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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 956 - i House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE NORTHERN IRELAND AFFAIRS COMMITTEE FUNCTIONS OF THE OFFICE OF THE POLICE OMBUDSMAN FOR NORTHERN IRELAND
Wednesday 21 July 2004 MRS NUALA O'LOAN, MR SAMUEL POLLOCK, MR DAVID WOOD and MRS OLWEN LAIRD PROFESSOR DESMOND REA and MR TREVOR REANEY Evidence heard in Public Questions 1 - 114 USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee on Wednesday 21 July 2004 Members present Mr Michael Mates, in the Chair Mr Adrian Bailey Mr Roy Beggs Mr Gregory Campbell Mr Tony Clarke Mr Stephen Hepburn Mr Iain Luke Mr Eddie McGrady The Reverend Martin Smyth Mark Tami Mr Bill Tynan ________________ Witnesses: Mrs Nuala O'Loan, Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, Mr Samuel Pollock, Chief Executive, Mr David Wood, Executive Director of Investigations and Mrs Olwen Laird, Director of Corporate Services, examined. Chairman: Good afternoon to Mrs O'Loan and to your team. You are very welcome and the Committee appreciates very much the fact that we had to change the date because of what was going on last week. I understand you have had to break into your holiday, for which many apologies, and you are doubly welcome. We will try and let you go as soon as we can. Before we start these proceedings Mr Eddie McGrady would like to make a declaration. Mr McGrady: Mr Chairman, members of the Committee and those giving evidence today, I have to record in the minutes that I am a member of the Police Board of Northern Ireland, and also the Chairman of the sub-committee of the Police Board, which deals with human rights and monitoring, and as such that sub-committee has a primary link with the Office of the Ombudsman for Northern Ireland. Those are remunerated positions and therefore I would like to declare that interest and will act circumspectly in the participation with the police deliberations in that respect. Q1 Chairman: Thank you very much. Obviously Mr McGrady's knowledge and experience is of great help to us. He thinks it is right that he does not put questions in this session today and we entirely respect his wishes in that regard. Mrs O'Loan, would you like to start, briefly, and tell us about the key problems you have in carrying out your principle activities? Mrs O'Loan: Thank you, Chairman, and thank you for the opportunity to say something to you. Can I just introduce Mr Pollock, my Chief Executive, Mr David Wood, my Executive Director of Investigations and Olwen Laird, our Director of Corporate Services? Tim Gracey is the Director of Information. I would like to say a word about policing because I think it is one of the most important and contentious issues in Northern Ireland today. The establishment of my Office by Parliament under the Police Act was part of a wider strategy to ensure a level of accountability and transparency, which was hitherto unknown anywhere in the world. The commitment of Parliament to that level of accountability, in terms of the duties and functions conferred on my Office by Parliament, has been recognised across the world. Similarly, the commitment of Government in terms of funding has enabled us to do what we have been established to do. Dr Hayes' vision in creating this Office was courageous, and we have worked hard to try to achieve that vision. We do work in a very difficult political climate; the views of our politicians in relation to policing are known to be diverse. We have sought to work constructively throughout the community, and it is a fact that politicians from every political party represented in this House, under the Northern Ireland Assembly, bring us constituents who are complainants against the police. We seek to establish the evidence in relation to each case in the search for truth. Five years ago it would have seemed quite unlikely that a police complaints system in Northern Ireland could have won public confidence, but I think that that is what has happened. Last January the public confidence figure in our Protestant community stood at 70 per cent believing we were impartial and 76 per cent of our Protestant community believing that the police do a good job. In the Catholic community the figures are even higher. And 85 per cent of our population believe we are independent and they are aware of what we do. I think it is very, very important that we actually do serve the whole community. 48 per cent of our complaints come from Protestants, 37 per cent from Catholics and 15 per cent from other groups. Our staff too is representative of the community; 47 per cent of our staff are Protestant, 37 per cent are Catholic and 16 per cent are from other communities. Our workload is changing but not diminishing. We have redirected some resources. We have made structural change because Parliament has given us new duties. We face further changes. We will have responsibility for complaints against the new Police Support Officers, who will assist sworn officers in the fight against crime. We do hope that eventually we will have a workable power to mediate complaints, which will reduce the number of complaints we have to put into investigation. We have other challenges, not least the complexity of our workload, which range from allegations of incivility to collusion and murder. It also involves fatal accidents involving the police. We must respond 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. That is a significant burden for an office of 128 people. We do respond; we report with recommendations on policy and practice, so that the police can make necessary amendments to their policy and practice, and I think it is true that some improvements in policing can clearly be attributable to our work. Our IT infrastructure is now inadequate. We have extensive and demanding reporting obligations and these are largely dependent on analysis of material contained in our case management system. The system lacks many forms of functionality; it does not readily yield up information. It is vital to our ability to meet our statutory needs, and we do hope that Government will be able to resource the procurement of an appropriate system. Finally, may I say that we are determined that we will do all we can to grow police confidence in our work. We have participated in many joint activities to assist officers to know our processes, and to appreciate that we conduct only a search for evidence as required by the law. We pay tribute to them for the difficult job which they do and have done over the years and for the sacrifices which they have made. I think our vision is a shared vision, that all our people and all our police officers enjoy the best possible policing and police complaints service. Northern Ireland is moving forward in many ways and my staff and I seek to make a contribution to that process. Thank you for listening to me. Q2 Chairman: Thank you very much for that. Those figures are interesting and I think you score high marks for having achieved that in a relatively short time. However, do you think the awareness figures are going to get any better? Dr Ostermeyer of your Office said, "This levelling off would seem to indicate that a maximum level of public awareness has been achieved." Mrs O'Loan: Chairman, if I may say that we always strive to increase awareness, going into the communities that we have not been able to access before. I bow to the statisticians and those who are expert in that matter, and I accept that we may not get much beyond 85 per cent. I am not so concerned about the figure when I go out and I meet people because I am trying more and more, with all my staff, to get into areas of our community where we have not been able to meet yet. Q3 Chairman: Can I just get two small things out of the way? You gave us the breakdown between Nationalists and Protestant Unionists; what is the breakdown by sex of your staff? Mrs O'Loan: It is 41 per cent female and 59 per cent male as at January 2004. Q4 Chairman: As far as equal pay is concerned, do you plan to undertake a review of pay equality in line with the recent Equality Commission guidance? Mrs O'Loan: We have followed all the guidance. When I was appointed we appointed our staff using the Northern Ireland Civil Service Standard Terms and Conditions. Gradings were developed in the light of what it was anticipated the jobs might be. Once we had moved forward and established ourselves we then brought in BCS - the Business Consultancy Services - to do a review of all pay and graded levels, to make sure that that was right. We are at that stage at the present time; we have carried out the Equality Commission's requirements in terms of impact assessment for equal opportunities for our staff in the Office, and the results of that have been very good. Q5 Chairman: If I can pick up one thing you said in your opening statement: that your IT systems were now inadequate. Is that because there is not enough of them or because they are out of date? Mrs O'Loan: They are out of date. Our remit has changed. Some of those changes are very small but when you have to feed them into an IT system and they knock through everything else it becomes very expensive to try to make the IT system work, and it begins to creak more and more as you make more amendments. So I think it is just not capable of doing the job any more. Q6 Chairman: And you do not have the funds to replace it? Mrs O'Loan: No, I do not. Q7 Chairman: Have you asked for them? Mrs O'Loan: We have put a case to the Northern Ireland Office. Q8 Chairman: Did it come out favourably in the recent spending round or has that not filtered down to you yet? Mrs O'Loan: We have not had a reply, as far as I know. Mr Pollock: The case has only been submitted within the last month, and they would not have had time to consider it. Q9 Chairman: So that the first the NIO would know of your IT problems was a month ago? Mrs O'Loan: No, Chairman. We have been keeping them informed as we went along because my Chief Executive under our Management Statement Arrangements has quarterly meetings with the NIO, and there are discussions of the problems that we are having at that point. Q10 Chairman: So how long ago were the INO warned about this? Mr Pollock: We identified it a year ago in our progress reports because at that stage we were looking at the feasibility in relation to our systems and we then had to develop the specifications and we had that tested out through the gateway process. We managed then to submit the full business case about five weeks ago to the Northern Ireland Policing Division. Q11 Chairman: Have you, as it were, put in a bid for the cost of that? Mr Pollock: Yes. Q12 Chairman: What is the cost? Mr Pollock: In capital terms it would be £1.2 million over seven years and there are also revenue costs that follow the development of the system, which are again in the region of £1 million. Q13 Chairman: So how much in this current spending round of that £1.2 million? Mr Pollock: £1.2 million. Q14 Chairman: No, that is over seven years. How much of that? Mr Pollock: To acquire the system, which we would want to do, within the first year, obviously, that is where the main capital investment would be. Q15 Chairman: So the main amount of that £1.2 million is needed upfront? Mr Pollock: Yes. Q16 Mr Luke: On the point of public awareness, especially amongst the young. Obviously there seems to be a very low awareness amongst young people and almost 40 per cent of 16-24 year olds were unaware of your Office. That indicates that you may be failing to reach this group in the community. What extra measures are you taking to reach young people? How are you able to measure the results of these measures? Mrs O'Loan: We became aware, within a year, on our research base, that young people were unaware of the Office. Interestingly enough, the age group 16-24 make the biggest sub-group of our complainants. So we have had a number of initiatives, some with the police, some with other groups, with voluntary organisations, aimed at taking us out to young people, where we can find them and engage with them. So we have, for example, participated in a series of youth conferences, jointly organised by the PSNI, Policing Board and my office, in which we gather together a couple of hundred young people from different backgrounds; they all come into one central venue and we all make five to ten minute presentations, and then they can engage with us. We also had a youth conference which we conducted with one of our youth organisations in Northern Ireland. We go out to schools and we make a lot of school visits; we are available and we have written to every school in Northern Ireland, asking them if they want to hear from the Office. At any opportunity that any of us get we are trying to say to people that we would love to come along. The proportion of young people who are aware of us has risen over the three years and the percentage of young people as a proportion of our complainants is now at 27 per cent - it was at 23 per cent. I do not think you can draw very much from that because there are many factors which impact upon who makes a complaint, but those are the figures. So we are working hard at it. We do recognise them and we recognise the elderly too as another sub-group who we need to look after. Q17 Mr Luke: In regard to the actual level of the respondents in the survey in public awareness, only 16 per cent of those respondents who had experienced unacceptable behaviour by the police said they had complained. Of the remainder, 55 per cent have said that they did not think it worth complaining, or if they did complain that very little would happen. Why do you believe that so few people complain? Mrs O'Loan: I think that the Policing Board did surveys initially before my Office started on why people did and did not complain, and one of the major reasons was that people felt that there was no point. We know that that figure is reducing. We are still meeting people; people will approach me in the street and tell me a story and I say, "You have to come to me, you have to let me deal with this," and they will say, "No, no, we are afraid, the police have ways of taking it out on us." Those are the kind of things that are said to us. That exists. We can show that in fact - and I stand to be corrected - only 17 per cent of our complainants are the subjects of related criminal proceedings, the rest are not engaged in any sort of criminal process with the police. So when we tell people that kind of thing it can give them the reassurance that, (a) there is a point; (b) for the police it is important that if people have a grievance they come to us. Very often the grievances that people have against the police, on occasion they can be the result of a lack of understanding or of an expectation that is actually unreal. A particular issue may be terribly important to me as an individual, but put in the context of a limited number of officers on the ground, a fatal road traffic accident, a fire and something else happening, it may be that my priority is not the highest priority for the police, and people will come to accept that. So there are a lot of reasons behind that, but I think that is changing slightly. Q18 Reverend Smyth: We have heard that there has been an awareness of the Office and the role of the Ombudsman, and yet we have seen research and evidence which suggests that some 44 per cent