NEWS last month that the PSNI Chief Constable was in conflict with the Justice Minister about who should write what letters to whom was revealing on many levels.
Jon Boutcher feels that he cannot operate safely on the current budget of £800million. From his first day in the job he has said that the PSNI needs an additional £50 to £140 million.
Of course, the budget crisis includes the hefty bill that became due after the details of PSNI officers and staff fell off the roof of a car in a data breach that made the news in Britain. And it includes the cost of repairing the data systems that are at the heart of said data breach. All very regrettable, especially for an organisation that has at least three computer systems and apparently can’t get any of them to work efficiently.
Notwithstanding this, the PSNI budget has fallen in real terms by about a quarter. Statistics like 60 officers leaving the PSNI per week are quoted widely, and in another very questionable statistic, the PSNI has on average 1,500 officers on sick leave or restricted duties every day. And somehow those who stay in post are increasingly culturally Protestant, just as wider society becomes less culturally Protestant.
So, Jon Boutcher is lobbying for the magic bullet of additional funds. His writing to the PM about his worries, without Naomi Long’s say-so, has caused tension. He got a terse letter from her Permanent Secretary telling Mr Boutcher to mind his place. His response was somewhat revealing: “We seem to fall between the cracks – policing is devolved, but national security isn’t. So national security threats we have to manage linked in with funding from Westminster. The policing is actually devolved through the Assembly. So we have sort of got two masters."
And there was us thinking that the Patten-established accountability measures of citizens of these six counties were the only master. We did, didn’t we?
In the row over protocol and who can ask for money from Westminster without toes being trodden on, this statement was somehow not given as much attention or challenge. However, it came in the same week as it was revealed that the Kenova investigation – where Jon Boutcher first made his name here – was denied access to sensitive intelligence information from the security services. Not only was the information denied to the investigation, the investigation didn’t even know the information existed.
So, apparently the PSNI has responsibility for spending money in relation to national security, but the security apparatus doesn’t have responsibility to the PSNI or its established investigations. Quelle surprise! And we are expected to move along as though there is nothing to see here. Indeed, the protocol row got far more attention than the implications of that investigation examining a state agent implicated in the multiple killings of local citizens being denied potentially vital information. Which master was in control there?
There are few who believe that the PSNI or anyone formerly attached to the RUC, or engaged in the protection of its reputation, should touch legacy; yet somehow they remain at the heart of it, and that has destroyed confidence in the PSNI. There are few who think that the British security service has a role in a new beginning to policing, yet our Chief Constable refers to it as a dual master.
Who writes what letter to whom is not the crisis that should be exercising us.
