The Chief Constable Hugh Orde has been speaking out recently on hot
issues, ranging from dealing with the past to not dealing with the
summer bonfires. But beyond the tensions of the marching season, a
ticking time bomb targeting the future of the police reserve could rock
him on his precarious perch. The rank and file of the Police Federation
appear to be digging in their heels over the plan to phase out by the
end of next year, the last substantial remnant of the RUC tradition, the
reserve's 1,600 members.
Why should an issue of personnel management matter so much? The PSNI now
falls short of the force level of 7,500 set by Patten by only 300. In
five years of 50:50 Protestant and Catholic recruitment, 1,160 new
officers have joined up, 14% of them Catholic. This recruitment rate
should bring the force level up to full complement some time over the
next 15 months; by which time, the reservists will be surplus to
requirements and let go.
The Federation argue that its madness to scrap the reserve so suddenly.
Pensions are an issue, but their main argument is that "normality" in
the streets envisaged by Patten is years away and the reservists'
experience is still badly needed. It would therefore be far better to
phase them out over five years, rather than abruptly over 18 months.
Orde promises a security review next April before the reservists depart,
but the Federation fear this will be driven by politics, not policing.
Behind the trade union arguments lie complex factors of police pride and
general morale. Rank and file representatives believe that policing is
too much subject to political fixes to appease Sinn Fein and the IRA -
and they would hasten to add, loyalist paramilitaries too. They are
calling for a more aggressive policing strategy to make a bigger dent in
the fairly dismal clear-up rate of 27% in almost 130,000 cases.
Their grievances extend to dealing with the past. While £22 million has
already been ear-marked for the Cory inquiries, they claim "nothing at
all" has been done for "their" people, the families of the 200 police
regulars and 102 reservists killed by paramilitaries. They want is a
review of each outstanding case, followed by prosecutions if the
evidence stands up and the minimum two year sentence imposed on
conviction, as provided for in the Agreement. If Hugh Orde doesn't move
on their agenda by the autumn, the Federation are threatening that
police officers might refuse orders to attend some incidents, if there
aren't the officers available to satisfy the PSNI's own duty of care
rules. This would surely damage the fragile new compact over policing
that up to now, has been the main, uninterrupted success story since the
Agreement.
Like every other senior public servant, Orde is stuck in limbo.
Inevitably perhaps, his messages are sometimes confusing. On the one
hand, he has called for a general amnesty; on the other, he has set a
task force to work, examining whether new forensic techniques could
produce fresh evidence on some of the 1,800 cases he would probably
prefer to leave alone. He has also pledged to look into fresh claims of
police collusion in the Whitecross and other Catholic killings in Co
Armagh in the 70s. The Federation have no problem with that, provided
their own cases are reviewed.
The problems of policing are clearly too big for Hugh Orde and the
Policing Board to tackle alone. September will provide two different
cues for a way ahead. One could be a last throw in trying to revive the
Assembly. The other is the next report on the level of paramilitary
activity from the International Monitoring Commission. While police
indiscipline would only harm the very causes they represent, the Police
Federation's grievances need attention. Like so much else, the running
sore of the police reserve has been allowed to drag on for far too long.
Management grip should be at its firmest when the pace of change is at
its most hectic. Tony Blair must soon change gear and spur this
community on towards tackling more of its fundamental problems, with or
without a political deal.