of people who have a complaint go to their local police station and 18 per cent make a complaint to a solicitor. Only 11 per cent actually come to the Ombudsman. Mrs O'Loan: I do not think that is quite right. I hesitate to correct Reverend Smyth, and I will ask Mr Pollock to deal with this. The figures initially of people coming to us were very low because we were just established, but my understanding now is that 34 per cent of complaints were made directly to the Office in 2001 and by 2003 that percentage had risen to 48 per cent. About 40 per cent are made via the police, a small percentage by public representatives, and you obviously have made complaints to us, and about 12 per cent comes through solicitors. So 48 per cent come directly to us now. It is an incremental thing and it is bound to be incremental. Q19 Reverend Smyth: That is an interesting response because the information that we have been given is that only 11 per cent said that they would first go to the Ombudsman, and that they may later on put their minds in a different direction. Are you satisfied then with those who are coming to you as a place of first call? In other words, if they have a complaint against the police and your role is to investigate, do you not expect a higher number of people coming to you? Mrs O'Loan: I think it is about changing behaviour, Chairman. I think that in the past really the only place you could make a complaint against the police was to go into your local police station and to make a complaint there, therefore that is what people have learned to do. There is a section of the population who would never have gone into their police station to make a complaint because they were not places where they felt comfortable. But there is a section which did go into police stations happily to make their complaints. You are quite right, that when we started more complaints came through the police than through us. It is a figure which is changing quite dramatically; we expect it to continue to change. I think it is the consequence of the work which we have been able to do in terms of raising awareness, in terms of letting people know how to complain. We have to draw the balance, we cannot go out touting for complaints, that would be wrong, but we must make ourselves available and accessible and I think that is what we have tried to do. Q20 Reverend Smyth: Is it your policy that you would like to think that they would come to you as a place of first call? Mrs O'Loan: Yes. I think the majority of complaints that come from police stations actually come from arrests, people who have been arrested and placed in police cells. They will be asked if they have any complaints, and they may reiterate that, yes, they do have complaints. Or on meeting a Force Medical Examiner they may say to him that they have a complaint. So that is the reason why a number of complaints come automatically through the police. Mr Pollock: It is interesting, Mr Chairman, that in the three and a half years we have never had a situation where someone has said, "I made a complaint to the police," and that complaint was not passed on to us. That is reassuring because clearly the making of a complaint directly to the police is given priority by them. Q21 Mr Tynan: I understand that a number of complaints are closed because of lack of co-operation and obviously your Office does a lot of work in order to make sure that any complaints are taken seriously. In your Report 2002/2003 you indicated some research was going to be done as regard the causes of that. Could you indicate how that research is being done and what is the result of the research at the present time? Mrs O'Loan: We actually restructured our research plan. This is one thing that we are working on but we are not through to results. We have an initial awareness, and if I could share with you some of our understanding as to why people end up in this classification of non co-operation? It would not be the classification which I would choose if the choice of classifications were open to me, but the Rules say that I must classify things in certain ways. We can investigate for people and they come to a point where they feel that the story which they have to tell, the problem that they have has been communicated to the police; that we are aware of it, the police are aware of it and that something will happen, and they no longer wish to engage with the process and they withdraw. What I cannot give you are percentages for each category. Then there are people to whom we would say, "We need a medical examination of you," and perhaps they are not willing to go through with a medical examination, for a variety of reasons and so they will withdraw. There are people to whom we will say, "Yes, we will investigate your complaint," and then they realise that the investigation of the complaint means that we have to go to people as witnesses, to whom they may not wish us to go. It will not be that they withdraw the complaint; they will simply cease to correspond with us. So there are a variety of reasons why people do not co-operate and, you are quite right, we do regard it as very important. The way that we are dealing with it is that we are carrying out post-closure surveys of complainants to find out what their experience of using the Office was; not just why they have withdrawn, but how did they find the staff and all that sort of thing, because we also want to identify the weaknesses in our own systems - because I am sure that there are weaknesses - so that we can remedy them. Q22 Mr Tynan: Has there been any indication that the potential of your Office to disclose information in legal proceedings contributes to complainants withdrawing their co-operation? Mrs O'Loan: What I would say to that is that we only disclose information which we have under Section 5 of the Criminal Law Act (Northern Ireland), which has a legal obligation where a serious offence has been committed, et cetera. So we must, under Section 5 of the Criminal Law Act. The other situations are where we have information which may assist the defence or affect the Director of Public Prosecutions' decision-making process on whether to prosecute, and then we will hand that to the Director of Public Prosecutions and to the defence because it will assist the defence, and that really is under the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act. We tend not to disclose because we have very, very strict legislation under Section 63 of the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 1968, which in effect says that we will not disclose. It was quite interesting when we looked at the new English Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) legislation. The presumption is that they will disclose, it is completely different federal law. So there are a lot of issues there. We have been judicially reviewed on several occasions when we have refused to disclose things, and we have not been found by the court to have made the wrong decision, thus far. We have, for example, a very significant judicial review in relation to that from the Committee for the Administration of Justice about the situation in Nelson, and we do not have judgment yet - we are waiting. Q23 Mr Tynan: On the basis of your research, are there any changes, operational developments that have occurred because of the research you have undertaken? Mrs O'Loan: In relation to non co-operation? Q24 Mr Tynan: In relation to withdrawal of the complaint? Mrs O'Loan: I think the thing that we would be most aware of is that we still need to help people to understand the system, to understand what we do, to understand what investigation means, to understand that we cannot just use common sense, as they might say to us, or we cannot just make assumptions. The process of police complaints investigation is actually a very technical process and sometimes people will withdraw because it just takes too long; that is another problem we have. We have tried to speed it up but there are limitations on our ability to speed it up. So I suppose what we have done is to identify what we see as the main issues and we are attempting to address those. David, you have a responsibility for investigations, do you want to add anything? Mr Wood: No, but getting back to your original question, I do not think there is strong evidence to suggest that people do not come to us because of who we might disclose things to. It was a problem with the police investigating the police in Northern Ireland because they were the prosecutors perhaps against the complainant as well as investigating the complainant's complaint, and the files were then put together to the Director of Public Prosecutions. That does not happen with our Office, the files do not go together. Unless there is a requirement for them to go to the Director of Public Prosecutions they do not go there because it is dealt with independently and separately. The closure rate is of concern to us. As Mrs O'Loan has said, there is research being conducted now and we will obviously await the outcome of that to see whether we can identify further improvements. We do respond very fast and we have always responded within two days of a letter coming to us back to the complainant. We do everything we can to secure support but at the end of the day it often comes down to people making a complaint after immediately being released from police custody, sometimes in drink, and reflection takes place the next day or the day after. Those sort of complaints maybe will never change. Mrs O'Loan: May I add one final thing, Chairman? There are many people who seek disclosure from us, including our magistrates, and we have had to explore what the law means with a lot of legal advice, and on one occasion I had to refuse a magistrate and was judicially reviewed, because she demanded my complaints file, that she would have my whole complaints file. That went to the court and the court found that the way she had done this, the understanding was wrong, and it went again, and the end result was that the interpretation which we had put on it was correct. It may change, Parliament may choose to change the law, but the law is not a finely tuned animal in that respect, it is developing all the time. We had Green v. PCA and all those cases coming through very recently, so it is a challenge for us to get it right. Q25 Mr Campbell: Mrs O'Loan, securing the confidence of the police has to be fairly crucial to the success of your work. Mrs O'Loan: Yes. Q26 Mr Campbell: Last year there was a survey of police attitudes that you reported in your annual report. What is your view of those findings? Mrs O'Loan: I suppose they caused me concern, that is the first thing I want to say. There was good in that and bad in that survey for us and for the police. 58 per cent of them supported independent investigation, 56 per cent of them thought there is less misconduct in PSNI than there is in other Forces. 43 per cent thought their members should be able to complain to me. So there is a range of issues coming out of them. 74 per cent were satisfied with the time that we had taken to deal with the complaint, 64 per cent satisfied with the outcome, and yet - and yet - 67 per cent want more knowledge about us. That was the first thing that we addressed, the question of knowledge: what are we going to do about how much police officers know? We had done what we could. Police officers have a Code of Conduct and the Code of Conduct is published by the Police Service. It contains in the back of it an account of how complaints against the police are dealt with, but this is our account of how police complaints are dealt with, and you actually have a copy of this. Very rapidly after the survey results came in we distributed that to each police officer, and we then worked on a series of measures which were designed to ensure communication. I suppose we looked at the other issues around where we need the police, that sort of thing, but for me the key issue is confidence, you are quite right about that, and I said that in my opening remarks to you. We have to get the confidence of police and the only way we can do that is to engage with them, because we found that we spend a lot of our time, particularly the three of us, moving around engaging with police officers. We have five police forces, but mainly we are dealing with the PSNI, and with three Police Staff Associations. So we have to deal with them. We have met all the District Command Units, we have had regular meetings with police at all levels across Northern Ireland. David and I have a six-weekly meeting with the Police Federation of Northern Ireland - I think it is called Litigation Discipline Committee now, but it is the Committee that deals with our Office. We have had extensive involvement in police training; we have had 25 sessions this year alone in police training to try to help them to understand us; in new probationers, in Phase 4 probationers, in firearms training, in senior investigating officer training and in the new CS spray training. We very quickly became aware that one of the problems was that officers said they did not know what was happening in their case, where a complaint had been made against them. I think we have made a mistake, because we came to the conclusion earlier on that we needed to notify complainants every six weeks where their complaint was, and our assumption was that officers were given a named person to write to, they were given information about the process and they would understand that if you are waiting for the forensic science lab to come back that takes a little time, if you are waiting for a pathology report that takes time, and that therefore they would expect these delays. Also, we have to wait for information from the Police Service itself and that takes time. I think that was the wrong decision. I have made inquiries since of Police Services and I am told that the RUC did not update police officers at all, unless they went to see them on a particular issue; there was not a regular update process in the RUC. And there is no regular update process in most of British Forces. So we have introduced six-weekly updates to officers and each officer has a named contact who is the investigator of the case, and we hope that will improve the situation. I think it is going to be slow. I do not think it is a one-way thing though, if I may say so, Chairman; I think that the police and the Police Staff Associations have a role to play here too, and we obviously seek their support and their co-operation in playing that role. Q27 Mr Campbell: At the start of that reply, Mrs O'Loan, you alluded to a number of the statistics in the survey, and you said that they caused you concern. Mrs O'Loan: Yes. Q28 Mr Campbell: One of the statistics that you did not quote was that only 13 per cent of officers agreed that the Police Ombudsman's investigators investigated complaints impartially. Does that cause you concern? That is 13 per cent, not 30. Mrs O'Loan: Yes. May I just correct you - and I could be wrong again, Chairman - that I think the question was, "Do you think the Police Ombudsman is impartial?" Whichever it was, it was 13 per cent, yes, and that is why I started off by saying that one of the most important things we have to deal with is gaining the confidence of the police, because to me that 13 per cent is a typical issue, it is the one thing that appeared in the Press early on when we were still talking to the Federation about this. That 13 per cent is a very important figure. 