Memorandum submitted by Paul Leighton
LLB Deputy Chief Constable, Police Service of Northern Ireland
I am sorry that due to other Parliamentary commitments
and flight times the opportunity for my giving evidence to the
Northern Ireland Affairs Committee was curtailed.
Insofar as the issues raised in your letter of 10
December 2004 are concerned, I have set out our position below.FUNCTIONS
The Policing Board, in discharging its performance
accountability duties, takes a close interest in the way chief
officers manage the organisation. At times, however, there can
be a blurring of responsibilities. It is for the Chief Constable
and his colleagues to command and administer the service; on occasions
the Board can stray from the strategic into the tactical, involving
itself in making decisions rather than assessing their efficacy.
On the occasions this "micromanagment" has been experienced
it has been raised with the appropriate committee chair or Chair
of the Board.STRUCTURE
The Police Service of Northern Ireland has recently
completed a strategic restructuring of Headquarters in line with
the recommendations contained in the "Patten Report".
The revised corporate structure can be found on the PSNI website
(www.psni.police.uk/) and a copy is attached at the end of this
submission.
There is no intention to change this corporate structure
over the next 12 to 24 months. However, subject to the Review
for Public Administration consultation paper, we may realign district
command unit boundaries; but this will not affect the overall
PSNI corporate structure.
NIPB Committee structures are currently established
on a local authority model, rather than a non-departmental public
body model. We consider that it would be more appropriate if the
Policing Board were to align its committee structure to the business
areas within PSNI.
In keeping with recognised national good practice,
we will be reorganising our corporate governance committee structure
during 2005-06, and this will provide an opportunity for the Board
to consider aligning its committee structure to the model we are
adopting.REPRESENTATION
In 1999 12.26% of support staff were Catholic. By
31 March 2004 this had risen to 14.08% and at the end of 2004
a further, small rise to 14.56% had occurred. There is one major
explanation: no voluntary severance programme exists for support
staff. While thousands of police officers have left the organisation
in recent times, the turnover rate for support staff averages
100 per year. Although recruitment of six or more staff falls
within the 50/50 legislation, the limited number of vacancies
arising severely restricts our ability to increase Catholic representation.
This has been discussed with the Board and it understands why
we find ourselves in this situation.
There is one other matter I should like to draw to
the Committee's attention.SICKNESS
The figures quoted are for the average number of
working days lost per officer per year.
2002-03
Regular Officers—17.5
Full Time Reserve Officers—29.68
PSNI—20.09
2003-04
Regular Officers—17.5
Full Time Reserve Officers—23.63
PSNI—16.29
When the two financial year periods (2002-03 and
2003-04) are compared, there was a 16.57% drop in days lost for
regular officers, a 20.38% drop for full-time reserve officers,
which meant an 18.91% drop across the service.
2004-05 (April to November)Regular Officers—8.69
Full Time Reserve Officers—16.38
PSNI—9.98
2004-05 (Projected)Regular Officers—13
Full Time Reserve Officers—24
PSNI—14.25
When the financial year 2003-04 is compared with
the projected figures for 2004-05, there was a 10.96% drop in
days lost for regular officers, a 1.57% increase for full-time
reserve officers, which would mean a 12.52% drop across the service.
The Committee will appreciate the difficulties management
face in reducing the number of working days lost by many full-time
reserve officers given their forthcoming compulsory severance.
Nevertheless, the overall picure is one of on-going and significant
improvement.
The situation is even better if one separates average
number of working days lost per regular officer per year as a
result of illness from those lost through injury on duty. On that
basis, in 2002-03 9.4 days were lost from illness and 8.4 from
injury on duty.
P Leighton5 January 2005
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