nationalist community that there were a
significant number of RUC officers who were very strongly associated
with organisations like the Orange Lodge and other such loyalist
organisations and you at that stage took the view that what someone
believed in their private life was one thing, as long as when
they then acted as an RUC officer—in, if you like, their
professional life—they put that private belief into a kind
of abeyance or some other sort of locker and then acted as a professional
in the difficult circumstances that many officers have to deal
with. Is that still your view?
(Mr Flanagan) What I think I made clear, Chairman,
what I sought to make clear in my original evidence was a personal
preference that members of my organisation should not be members
of the organisations described, of the Orange Order. I said that
it would be unlawful to attempt to preclude, to ban such membership
and I said, I think, that what was important for us was how officers
behaved and we had some description, I think, through other questions
during that session in terms of how some officers had, in fact,
been disciplined in terms of how they had behaved. I said what
was important was how they behaved and how they performed their
duty, but I did recognise that what was important—perhaps
more important in Northern Ireland than anywhere—is people's
perception and there can be a perception that if a police officer
is a member of some of the organisations to which you refer then
some people have a perception that there is a difficulty in terms
of how they impartially deliver the policing service. I think
it is a problem of perception rather than of reality, but I recognise
that perception. Now I think what I should know, as the employer
if you like, is exactly what percentage of officers belong to
what organisations and quite frankly I cannot tell the Committee
that because I do not know. What I am exploring now is ways of
determining that. The Committee will be well aware of the Home
Secretary's intention in relation to members of the Masonic Order
and the requirement whereby new members would register that membership
and whereby existing members would do so voluntarily. I am working
currently with my staff associations to determine the best way
that we could do something similar in relation to membership of
a range of organisations in Northern Ireland. It had been my hope
to work in tandem with colleagues in the Association of Chief
Police Officers in Great Britain in this regard, but I think the
decision to legislate and to propose to legislate has brought
about a position whereby an agreed Association of Chief Police
Officers' view is not immediately on hand and there are a range
of approaches through different police forces in Great Britain.
So we, I think, need to move independently in Northern Ireland.
There are, of course, dangers from a security point of view and
people do have rights. People have a right to belong to organisations,
but I have a right and we require through very strict codes of
conduct that officers' private lives should not impinge on their
ability to impartially deliver policing in a professional manner.
What I want to do is to determine how we can have an officer register
that interest so that I know exactly what percentage of officers
we are talking about. I guess the sort of percentages that are
being bandied about are actually grossly exaggerated but I am
not in a position empirically to say that that is the case.
757. At the beginning of that long reply,
you mentioned that this was a problem of perception. So if members
of the nationalist community think that they are treated differently,
they are treated, say, less well or perhaps the police presence
in their communities is more militaristic or whatever, that that
is simply a matter of perception and they are actually wrong so
to think. Is that your view?
(Mr Flanagan) I said it is more a matter of perception,
but in giving my answer, Chairman, I think I recognised the importance
of perception and I stressed my personal preference that my officers
should not be members of the organisations referred to.
758. But you presumably also do agree, for
good reasons perhaps, that nationalist communities pose often
more of a threat to members of the RUC than some other communities——
(Mr Flanagan) I do not accept that at all.
759. —— and they have to take
special operational decisions in the light of that threat?
(Mr Flanagan) I think it is true to say that my
officers have faced threats in nationalist areas. To say that
nationalist communities pose a greater threat to my officers than
other communities is something that I would not accept.
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