44 per cent did not know whether we were impartial or not and 44 per cent thought we were not impartial. We were impartial. So we have a lot of work to do, I have no doubt about that. Q29 Mr Campbell: But you do not think the fact that only one officer in eight agreed in relation to your impartiality is a significant figure? Mrs O'Loan: Chairman, I think I answered you by saying that I was very concerned about this. I did not use the word "significant" but I am quite happy to use the word significant. I would say to you that there is a difference between the way that we must deal with police officers and with our complainants, and that is a difference which is imposed on us by the system, because the police officers with whom we have to engage are either suspects because an allegation has been made against them or they are witnesses. The law prescribes certain ways in which you must deal with people. For example, the law does not permit us - nor would I wish it - to interview my complainants under caution, but the law requires that if we are investigating a police officer for a criminal offence we must interview him under criminal caution, or for a disciplinary we must interview him under a disciplinary process, with a caution. That in itself engages a whole different set of dynamics. It is difficult. I think there are many things we can say about that. All I can say to you is that 18 months ago that figure stood at 13 per cent; it is our intention to revisit it, but we have so much work going on we will probably come to that later in the policy practice investigation research, but I am not sure when we will be able to, although I would hope in the near future. We are working across a range of initiatives to improve that. Mr Pollock: We have no benchmark in terms of what percentage of police officers would feel that their own complaints and discipline departments are impartial. I suspect that any regulatory body, inspectorate or investigation agency, the professionals here that are subject to investigation, it will be difficult to persuade them that we are fair. I have to say we were disappointed, we would like it to be much higher and we will work very hard to ensure that it is much higher. The key thing is that police officers fully understand that the process does provide massive protection to them as individuals and as professionals, and that we will seek to respect their rights as also with complainants. Mrs O'Loan: Can I add one thing, Chairman? This survey disclosed other things about police officer attitudes. The two findings it disclosed, that I am about to tell you about, are indicative of the reasons why police may not regard us as impartial. The first one is that 79 per cent of police officers believe that the public do not have genuine reasons to complain; the second is that 66 per cent of police officers who responded to our survey thought that complainants were out to make mischief. I lay those before you and ask you to consider the other figures in the light of those two, which I know were of huge concern to the police and probably to the Police Staff Associations. I said it had good news and bad news for all of us. We must all work; we start in a place and we must move forward, and that is what we are trying to do. Q30 Mr Campbell: A couple more questions if you would bear with me, Chairman? I am sure you would accept - and nearly everyone accepts - that in both communities in Northern Ireland there is an acceptance of the principle of some sort of independent assessment of complaints against police officers, but at the very outset in your remarks you mentioned the fairly high acceptance level in both communities. Mrs O'Loan: Yes. Q31 Mr Campbell: Again, you alluded to, but did not say, that there was a distinction in the percentages between the two communities. Why is it that Protestants are less likely to think that you are doing a fair and good job than Catholics? Mrs O'Loan: I am not going to second-guess what individuals think, I can only share the figures with you, Chairman. Q32 Mr Campbell: I was not talking about individuals, this presumably is a survey of a large number of people? Mrs O'Loan: Yes. Impartiality, 70 per cent of Protestants think I am impartial, 84 per cent of Catholics think I am impartial, on the latest figures; help the police to do a good job, 86 per cent of Catholics, 75 per cent of Protestants; and on fair treatment, 76 per cent, so it is equal on both communities. I suppose that the reasons why Catholics are more likely to feel confidence is that there has never before been an independent system and an independent process through which they could make complaint, and there is a certain evidence that Catholics were reluctant to complain in the past. I think the situation with the Protestant community was a stronger relationship with policing so that if things went wrong they felt that they could engage with the police. We are a totally new body. The Police Service of Northern Ireland is moving through a period of change which I think is unparalleled across the world, and in that process the perception - and I am really trying to work out what is going on here because you asked me to do so - is that Protestants wonder what is happening to the Police Service, when they have independent investigation. They have moved, for example, from 51 per cent believing in my impartiality three years ago to 70 per cent now. So we are working at it, Chairman, I think that is all I can say. What comment I have made about the reasons people may have voted the way they did in this independent survey, you just have to take it that that is my guesswork and nothing more. Chairman: Yes, and I think that those figures which show improvement amongst both communities speak for themselves, and you are to be congratulated. Q33 Mr Campbell: One final question, Chairman. Really progressing that on to a logical conclusion, on the religious breakdown. Most people accept - and in fact it seems to be a self-evident truth - that Northern Ireland is a very divided society and also a very politicised one. Would you accept - and there is no delicate way of putting this - that if we have a Policing Ombudsman in Northern Ireland, whose spouse is a DUP councillor, that there would be some difficulty in the Nationalist community about having confidence in the Office of that person? Mrs O'Loan: I do not think that the DUP have a particular disenfranchisement from holding any position, Chairman. I would say that I think what you are probably alluding to - and I will be even less delicate than you were - that my husband is, yes, an SDLP councillor, but I am not and I never have been a member of any political party. I would also say to you that if we took the three major issues on which your party and I think the Nationalist parties would be divided, on plastic baton rounds, I have consistently said that the police must have these and I believe that both the National parties do not believe that is the right position for me to hold, but I believe they must have them because I do not think that police officers should be exposed to a degree of risk, and I think the baton round is necessary. On Special Branch I have consistently said that Special Branch has done a very necessary and very important job in policing in Northern Ireland, and we need a Special Branch. We need reform throughout our Police Service because everything needs reform, my Office, all Police Services and even Parliament. Reform is part of life because if you do not change you die. I think it is right that we should have a Special Branch and I know that there are parts of the Nationalist community, probably both parties would want Special Branch away. On simple things, like CS spray, I made a statement saying that our police officers had nothing between their batons and their firearms to protect themselves and I wanted them to have CS spray. I think I am right in saying that both the political parties and the Nationalist side do not want CS spray. I can only say to you, Mr Campbell, without wishing to be in any way disrespectful, through you, Chairman, that I am not a puppet or a tool of any political party, I am an independent body. Chairman: Mr Campbell, I do not think we want to get into personalities and I want to say at this stage, I hope on behalf of the entire Committee, that those of us who have known Mrs O'Loan over the years doing this job have no doubt about her integrity or her impartiality. Whatever else we might criticise about her work, that is not one of the things. I do not think we should get into personal matters. Mr Campbell: I wanted to be clear, Chairman, that Mrs O'Loan agrees - hopefully she will agree - in a deeply politicised society, if there are political connections by extension of anyone in a position as you hold, that it is imperative that that person demonstrates their impartiality clearly and unequivocally to everyone with whom you come into contact, in order to try and ensure that event that political affiliation by extension is precluded from the equation. Chairman: Mr Campbell, I did just say that we would not go any further into personalities. All I would say, from my years of experience in Northern Ireland, that to find someone without some political extension somewhere, by family, by friends or anything else, you will be finding a very rare person who lives in Northern Ireland. We will not proceed down those lines. Mr Adrian Bailey. Q34 Mr Bailey: Over the last four years your own surveys indicate that there has been no decline in the proportion of people subjected to unacceptable behaviour by the police - about 70 per cent. Earlier you said that some of your findings had been taken up to improve police processes, but would you not agree that this consistent level of dissatisfaction indicates that your Office is having a negligible impact on raising standards of police behaviour? Mrs O'Loan: I am sorry, Chairman, I understood the latter part of the question but I did not understand the first few words. Q35 Mr Bailey: I will just amplify. Your own Public Attitudes Report indicates that from October 2000 to March 2001 and the recent one, that there has been no significant variation in the proportion of respondents reporting that they had experienced unacceptable behaviour from police officers. Mr Pollock: That is correct but the factor that we look at more closely is the overall level of complaints that we are receiving and registering. There has been a significant decline in the volume of complaints from 2001 through to our most recent annual report. More significantly, there has been a decline in the level of oppressive behaviour complaints - that is more of the serious matters that have been registered by us - and, significantly, the use of force. We see that as a very important trend and pattern that is developing. So, whilst the public survey result cannot be ignored, it is very much a general perception by members of the public, and it is one that is quite often referred to, that the public have had a much greater fear of crime than might actually be the reality. We cannot ignore the public perception but I think the level of complaints and the nature of the complaints that we are registering is showing a very, very positive trend, and there are other more specific things in terms of what Mrs O'Loan has been able to do with the Police Service to change behaviour and to work towards improvements that we feel are pretty significant, and certainly to have achieved it within three and a half years is important. Q36 Mr Bailey: There is an issue about complaints and allegations, but I will leave that for further consideration. You wanted to come back, Mrs O'Loan? Mrs O'Loan: I wanted to come back on the nature of the change in policing policy and practice. Complaints are reducing; as Tom said, oppressive behaviour is down. We have made significant change, we know that, because if you take something as simple as the use of batons by police officers in Northern Ireland, when we started police officers were 40 times more likely to be the subject of a complaint about their use of baton than police officers in the UK; they were six times more likely to suffer injury than police officers here. So we began to look at the reasons why because it is not enough to say that they hit people more often or they are perceived to hit people more often. So then we looked at how often they were trained, and issues like that. We discovered, for example, that a significant number of police officers, unless they do special training, were only trained once in their policing careers. In England and Wales police officers in most Forces have to re-qualify every year or they are not allowed to carry a baton. Once you put into place training the numbers drop, so the numbers are down from 419 in 2001 to 148 in 2003. I think that is about training; I think it is about management; I think it is about supervision; I think it is about expectations. One of the problems we had was the use of live fire by police officers and that is down from 21 to five in the last year. That is very, very important because on each of the occasions on which a gun was fired at somebody you can have the possibility of a fatality. It is about enabling police officers in their training to understand the consequences of using live fire, and I think that has happened and that is why it is trained. Perhaps even more importantly, the baton rounds: I have said that police officers should be able to use baton rounds when they are necessary, but they have not been used in the past 20 months possibly, since September 11th 2002. That is a very significant change in policing policy and practice. Our situation has changed too: we do not have as much interface violence, but we still do have interface violence. The bulk of our complaints come in in respect of Friday night, Saturday morning 9 o'clock to 3 o'clock, like any other Police Force in the United Kingdom. That is around police behaviour, the interaction between police officers, the way in which people are handled when they are brought into police stations and all that sort of thing. I am not saying that we have made the difference, but I am saying that we have made a contribution. Q37 Mr Bailey: Can I pick up this issue of training because I believe Mr Wood in the past has made a remark that, "PSNI are years in training and having to catch up fast". You have given what would appear to be a very good example of the way that they are catching up; could you elaborate on that? Mrs O'Loan: I will elaborate and then I will let David speak because I suspect you are taking what he said very slightly out of context, with the greatest respect. Training issues in the Police Service of Northern Ireland, as the Federation themselves acknowledge, fell into second place to the need to survive. Our police officers are provided with personal protection weapons and those personal protection weapons are literally that. So they were trained to use those weapons to shoot at targets for their own survival. They were not trained around things like crossfire, ricochet and the effects of other things, and that was a very serious problem. That has all changed since we started investigating these things. There is no doubt that if you have to retrain 13,000 officers every six months - and in England it might even be every three months, but in Northern Ireland it is every six months - that is a huge training burden. But there was other training and we are very pleased to see a much higher commitment and an ability to process people through training now. I believe that David Wood was misreported to a degree and certainly was the subject of unfair criticism, and I would like to give David the opportunity to talk about the issue that you raised. Mr Wood: It was in the RUC area in years gone by really but because of the pressures and challenges to police in Northern Ireland training, probably by necessity, took second place. I would not suggest for one moment that the PSNI are today or for the last few years behind in training, they are now catching up fast. But I think it has been catching up rather than anything else and, as Mrs O'Loan has stated, there was certainly a paucity of training in lots of areas in policing. I think in detective training and senior investigators a course was started about two years ago in PSNI, but I suspect now - and the Deputy Chief Constable will be able to tell you later - that all senior investigators in Northern Ireland have the appropriate training, but that was not the case two years ago. Detective training too was patchy around Northern Ireland, and it was all areas of policing policy in fact that were behind in training. They have had an enormous challenge to catch up. They have a new Academy, in terms of building, they have the new leadership there and training has moved on dramatically and they are catching up. As Mrs O'Loan said, firearms training is now done in a very thorough and productive way and we take part in all firearms training courses with their officers, and that is done every six months, although in the rest of the UK it is every three months. There is a slightly different context of firearms of course in Northern Ireland but it is still necessary to have that training. So that is the context and, as I say, I think now it has been caught up with, but in the past there was a gap in the training without any doubt. Q38 Mr Bailey: To what extent do you think that past gap in training was instrumental in the level of complaints that you received? Mrs O'Loan: We get a lot of complaints about retrospective cases and Parliament has given me a duty, where the allegation is grave or exceptional, to investigate; it did not give me a discretion. In those cases what we find very often is that the people who were doing the investigations very often did what they could in terms of the resources available to them, their other workload, the situation which they were operating and their training. What they did would not measure up against today's standards but we do not measure them against today's standards, we measure them against the standards at the time at which they conducted the operation. So, for example, we will not make any recommendations for disciplinary procedure because if an officer has not been trained you cannot hold him culpable for that, but what we will do (and do) is to say to the Chief Constable, "In this investigation we believe there are unexplored evidential opportunities" - we are talking in 99 per cent of these cases of murder cases - "and therefore we believe that you would wish to revisit these opportunities and to see whether you can bring this case to closure for people." Conversely, we can go back to people and say, "Actually the case in which you were involved, the death of your loved one, is one in which the police did as thorough a job as possible." We have done that and we have gone back to people and we have had the response, which was, "For the first time in 15, 20 years I am able to sleep at night." I think that is enormously important because we are a very wounded community in Northern Ireland, as well as a very divided community. Q39 Mr Bailey: Finally, in your survey of police officers 56 per cent thought that there was less misconduct in the PSNI than in most other Police Forces. What would be your view of that? Mrs O'Loan: I find it slightly difficult to answer, Chairman. I suppose my view is that sometimes it is very important that you can say sorry, and traditionally policing across the world did not explain and did not say sorry. Policing in Northern Ireland has moved into a new era; the Chief Constable has apologised on occasions when his officers have got it wrong. I think if it is possible to say, "Yes, we can get it wrong," then it is possible to believe that we do get it wrong. But if it is not possible to say, "We may get it wrong," then you will not be able to say, "We do get it wrong." I think it is as simple as that; it is all around the culture and the expectation, and I think that is changing. Chairman: We have a lot of questions left, so we need to keep moving. Could I ask the Committee members to make their questions brief and perhaps we could have some briefer answers. I know these are very complex questions and I am in no way being critical, but we have a long way to go and another set of witnesses. Mr Tony Clarke. Q40 Mr Clarke: Thank you, Chairman. That was a very careful answer, if I may say so, in terms of Mr Bailey's last question, but would it be fair to say that 100 per cent of Police Forces, if asked, would say that there is less misconduct in their Force than in anybody else's? Mrs O'Loan: Maybe. Q41 Mr Clarke: I want to return to the use of batons. I am highly supportive of the work of the Ombudsman, but it has almost been claimed that the Ombudsman's work has resulted in less use of batons, whereas the reality, I suppose, is the reason that there is less use of batons is that there has been an introduction of CS spray, and that officers would rather spray somebody from ten feet than hit them with a baton from three; is that fair? Mrs O'Loan: It is a simple answer, Chairman. The CS spray came in on 1st July of this year, so we do not have figures that we can compare with the CS spray and the batons. Mr Pollock: It is about the complaint that arises from the use of batons and not the total use of batons that might exist. Q42 Mr Clarke: I accept that but I think that most other UK Forces that have introduced CS spray and/or PAVA, there have been huge drops in the use of batons which would obviously lead to a drop in the number of complaints because it is a better option for police officers' safety. So would it be fair to say that the real reason that there has been a drop in complaints in respect of the use of batons is not necessarily because of any investigative work, it is because the use of CS spray has meant that there is less use of batons and therefore less complaints? Mrs O'Loan: Chairman, no, that is not correct, with respect. It is now 21st July and they started using CS spray three weeks ago. So until three weeks ago they had no opportunity to use CS spray, the only thing they had was the batons, yet the baton use has reduced. As I said in answer to one of your colleagues earlier, I felt it was attributable to a number of things: one was better training, one was the fact that we had fewer interface situations and, finally, a lot of the baton complaints come n Friday night/ Saturday morning, et cetera, and I think that police officers are being trained in what we might call "conflict resolution" - find another way out of this - and I think that is extraordinarily beneficial to the police and to us. Q43 Mr Clarke: That would be the same for live rounds because you note there have been reductions in the use of live rounds? Mrs O'Loan: Yes. Q44 Chairman: Are they required to report the use of CS spray to you, as a matter of routine? Mrs O'Loan: No. Q45 Chairman: Do you know if it has been used in the last three weeks? Mrs O'Loan: It has been used in the northwest in the past week and we have had four complaints - three about the use of it and one associated with the use of it - this week. Q46 Mr Clarke: It is probably a fairer question to ask the PSNI, but do officers have to complete the use of force forms after every withdrawal of baton or CS spray? Mrs O'Loan: They do. Mr Wood: They have a very comprehensive policy and procedure of what takes place immediately after. It has to be properly reported, yes, and we were properly consulted on the use and we think it is a good and substantial policy to compare with any other policing service. Mrs O'Loan: I think you can pursue it with the Deputy Constable, but the actual canisters are weighed and they can tell whether they have been used or not. Chairman: Those will be questions for later. Mr Roy Beggs. Q47 Mr Beggs: I would like to put some questions with regard to the future role of the Police Ombudsman in respect of investigations and police policies. Did you proactively seek additional powers to investigate this practice and policy contained in the 2000 and 2003 Acts, and why were these additional powers necessary? Mrs O'Loan: May I say, Chairman, that when the Office was established in the 2000 Act we were given the power to research police policy and practice. At no stage did I seek a power to investigate police policy and practice. My belief is that it came out of talks in which political parties were engaged, and I do not think I need to say any more about that, because I was not involved in that process. Q48 Mr Beggs: Can you assure the Committee that with those powers that are available to you that there is no danger of your Office straying into PSNI operational matters? Mrs O'Loan: No, we are not going to stray into operational matters but we are certainly going to stray into areas like Article 1 of the Police Code of Conduct, which refers to the need to police impartially, or Article 10 which refers to the need for management and supervision to take place in a proper manner. Those are conduct issues, and in each situation with which we are faced we have to examine the conduct of the officers. If we have a sufficient body of concern from the general public about a particular issue then I think it would be appropriate for us to initiate a policy and practice investigation. We have actually initiated one policy and practice investigation since we got the power, Chairman. It started off as an investigation into the identification of police officers because there are ongoing problems with people being able to identify the officer with whom they are in conflict, but then we realised that there were further problems and we have now set about a major consultation with community groups, political parties, et cetera, about identification of police generally, vehicles and everything else, and whether this meets public needs, taking into account policing needs. We certainly do not seek to interfere with the Chief Constable's operational decision-making. Q49 Mr Beggs: Is the distinction between practice and policy on the one hand and operations on the other unclear? Mrs O'Loan: I think there are situations in which policy and practice influence operations, clearly. What we have to look at are the conduct issues. That is one set of questions. Are they conducting issues to conduct an investigation? Are they policy and practice issues? Policy is what the PSNI tells the force it should do and how it should do it; in practice it is how they actually do things and, if there are no instructions, then what do they do. Those are the issues that we look at under the policy and practice, Chairman, if that helps. Q50 Mr Beggs: Are you seeking any further legislative change to extend your powers in this area? Mrs O'Loan: I have not sought any legislative change to extend my powers in that area. I have sought legislative change to enable me to mediate without investigating first. The legislation that I have under the 2000 Act says that I can mediate where a person is in conflict with the policy but I can only do so after investigation. The process of investigating police complaints is lengthy; it is adversarial. By the time you have investigated to the point at which you think that really this is for mediation, the parties are distanced far more than they would be if you had come to the mediation first. There are many complaints where I can see mediation as the answer to the problem, but the legislation says I cannot do that; I must investigate first. I am seeking that one change to the legislation, which is the removal of the requirement to investigate before mediation. Q51 Mr Beggs: To date, we understand that only one investigation into policies and procedures has been conducted with reference to officers not displaying numerals on uniform in public order incidents. What other investigations into policies and procedures are planned Mrs O'Loan: No, what I said to you was that we have widened the scope of the identification, police and practice and we are conducting that one. We have adopted a particularly theoretical framework within which to do that. We want to be able to stand over the methodology. We have not planned any further ones beyond that at the present time. There are a number of policy and practice issues which come to me, such as arrest processes; people will bring to me repeatedly complaints about the number of Land Rovers which arrive at their house when the police want to arrest and the times at which they arrive. That is an issue which I think is cause for concern, but I have not made a determination with my senior management team that will do that. Q52 Mr Beggs: What level of additional resources would be required for your office to pursue further investigations of the police procedures and policies? Mrs O'Loan: We have not sought any further resources to do this, Chairman. We have attempted to do what we can with the resources available to us. The structure of our process is that if we identify a need for further resources, we should make a business case to the NIO, and that is what we would do. At the present time, we have not done that. Q53 Reverend Smyth: You have made reference to the fact that you have been asking for some changes but there have been some legislative changes since the office has been set up. What has the overall effect been upon you and how has it affected you in stabilising the work of the Ombudsman with such changes? Mrs O'Loan: We have had a lot of changes in three and a half years. Briefly, we started off having to investigate police conduct against three sets of different regulations. We have now moved in to post-March 2003 conduct. We have one code of ethics. When we get to conduct, that is it. We have two standards of proof in discipline cases we are currently investigating. One is beyond a reasonable doubt the other is on a balance of probabilities. All those create process needs for us, and so that is one thing. We have a retrospective duty to investigate; that came in 2001. Initially, complaints could be made within two years of the incident, then it became one year, and now it is one year unless it is grave or exceptional without limit. That has imposed a burden on the office, and it is a resources burden, but I think those complaints come from police families, prison officer families, UDR families, all sorts of families right across the community. There clearly is a need for something to be done there. We have the new power to investigate policy and practice, which Mr Beggs referred to. What we have done there is restructure the office to enable the function to be exercised and find a methodology and things like that to start the first real investigation. We were scheduled under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, and that required us to set up particular procedures for investigatory powers, which we use; those are special investigatory powers. We were inspected by the Surveillance Commissioner in March and he reported back to me that he had no requirements of me, but he would have expected nothing less of me. We have new duties coming, as I said, to investigate complaints against non-sworn officers. The DPP now will have a duty to refer complaints to us. I guess all those are building our workload. I think our hope is that because the level of complaints is diminishing, we can redirect resources and try and manage the thing. We recognise the limitations on the public purse. That is what I am trying to say to you. Q54 Reverend Smyth: As I understand it, your Secretary of State is about to have contact with you and you are in contact with him about long-term policing objectives, and likewise the Chief Constable in the formulation of codes of ethics. How often do you have such contact or have you had on those issues? Mrs O'Loan: Is that on objective or code of ethics? The Code of Ethics was passed in 2003 and we were consulted I think for about two and half years before that after the legislation was passed until it was adopted. I made lengthy representations on that one. There is a new booklet which the police have produced for staff on the Code of Ethics on which I was not consulted, but that is there. The second thing you asked was about the Secretary of State. I meet the Secretary of State and I met him most recently three weeks ago. I meet the Northern Ireland Office Permanent Under Secretary and I meet the Senior Director of Policing and Security, the number two to the Permanent Under-Secretary, and also the Director of Policing. We have various meetings across various levels. Q55 Chairman: You have slightly anticipated some of the questions we were going to ask you in your answer to Mr Beggs about mediation. Let me try and get us back on track there and then other colleagues must feel free to come in. You believe that it is wrong that mediation should come after you have got underway a formal investigation and found that there is nothing terribly serious and you could perhaps solve it informally. You actually need a basic change in the law to achieve that, do you? Mrs O'Loan: Yes, we do because the Police Act says that I can mediate after investigation. Those words are in at law, and I have to get those words removed to enable us to mediate - to decide at some point perhaps even in the investigation that this is more suitable to mediation. Q56 Chairman: This may well be something we would want to recommend as a result of your experience. It is simply a question of taking some words out to allow you to start the process by saying, "Is there any way we can do this informally?" Mrs O'Loan: Chairman, we have had lengthy talks with the Police Service and with the Police unions, the staff associations. They have all agreed. Most recently we had a final meeting to fine-tune our understanding and the Police Service understanding of how this would work, and we are in the process of communicating our joint position to enable the Northern Ireland Office to bring to Parliament the necessary change. Q57 Chairman: Have you made a formal representation to the Northern Ireland Office yet? Mrs O'Loan: We did make a formal representation, and it has been going on for about two years. They have consulted the staff unions and the police and come back. Q58 Chairman: I think that is a very satisfactory moment for us to say that we hope we can help you o this subject. Mrs O'Loan: Thank you, Chairman. Q59 Mr Tynan: Could you explain how the various oversight mechanisms you highlight in your submission provide an effective and focused review mechanism for those individuals who wish to complain about the activity of your office? Mrs O'Loan: Yes. Can we take different groups of individuals perhaps, and children first of all because I was asked about children and they are very important? Children in Northern Ireland can complain to a Commissioner for Children and Young People. The Commissioner for Children and Young People has the powers of a High Court judge, and he has the power where I have investigated to come and investigate my investigation. He can compel witnesses to give testimony. I cannot, for example, compel police officers to give me evidence, but he has that power to compel, which I do not have. That is the children. Anybody can make a complaint against the office, and we are a very small office. We have had 20 complaints from police officers in respect of which 12 were about one incident, and that one incident was the occasion on which police officers walked up and down the steps of Stormont, which is our parliament building. We received two allegations of minor assault but, because we did not know which police officers might have been responsible for these minor assaults, we had to serve notices on every single police officer that they might be under investigation, to give them notice so that they could prepare any defence that might be necessary. We had complaints that we had served these notices. They did not think we should have served these notices because they had done what they were told to do, go up and down the steps. That was one case. We had 20 complaints from police officers and we have had eight complaints this year from members of the public. There have been 28 complaints against the office. The current mechanism is that these people complain to us. We then will appoint an independent member of staff who has not been previously involved to investigate. Mr Pollock deals with all public complaints. Mr Wood deals with allegations by police officers against my staff. If the people are not satisfied, they can go to the Secretary of State, and they do. A number of those 20 and those eight have come through the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State has the power to operate on a call-in basis an independent investigation of my office. He has not used that power but it does exist. I suppose for me the biggest form of accountability is something like coming here today, but we also have a Criminal Justice Inspector and he has the right to inspect the processes of my office. He has a complete right of access to information, et cetera, and to premises and all that sort of thing. I think he is planning to inspect us next September. The Surveillance Commission, as I have said, inspects us. The Comptroller and Auditor General is enormously important because we are the repository of £7 million worth of public funds. We are audited in respect of the way in which we spend that money, and I am heartily glad of that. We are required to report to the Secretary of State. We are required to account to the Policing Board, as Mr McGrady alluded to, in terms of the recommendations which we make and the reporting structures there. The core of this to me is that we have had these 28 complaints. Police officers are not shy when it comes to making complaints and they have had judicial review on a number of occasions. We have not lost the judicial review. We have been judicially reviewed on a number of occasions. The fact that the independent mechanism exists in the Secretary of State's office to call in an independent outsider I think is good. I suppose that I actually think that this is a good process, and this is probably the wrong wording too, because it really compels us to scrutinise what we are doing. Q60 Mr Tynan: How do you respond to the allegation of the Police Federation that states that several of their members have no confidence in the present system of accountability? Mrs O'Loan: As I have told you, we have received from police officers 20 complaints, a total since we opened of about 40. We have dealt with each of them. They have all had the right to come back to us or to go back to the Secretary of State. When we are dealing with complaints by police officers, we deal also with the Federation or the Superintendents' Association, whichever, because they represent the officer to us. We have satisfied them in our dealing with the complaints that we have dismissed a member of staff on the foot of a police officer's complaint. We have disciplined; we have retrained officers, and all that on the foot of 40 complaints. We take complaints very seriously because I think, if we seek to judge the integrity and the professionalism of others, we must do all we can to try and see that our staff do their job professionally. Q61 Mr Tynan: Obviously it is vitally important for people to have confidence in your office. Does the fact that the Police Federation state that some of their members feel as they do concern you? How would you rectify that? Mrs O'Loan: It does concern me. It always concerns me if police officers feel unhappy about the office in any respect. What we are attempting to do is to go round at the lowest level possible in groups and just to talk to people. That is hard to arrange. I asked the MSU Commander in a particular area, "Can I come and talk to your mobile support units?" Those are the operational support units and they go in Land Rovers when there is a problem. "Yes of course you can", he replied. It was arranged and then I received a phone call to say, "Sorry, we have been called out". We have been unable to arrange it since. I do not think that is any reflection on them; it is just the pressures on policing. We are trying to engage with the police because I think they should understand the process and understand that at the end of the day there is a mechanism for independent investigation by the Secretary of State, by an independent person appointed by the Secretary of State, and there are all these other mechanisms; there are at least 12 mechanisms for scrutinising our office. Mr Wood: For the complaints that have been made by the police there is the single point of contact, the Police Federation, and they come through them to us. I have actually spoken to their representative on many occasions on this subject. There is not one complaint that has been made through the Police Federation that they would not say has not been satisfactorily resolved at the end of the day. There are not a lot of aggrieved complainants out there who have complained to your office about the behaviour of our staff and remain dissatisfied with how it has been dealt with. Q62 Mr Tynan: Would you welcome Dr Hayes's suggestion that your office should be placed under the jurisdiction of the Assembly on this point? Mrs O'Loan: I think there are difficulties there because police and justice are not matters which are devolved to the Assembly in the first instance, so it just could not be done at the present time. I think it is a matter for Parliament to decide. I do not honestly think it is a matter for me, but you then have to look at what an ombudsman is and what the process is. All the decisions which I make are recommendations, not decisions. I recommend to the Director of Public Prosecutions that a police officer should be prosecuted. The Director of Public Prosecutions is a totally independent officer and he decides. He has, if you like, a review; he sends papers out to counsel; he determines whether what I have presented to him is right, and he makes the decision. If you like, there is an appeal already in there. If a police officer is prosecuted, then he appears in court. If he is convicted, he has a right of appeal all the way through the normal criminal process. On the disciplinary side, I make recommendations to the Chief Constable for disciplining of officers. The situation is that those are recommendations. The Chief Constable can reject them, and there have been a few occasions where he has rejected them. In some of them, I have accepted that reaction; it may be, for example, on the grounds that the officer is ill, and there are various other circumstances which mean it is inappropriate to take action against the officer at this time, so I have accepted those. Q63 Mr Tynan: Can I take it that your answer is "no", you would not welcome that? Mrs O'Loan: I just think you have to look at the proportionality. You have to look at the function of an ombudsman and you have to see what you are dealing with. I do not make final decisions. I make decisions which are referred to other people - the Chief Constable or the Director of Public Prosecutions. Against each of those decisions, there is then an appeal process. The Policing Board recently have agreed that, given that, they feel that is an appropriate level. Q64 Mr Tynan: I understand the process. There has been a recommendation. I was asking you if you would be happy with that under the Assembly Ombudsman. I understand that it is not devolved. Obviously this suggestion has been made and the direct question was: would you be happy with that? Mrs O'Loan: Mr Tynan, I will do what Parliament requires me to do. I do not think it is a matter of me being happy or unhappy. I will do what Parliament requires me to do, and I will do it graciously and willingly. I do not want to be seen or to be perceived to be saying "yes" or saying "no" because I do not think that is my role. My role is to carry out the function, to explain to you the issues, to explain the numbers, and to leave you to make the decisions. Q65 Mr Hepburn: Legislation has meant that you have acquired new powers and duties. How has this increased the financial and staffing problems and pressures on your office? Mrs O'Loan: The office was established in 2000. When we were established in 2000, one of the things we did was go round looking at what policing costs. Dr Maurice Hayes did this too. We were established with a budget of about £3.5 million. Hayes said that the cost of running RUC complaints handling under the old system was about £6 million in 1996 or 1997, so we have a lower budget. It very rapidly became clear that the budget which had been allocated to the office initially was totally inadequate for what the government was asking us to do. There was a re-evaluation of the functions of the office in 2002 and the budget went up then. Since then, it has simply more or less kept pace with inflation; it has increased slightly. Although we have new powers and new duties, the level of complaints has gone down, so we have diverted people into quality assurance or research and things like that to try and make the best use of the resources we have and to meet our statutory duties. We do have a delay in dealing with some of our retrospective cases. We are not funded to do that at the present time. I have not made a further application. We will do them as best we can under the funding which we have. People understand that. Q66 Mr Hepburn: We are informed that the key performance indicators are missing from the present annual report. Does that not make it difficult to compare year-on-year? Mr Pollock: We have established objectives and targets and we have addressed those from last year. We have also produced a corporate plan for this incoming year and the goals for the next three years. Mrs O'Loan: I think the corporate plan contains the measurement against objectives that you are looking for. Mr Pollock: I refer you to pages 47 and 49 in terms of the progress and achievement of objectives. Q67 Mr Clarke: I just wanted to give you the opportunity to place on record the concerns that you have expressed in your submission and in your annual report in respect of your ability to investigate historic matters. We do not know what those historic matters are but it would seem that they are sensitive and that they will also be very time-consuming and resource-heavy. However, we have heard many times that we cannot move forward until we deal adequately with the past. Would you comment on what your concerns are in respect of investigating those historic matters and when you feel the Ombudsman will be in a position to carry out those investigations and start to provide answers for members of the community that may be concerned? Mrs O'Loan: We started to provide answers. The first retrospective investigation I did was into the death of Mr Sammy Devenny in 1969 and I published that in 2001, so we have been doing that from very early on. There are difficulties in doing retrospective investigations. Very often, particularly with the older ones, there were joint police and army activities. I can investigate the police but I cannot investigate the army. That is fine by me but it does mean that there are situations in which the army will sometimes provide us with information but I have no right to information as I have a right to information from the police. Some of the retrospective investigations are actually dealt with very quickly but I never know, when somebody comes to me and tells me the story of a death, quite what is going to come when we begin to investigate it. Some of them we have been able to deal with within one month or two months; others are queuing up, and we have 15 queuing up at the moment. There are those concerns. I think it is part of a wider problem that Northern Ireland has to resolve. I do not have the solutions to that. I am quite happy to engage in the debate but I do not have the solutions. Q68 Mr Clarke: I think what you have just said in respect of the complexities of army-police relationships and receiving information is very helpful to us and it may be something we can put in our report, Chairman. Mr Wood: We have not been resourced for retrospective inquiries. We have restructured, as we get some flexibility within the budgets in any way, to direct resources to that. Indeed, a great deal of our investigative resource is directed towards that type of larger inquiry. We have to prioritise and deal with matters as we get the resources with perhaps more complaints coming through the door. It is a difficulty for us. We acknowledge, as Mrs O'Loan said, the difficulties on the public purse and we are getting through them. As you have acknowledged, this is resource-intensive, complicated by history and the time they go back, and they do take some time to resolve. Mrs O'Loan: The really complicating factor is that the forensic science lab was blown up, lots of police stations were blown up, a lot of evidence has gone, people have died, memories have changed, locations have changed. Those investigations are difficult. We always tell people at the beginning, "It may be that we will be able to present you with an incomplete picture of what happened and that may be all we can do". I want them to understand right from the very beginning that we will do what we can within our powers and our remit but that there may be limitations on what we can find for them. Chairman: Mrs O'Loan, thank you to you and your team very much indeed for being with us. You have been an enormous help and I hope that when we report, we may be of some help to your office, too. Witnesses: Mr Paul Leighton, Deputy Chief Constable, Police Service of Northern Ireland, Professor Desmond Rea, Chairman, Mr Trevor Reaney, Chief Executive, and Ms Sinead Simpson, Policy Officer, Northern Ireland Policing Board, examined. Q69 Chairman: Thank you very much for coming. May I repeat the apology that I made to Mrs O'Loan and her team for having put you off. Last Wednesday was a slightly unusual day, certainly in my life, and I am afraid we just had to drop everything in order to consider the Butler Report, which was being delivered. Would you please, Mr Leighton, pass on my apologies to Mr Orde. I know he would have come last week and I know he cannot come this week. I am very sorry that we have had to do without him. Professor Rea: Mr Orde sends his apologies to the Committee. Q70 Chairman: Do either of you want to make a very brief introductory statement? I think, Professor Rea, you do. Professor Rea: thank you for the opportunity to make representations to the Committee. I hope I can assist you on behalf of the Board in your inquiry into the functions of the Ombudsman. I am here today representing the Board. I am accompanied by Trevor Reaney, the Chief Executive of the Board, and Sinead Simpson. I know you have a lot of questions to ask and for that reason I will keep my comments brief. As some of you may be aware of the composition of the Board, I would like at the outset to set this out as it is important to understand the different political perspectives and how these impact on our engagement with the Ombudsman. The Board has 19 members: 10 political and nine independent. Of the 10 political members, four are UDP, three are DUP, and three are from the SDLP. The political make-up of the Board is, as you probably know, calculated using the d'Hondt principle. The current representation is based on the balance of the party representation at the Assembly; that is, two elections ago. There are a number of points highlighted in the Board's written statement to this Committee that I would like to emphasise and briefly elaborate on. Firstly, the Ombudsman is a fundamental part of the policing architecture. Independent and impartial investigations of complaints against the police are critical for public confidence and the Ombudsman's Office plays an important role in providing this. That opinion is the unanimous opinion of the Board. In making this statement and in answering your subsequent questions, I have no intention or desire to weaken that part of the policing architecture. It is essential. Secondly, I would like to say something about the work of the Ombudsman and about the engagement and interface between the two offices. I am sure the Committee, in taking evidence from the Ombudsman, is well briefed on the nature of the work undertaken by that office. From the Board's perspective, we see the primary work of that office falling into two categories: first, that which leads to the investigation of complaints made by citizens of Northern Ireland against individual police officers; secondly, that which relates to the wider issue of the policies and practices adopted by PSNI in policing Northern Ireland. I will concentrate on the first category. The Board would not be privy to the details of the majority of individual cases; rather, it is our role to monitor the outcomes of these cases, and we do this by analysing any trends and patterns and statistical reports supplied to us by the Ombudsman. There are, however certain reports of investigations that the Ombudsman is required to send to the Board and indeed to the Chief Constable and the Secretary of State. These are called regulation 20 reports. In respect of these regulation 20 reports into, for example, the discharge of baton rounds in civil disturbance situations - and to date there have been some 59 - Board members have welcomed these reports and describe them as balanced, well written, well analysed, with sound recommendations flowing from them. Even in the few cases where the outcome has been less than complimentary about the policy, such as the Ombudsman's report into the murder of Sean Brown, Board members have considered the reports to be well written and helpful in terms of pointing up areas of improvement for the PSNI. No doubt the Deputy Chief Constable can speak in a more informed manner about the improvements that have resulted. Where then is the problem? I have no doubt that we will explore in greater detail the positive and negative aspects of the work of the Police Ombudsman's Office but one example that causes the Board some difficulty is the handling of the Omagh Report. The personalised nature of some of the commentary in the Ombudsman's Omagh Report has left a residue of distrust that we continue to deal with to this day. I would suggest, Chairman and members, that you seek and read a copy of that report and that you judge it for yourselves. There is also a feeling, most notably articulated by the police associations, that there should be a review mechanism which officers, aggrieved by decisions of the Ombudsman's Office, can use rather than having to resort to judicial review. I have no doubt we will explore this in more detail. Before I conclude, I would like to acknowledge that I am aware that the Ombudsman has problems with the Board. She is unhappy with the lack of confidentiality displayed by the Board, by the apparent lack of visible support from some members of the Board for the work of her office, and, I understand, with the attitude of some of our Board members toward her and the work of her office. I very much regret that this is the case but as the Chairman of the Board made up of 19 members, the majority of them political members - and I have already explained the make-up - it is very difficult to enforce confidentiality when members believe that it is their democratic duty to make certain issues public knowledge. One thing I would like to conclude with, Chairman, is that, largely speaking, the Board would not query the way in which the functions of the Ombudsman's Office are delivered. Indeed, we welcome the fact that around the issue of relationships with the PSNI much effort has been devoted to developing protocols, protocols that will enhance and cement those working relationships. I also feel that the level of engagement between the Board and the Ombudsman at all levels, formal and informal, has led to an improvement in our working relationships. It is in the interests of all organisations within the policing and indeed criminal justice system to develop, maintain and enhance good working relationships. With that, Chairman, I am in your hands. Q71 Chairman: Thank you very much. I can understand that there is a tension, which I hope is a constructive tension, between the Ombudsman's Office and yours. I imagine, as any other chairman of a body that contains politicians, you have the odd problem from time to time with your members. Happily, that does not happen it his Committee! Mr Leighton, do you want to say anything to us? Mr Leighton: No, Mr Chairman. I submitted a paper in advance. I am quite happy to answer questions. Q72 Chairman: Perhaps you would give us, in a nutshell, how you see PSNI's relationship with the Police Ombudsman? Mr Leighton: The first thing I would like to say is that we unreservedly support the independent investigation of complaints. This has been a tremendous boon in building confidence in the province of Northern Ireland in policing. That may not have been the position that many people started out with, but undoubtedly it has proved to be the case in many controversial issues. I returned to the province in March 2003 and the relationship I would describe then as adequate, if I may use that word. Since then, we have sought to build that relationship, develop protocols and work on a more personal basis, both formal and informal, to improve the way that we learn from complaints, because that has to be the ultimate, that we stop complaints happening. I am absolutely delighted that complaints are down 18 per cent since 2001. I think that is a tremendous achievement, and there has been a 10 per cent reduction in the last year, which is to the credit of the police officers and to the credit of all in Northern Ireland. Q73 Mr Bailey: Professor Rea, you have mentioned the difficulties very concisely of your relationship with the Ombudsman. How often do the meetings take place and on what basis? What do you think can be done to improve relations? Professor Rea: First of all, in terms of the meetings that we have, we have regular meetings with the Human Rights Committee about three or four times a year. We have one meeting a year formally with the Board. Also, there are regular meetings between officials and there are also informal meetings between the Chairman and the Vice Chairman of the Board and the Ombudsman. These meetings provide a forum to enable the future work of both offices to be discussed as well as any contentious reports and to discuss opportunities for collaborative working, for example on joint research. The Board is aware that the Ombudsman would like two meetings a year with the Board, but the Board has made the decision as of this moment in time that the structure of meetings and the occasions of the various meetings are sufficient at present, but I have no doubt that they will review that as appropriate. Q74 Mr Bailey: The Board has taken a decision that in effect only one formal meeting a year is adequate as far as they are concerned? Professor Rea: No, I am sorry, what I have said to you is that, with respect to the Board itself, it is one meeting; with respect to the Human Rights and Professional Standards Committee of the Board, it is twice a year and as deemed necessary by either party - plus the regular meetings between staff. There are also meetings, as I have said, between the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Board and the Ombudsman. Q75 Mr Bailey: Is that a sub-committee? Professor Rea: It is one of the principal committees of the Board. Q76 Mr Bailey: How many times has that met? Professor Rea: It meets on a monthly basis. Q77 Mr Bailey: Does it meet with the Ombudsman? Professor Rea: No; one of her officials comes to those meetings, each and every meeting, but I am talking about the Ombudsman herself. Q78 Mr Bailey: How many meetings does that committee have per year with the Ombudsman? Professor Rea: We are talking about two a year at the moment. Q79 Mr Bailey: I find that astonishing. Can you say what you think might be done to improve relations? Professor Rea: I am a bit surprised that you do find it astonishing at this moment. I have described meetings at various levels, the meetings, for example, with the staff, the meetings between the Ombudsman and the Chairman and Vice Chairman. This is subject to review; it is not written in stone. Q80 Mr Bailey: What do you think can be done to improve this? You have quite openly said there have been contentions between you. Professor Rea: I think we are going to have to learn from the history; we are going to have to learn in terms of current relationships and build upon them. I am giving you my perspective on that, which is that we wish to do so because it is a very important part of the architecture of policing in Northern Ireland. Q81 Mr Bailey: With respect, that is a somewhat vague response. Have you any specific proposals that you think might help? Professor Rea: We have encouraged the meeting between staff, her staff and our staff, and, as I have said, in terms of the Chairman and the Vice Chairman and the Ombudsman, we are happy to meet as often as is necessary. Q82 Mr Tynan: Does the need exist for the development of an independent review mechanism for the work of the Ombudsman? Professor Rea: There are two levels on this. With respect to individual cases, and I listened to what the Ombudsman had to say to you and I thought she gave a very succinct summary of that, there are matters that are to do with process and matters of substantive decision. With respect to process, she pointed out to you that should she make a recommendation to the DPP, the DPP refers that up to a court and then there is an appeal mechanism built in, in terms of the court. If it is a discipline matter, it would be referred to the Chief Constable and again, in terms of disciplinary procedure, there would be an appeal mechanism. There is one other area that indeed we have explored with the Ombudsman, which I did not hear covered, and that is the creation of an appeal process outside the current judicial review process whereby matters of process could be appealed to the Northern Ireland Ombudsman. This was a suggestion made by Maurice Hayes in his 1997 report, A Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland. In other words, the Police Ombudsman's views were sought by us on that suggestion. The argument, I would have thought, would be from an individual policeman that he or she might find it less onerous to go that route than to go the route of judicial review. Her response to that, Mr Chairman, was that she thought that was worth considering. With respect to the review mechanism in terms of the general working of the Board, that is a much more difficult area of an Ombudsman's Office, and you have already explored that. I think that is really for politicians, either at Westminster or if and when we have a devolved Parliament, to think about. Q83 Mr Tynan: What is your view of the present accountability arrangements for the Ombudsman? Professor Rea: I have referred to the accountability arrangements in respect of the latter answer that I gave you. I think certainly there would be members of my Board who feel that there needs to be a further accountability mechanism. For example, we explored, long before you decided to look at this area, whether your Committee could have a role in this. Incidentally, let me say that if that were the case with respect to the Ombudsman's Office, as Chairman of the Policing Board, I do not see why that should not be also true in respect of the Board itself, so let me not be partial in terms of arguing that. I think I have answered your question. Mr Leighton: As a member of one of the most overseen police forces in the world, or, according to Kathleen O'Toole, the Chief of the Boston Police, the most overseen police force in the world, I have to say that I sometimes wonder whether Northern Ireland is obsessed with oversight. I know that this is a serious issue for many of our members. I have heard the Federation make that point and I know the Federation is due to give evidence to this Committee and therefore I would leave it to them. All I would say is that I am not aware of any other Ombudsman that has oversight by another Ombudsman. I am not sure where it ends. Q84 Mr Hepburn: In your view, have all the relevant parties learnt the lessons from the handling of and the response to the Omagh bombing inquiry? I am asking both parties. Professor Rea: Let me attempt an answer and, if I have not done so adequately, no doubt you will come back to me. I think, first of all, there was a series of recommendations that came out of the Ombudsman's report. The Board embraced those recommendations. The Board sought mechanisms by which to pursue the recommendations and it asked for various investigations to be conducted. Those were pursued. Those reports were filed with the Board and the Chief Constable. The recommendations, in particular as they related to Special Branch, have been assiduously pursued and the Chairman of the Board and the Vice Chairman of the Board were asked to monitor the implementation of the recommendations. We have used HMIC to assist us in the monitoring of those recommendations. I think you will find that, in terms of the implementation of those recommendations, not only did we monitor them but we encouraged the PSNI to come and report to the Board as a whole in terms of the implementations of the recommendations and on regular occasions the relevant ACC has done so. Incidentally, I made comments about breaches of confidentiality. There have been no breaches of confidentiality from the Board in respect of any of that. He will come in September, as will the HMIC, and he will be updating us. I also suspect you are getting at the terms of the learning from Omagh. I said to you as a Committee, Chairman, that there is a residue and that relates in particular to the personalisation. Protocols have assisted and have been developed in the wake of that, and I think we are slowly but surely building up the relationships in respect of the negative residue that I have referred to. I have answered the question in terms of the positive, and that is extremely important. In fact, with the work that has been done by the Board on the recommendations that came out of Omagh, I believe when history comes to be written it will endorse that work done by the Board and the way in which it approached it as a highlight of the life of this Board. Do not forget that we only have two and a bit years. Mr Leighton: In answering the honourable member's question, the first thing I would state is that undoubtedly the Omagh investigation and the surrounding publicity did a lot of damage to confidence in various quarters and confidence in the police. My main concern now is that my members and my organisation deal with the real issue of Omagh which is: who planted the bombs and who killed the people? I know that that investigation is being pursued assiduously. I believe the Ombudsman's report did help us to focus on that and to get on with that investigation. It has been beneficial and we have learnt those lessons because that is what we are doing. I know that in other investigations the Ombudsman has been critical of past investigations. I, like the Chairman, share a distaste for any personalisation of this because I know that members did their best and tried their best in the circumstances pertaining, but the focus now has to be on finding out who committed the murders and bringing them to justice and in bringing some form of closure and some form of satisfaction to the many families in Northern Ireland who, as yet, have not got that closure. That is where our focus is. I believe there was much debate around the Omagh Report. I was not in the province at the time but I followed it quite closely. I am not sure all of that was helpful but I know many lessons have been learnt from it. I do not think that within my organisation that sort of situation could arise again with the Ombudsman because of the measures that both the Ombudsman and we have taken to improve the relationships and to develop a more professional understanding of each other's work. Chairman: I am sure I can speak for all of the Committee, Mr Leighton, when I say that we wish you and your Police Service well in bringing that investigation hopefully to a successful conclusion and drawing a line under what, by any standards, was a terrible atrocity. Q85 Reverend Smyth: I think the Ombudsman has made for greater co-operation between the PSNI and its internal investigation branch. As a result, there was a decision between her and the Chief Constable and two senior officers were appointed to lead that co-operation. Arising out of that, a report was prepared; 14 recommendations were brought forward and I understand implemented. However, the CAJ, and you will not be surprised to hear about that, do not believe that there is close enough co-operation between the lower ranks of the PSNI and the Ombudsman. Would you have anything to say about that? What are the relationships and what is happening? Is that relayed to you? Mr Leighton: The report the member refers to is one by two independent senior police officers from England. We and the Ombudsman agreed and set terms of reference for those two officers to come in and look at the relationships between PONI and the PSNI. That produced 14 recommendations, which we have been pursuing and have implemented. Criticisms of the relationship with lower ranks will persist. It would be fair to say that I am not going to try and speak on behalf of the Federation because the Federation can speak for itself very adequately. I know that we have developed more meetings with the Federation and with the Superintendents' Association and the other representative bodies. Those meetings are becoming more and more constructive and more and more regular. We have established protocols which have been approved by the Federation and the Superintendents' Association, so that everything that we do now is referred to the Staff Associations for them to have oversight of the developing relationship that is ongoing and the protocols that are signed off. I think the relationship has a way to go yet, but I would say that it has improved dramatically in the past couple of years. Q86 Reverend Smyth: We are happy to hear that. We also understand that arrangements have been put in place. Are police officers able to make contact with the Ombudsman directly on issues without permission from their senior officers? Mr Leighton: Yes. There is no restriction on that. Q87 Reverend Smyth: Does that in fact happen then? Mr Leighton: I cannot speak for individual officers and obviously that would be a question for the Ombudsman. I am not privy to what contacts there are. Q88 Chairman: I doubt she would tell us anyway because she keeps all her contacts confidential. You do have a problem there. Mr Leighton: I cannot answer that. Reverend Smyth: The Special Branch and the Intelligence Service levels know what is happening. Q89 Mr Campbell: This is a question to Mr Leighton. After the Communications Review, there was a target set of trying to reduce the complaints against the police by 25 per cent over three years with an initial reduction of 10 per cent in one year. Can you tell the Committee what progress has been made in relation to both of those? Mr Leighton: The figures are in my submission. We are down 18 per cent since 2001-2002 and we have reduced 10 per cent in the last year. It is very hard to say exactly all the influences that cause a reduction in complaints. We can point to the fact that there is better training and that training is better informed by the complaints that are made. If I were to make a comment about our previous complaints and discipline system, it is that I am not sure that the link between a complaint that was made, unsubstantiated or partially substantiated, and our training system was sometimes as direct as it now is. When a regulation 20 notice comes from the Ombudsman's Office, there is a very effective committee that assigns actions that have to be signed off. I sign off personally every regulation 20 report before it goes back to the Ombudsman to say what has been done. An ACC has been through it before I get it and so there is quite rigorous oversight over what exactly happens with regulation 20s. I think in that respect training has improved in its responsiveness to complaints. Apart from that, it is quite difficult because obviously there are community influences at play. We had a quiet marching season last year, as you are aware. Obviously that has contributed to the reduction in complaints now. Q90 Mr Campbell: Is there a correlation between community tensions and the lack of them and the level of complaints? Mr Leighton: My perception would be that there is, but obviously the Ombudsman now receives complaints. We do not have an oversight of just exactly what comes in immediately. Q91 Mr Clarke: I am sure you heard earlier on Mr Beggs's questions in respect of policies and procedures. Obviously the Police (Northern Ireland) Acts 2002 and 2003 extended somewhat the Ombudsman's role in giving additional powers to investigate current practice or policy. I wonder if, from the point of view first of PSNI and then the Board, you would indicate to us whether or not you find that an acceptable extension of powers or do you feel that a power to investigate policy and procedure could have a negative impact on the work you do? Mr Leighton: Without experiencing the operation of such an investigation, it is difficult to make comment about how much it might affect us. Broadly, we are satisfied that the Ombudsman's powers are correct and proper and we do not have any issue with that. It will be for experience to tell us whether there are boundaries within operational matters on which we will have discussions with the Ombudsman. The relationship with the Ombudsman is such now that I think we could have those conversations in a constructive manner. That is important. Professor Rea: You are quite correct that these powers have been given to the Ombudsman. We have already discussed with our office the interface between these new powers and those of the Board, the calling for reports into public policing issues and initiating inquires. This is in particular under 59 and 60. We are satisfied that as a Board we can work collaboratively with the Ombudsman. The question is about whether this can be done without the burden imposed on the PSNI. Already you have heard mention of the regulation 20 reports, which in actual fact, and I have already referred to this, fall, roughly speaking, into this area. There was one interesting one and that was a report into the discharge of a firearm on the South Armagh border in June 2001, an incident which Guarda officers may have witnessed. An issue arose about the Ombudsman's ability to secure information from Garda Siochana to enable the investigation to be fully completed by recognising that the remit of the Ombudsman does not extend through the Republic of Ireland. The Board was keen to see good co-operation with that office by Garda Siochana and he sought to support her in access to the information that she had requested. Also, one further point that has already been referred to, is the identification. Recently we received notification from her that she proposed to look at that area. The Board has not had an opportunity to discuss that but I would have to say to you that as Chairman of the Board I could see no reason whatsoever why she should not; it is in the best interests of the PSNI and the Board in holding the PSNI to account that every constable should be identified by the number on his tunic. Q92 Mr Clarke: You did not pass or make comment in your submission about worries you have under the Human Rights Act in respect of complaints about the Chief Constable's direction and control of the PSNI. Could you expand on what your concerns are? Professor Rea: Could you elaborate on that? Q93 Mr Clarke: The Board has expressed concerns that human rights issues may be raised through complaints about the Chief Constable's direction and control of the PSNI. Now, we are unclear as a committee as to what those human rights concerns are. We wondered if you could help us. Professor Rea: I cannot remember exactly but I will try to help you. I think that we were concerned about aspects to do with - and I am going back in memory now - the --- Q94 Mr Clarke: If I can be helpful, it was Monitoring PSNI Compliance with the Human Rights Act 1998 published in December 2003 and human rights issues may be raised in complaints against the police which the Ombudsman has no power to investigate was one of the comments raised. Professor Rea: Can we reflect further on that and write to the Select Committee? Q95 Mr Clarke: That would be helpful because you are in the same position as us not knowing what the human rights objections are. Professor Rea: We note that and will write back to you. Q96 Mr Tami: What use has been made of section 55 referrals and what has been your experience of the conduct of the Ombudsman in respect of such referrals? Mr Leighton: This is where we refer issues to the Ombudsman? Q97 Mr Tami: Yes. Mr Leighton: I can refer to one which has just been completed as a good example. I referred to the Ombudsman a case where a forensic scientist in a court case had made comments about the police which caused our independence and professionalism to be called into question by the judge; he referred it up his chain of command. I immediately referred that to the Ombudsman because it was clear that, no matter what we said, the public would accept other people's views. The Ombudsman has since reported back and that has been extremely helpful because we now have an independent assessment, which has called on independent forensic advice etc, to the public saying that we acted entirely corrected and what we forensic scientist was entirely within our rights and was entirely correct. So, those are very useful for us. Q98 Mr Tami: You are happy with that process? Mr Leighton: Yes, I am happy with that process. Q99 Mr Tami: I ask Professor Rea the same question. Professor Rea: The ability of the Board and for that matter the Chief Constable to refer issues to the Ombudsman for investigation is an important one and one that was used by the Board on what is now known as the Lowry(?) case and I would like to give you that case very briefly. In this case, the Board referred a high-profile issue to the Ombudsman to investigate. We do not have the investigative capacity to do this. The case was investigated and the Chief Constable was exonerated. In respect of the Chief Constable, it confirms again that it is a useful mechanism when someone is charged with the batten rounds. Now protocol is such that all such cases will be investigated by the Ombudsman in other cases where officers' wrongdoing may be suspected and the Chief Constable can successfully use legislative arrangements that exist to ensure that an investigation is carried out in an impartial way by an outside independent body. I think that is of benefit to the PNSI and it certainly gives confidence to the Board in holding the Police Service of Northern Ireland to account through the Chief Constable. If you want me to go into further detail about Lowry, I will do so. Q100 Mr Tami: The same point again, you are happy with the way that that practice works? Professor Rea: We believe that, so far in terms of our experience, this is very beneficial; it demonstrates the importance of the Ombudsman's Office as part of the architecture of policing in Northern Ireland. Q101 Mr Beggs: The Ombudsman's survey of police officers indicated that almost half, that is 48 per cent, of those police officers who had been in contact with the Office of the Police Ombudsman said that they were dissatisfied with the way in which the Office had dealt with them during the investigation. What do you understand to be the main reasons for this dissatisfaction and what steps have you taken to address it with officers and the Ombudsman? Mr Leighton: We met with the Ombudsman's Office along with the Federation, the Superintendents' Association and the (inaudible) reps to discuss the outcome of the survey. It is fair to say that the survey results have lessons in them for both the Ombudsman's Office and the Police Service of Northern Ireland and we agree that those lessons need to be picked up and learned. With regard to that particular result, 48 per cent of police officers who had been in contact with the Police Ombudsman's Office said they were dissatisfied with the way the Office had dealt with them during the investigation, it is somewhat at odds with other results in the survey where 74 per cent of police officers who had been in contact with the Police Ombudsman's Office said they were satisfied with the overall time it had taken; 64 per cent were satisfied with the outcome of the investigation; 61 per cent were satisfied with the way they had been received; and 58 per cent thought the explanation of the complaints process given to them was clear. So, there are a number of things in this survey and what we agreed was that we would look very closely at this survey and try and learn the lessons from it because it needs interpretation in the light of those different responses. Q102 Mr Beggs: Thirty-six per cent of your police officers said that they had a good knowledge of the role, responsibilities and powers of the Police Ombudsman and 36 per cent said they had not. Are you concerned that over a third of police officers who responded to the survey indicated that they did not have a good knowledge of the role, responsibilities and powers of the Police Ombudsman and what are you doing about that? Mr Leighton: That was one of the clear lessons from the survey. What we have done is that we have instigated a series of meetings in conjunction with the Ombudsman's Office. The people who are most likely to receive complaints are our first concern and those are people who are in the frontline units or detectives. So, we have focused on those as the first number of people who would need to receive training about the Ombudsman's Office and information about the Ombudsman's Office. Information is available to all police officers about the Ombudsman's Office firstly and that is clear: there are leaflets; there is information that they can find about the Ombudsman's Office very easily within our system; there is access to their website on our system. There are a number of ways in which they can find out the information. To proactively go to officers and give them information about the Ombudsman's Office, we targeted those groups that are mostly likely to be complained about: the TSGs, the Tactical Support Groups/Units who go into frontline riot situations and who would be the first line in any public order situations or who would do searches and arrests in difficult circumstances and CID officers who may be the subject of investigation because they are involved in major investigations such as murders and other serious investigations. That is what we have done about that. The Ombudsman's Office have cooperated with us, they have attended various training sessions and they attend every year the briefings before Dumcrie and the briefings before other major events in order that they capture large numbers of police at one time and explain the role of the Ombudsman's Office and what they will do if a complaint is made. So, we have proactively approached that along with the Ombudsman's Office. Q103 Mr Beggs: At present, we understand that police officers cannot make a complaint to the Ombudsman about fellow police officers. Should members of the PSNI be able to complain to the Police Ombudsman about the conduct of other members rather than to their line manager? Mr Leighton: No, I do not think they should. I think that would create a rather complicated system. We already have a grievance procedure and we already have managers and we are currently training our managers to deal more effectively with internal grievances and complaints and we feel that any external methodology might actually duplicate and make it more complicated and actually make it longer before the complaint gets resolved. I think that the time for complaints being resolved is crucial within our organisation because, when it is not resolved, there is a festering, there is a fermenting of dissatisfaction. So, we try to resolve things as quickly as we possibly can. Q104 Mr Beggs: Are complaints an inevitable part of policing? What do you consider a normal level of complaint to be? Mr Leighton: There is a leading question! Q105 Chairman: When did you stop beating your wife, Mr Leighton? Mr Leighton: Are complaints a normal part of policing? I have now been a police officer for 24 years and I have had several complaints made against me during my 24 years, none of which has been substantiated let me quickly add. I do not think that complaints are an automatic function of policing but I think it is almost inevitable that some sections of the community, when we are dealing with a divided community, will feel aggrieved at the way the police act, deal or some decision that the police make. So, I think it is highly unlikely that for some time we will get to a situation where there are no complaints in the policing, if it is ever possible. It does suit some people with allegations made against them when they are facing serious charges of course to make complaints against the police as an avenue of mitigation or even to have charges withdrawn before a court. So, I do not think it is possible that we will ever get to a time where we do not have complaints. What was the second part of the question? Q106 Mr Beggs: What do you consider a normal level of complaints to be? Mr Leighton: A lot less than we have now. An acceptable level of complaints would be a lot less than we have now. Q107 Mr Beggs: In the Belfast Newsletter of 6 July, a senior member of the Police Ombudsman's staff was quoted as saying that the PSNI was "years behind in training". Do you think that that officer had a point of view and, if so, is there a relationship between lack of training and the level of complaints? Mr Leighton: I do not think we are years behind in terms of police training. I have had the advantage of working on secondment with HMIC looking at many English police forces including the Metropolitan Police and I have also had the advantage of serving in Northumbria Police which is widely regarded as one of the best police forces in the UK and I know that one of the members around the table will support that. Q108 Chairman: And 11 who will not! Mr Leighton: Looking at training in the PNSI, we have suffered from perhaps having to train more in certain circumstances than others. All our officers receive public order training and all our officers receive firearms training. That is not the case in other police services. I think to say that we are behind in training is an oversimplification of the issue. Training is a huge issue for us. We are trying to develop police training that is way in advance of things that have been done in other parts of the world partly because we must. I had a meeting this morning with people from Central Training in the Home Office, Centrex, about some of our leadership training. It is clear that the relationships we have with academic institutions and the accreditation which we have achieved for some of our training in our leadership training and our foundation training is way in advance - and I state that categorically - of much of the training that goes on in England and Wales. That is not to say that all of our training is in advance of England and Wales. You have already heard Mr Wood refer to our firearms training in which we do lag behind the ACPO standards. There are mitigating circumstances in the sense that our officers over the years have lived with their weapons. It is not the case of an English police officer who picks up a gun when he goes for training on the various training events. Our officers actually live with their firearm and therefore their familiarity with the firearm is actually much greater. You can argue that that obviates the need for some training but it obviously increases the need for other types of training and Mrs O'Loan herself did allude to that in her evidence as I heard. So, I would say that it is an oversimplification of the case. What we aim to be - and I know in designing the new police college which we are currently engaged in - is to have facilities that will be as good as anywhere in the world to train in all matters. Q109 Chairman: I have just been told that there is going to be a vote at 6.04, so I want to wrap this up because I do not think we are able to continue after we have been to vote. Can I ask two very quick questions. Can I take it that you both agreed with what Mrs O'Loan said about the mediation procedures? I gather you have been in discussion and you have both agreed that it would be better if you can mediate the less serious complaints before a formal investigation process starts. Mr Leighton: If I may make just a brief comment on that. I had a meeting with Mrs O'Loan recently on this and we have had some reservations about this, but we have now agreed a way forward and the premise on which we have agreed a way forward is that it is not a duplication of other processes. In other words, our officers do not have to go through consecutive processes. So, one fails, try another, try another, try another. Rather, it is a concurrent process and, on that basis, we are happy that Mrs O'Loan proceeds and we await further information. Q110 Chairman: I think the Committee would be very grateful if you would let us have a note of that view which you have just expressed in order that we can see it quite clearly. Professor Rea: Can I say that we have not debated it but, in principle, we would be for it. The only question I personally would have is, could there be use of independent outsiders who could assist in that process? In terms of the principle, I would imagine that our response would be "yes". Q111 Chairman: Again, once your Board has considered it, perhaps you would let us have a note because we want to make absolutely certain that we reflect your views correctly. We had Mrs O'Loan obviously very fully give hers. Do either of you or both of you think it would be desirable for officers from PNSI to be seconded to the Police Ombudsman's Office? Professor Rea: In principle, I think that is a proposition that is worth considering. I can see positive arguments and I can see negative arguments but it seems to me that it is something that is worth considering. Mr Leighton: The only comment I would make is that I need more detectives, I do not need to lose any! Q112 Chairman: Everyone would say that, but in principle. Mr Leighton: In principle, I do not object to the possibility. Q113 Chairman: It is just a question of manpower and I understand that. Mr Leighton, you said in your submission to us that, should amnesty be contemplated in these historic inquiries, that the Ombudsman's remit should be considered. Mr Leighton: It was a brief comment. Should amnesty or any other judicial or non-judicial solution to a way of trying to move the past forward and this is a debate which has been ongoing in Northern Ireland for some time, if that is the case, then I would find it unacceptable if someone could walk before a tribunal, hold their hands up and say they did something, get a technical conviction and walk away. I would find it unacceptable that my officers would then be subject to ongoing investigation about not filling in a form or not doing some particular act in the investigation that was leading to that several years previously. The principle that I work to is that we need to learn. I am quite happy that we can learn from mistakes and, where someone has done something wrong or done something by mistake, that we learn from that and move on. What I do not want is those officers jeopardised. Q114 Chairman: Do you a view on that Professor Rea? Professor Rea: I have nothing to add. Chairman: Thank you all very much indeed for coming and I am sorry that I have brought this to a rather abrupt conclusion but I know that we are wanted downstairs in two minutes. Thank you very much indeed. |