Current Issues - 2004

October 2004

Conference Overview - PoliceBeat Editorial

The Annual Conference of the Police Federation was dominated by the decision of the Chief Constable to begin the phasing out of the Full-Time Reserve. His belief that he could dispense with the services of over 800 officers, each with a minimum of six years and the average service being over 14 years, was viewed as a concession to the political pressures of a fraught peace process.

Conference had an air of disillusionment with both management and politics despite the obvious success of the FTR negotiating team in finalizing one of the better public sector compulsory severance packages. If FTR officers now vote with their feet for an early exit they can hardly be blamed. No-one has made an economic case for their early departure. The Chief Constable may find himself struggling to provide acceptable policing with the remaining resources. He and his command team may be persuaded that they can still deliver the Policing Board’s objectives for the Service with what remains but even the Board’s Chairman went on to concede that there was a political imperative to their termination.

One real ray of light was the Government’s response to the unsolved murders of police officers and civilians. Last year at Conference the Federation challenged the Secretary of State to address the obscenity of inaction over these murders. Since then the Chief Constable’s Cold Case review team have carried out sufficient work to quantify the scale of resources needed. Nine million pounds has been estimated as being necessary to fund a mix of serving and contract detectives over some four years in an effort to bring answers or some other form of closure to the victims’ families. The Federation has no expectation of numerous prosecutions, sadly, but knowledge of all circumstances of each case would bring the best hope of ending the ache of not understanding why no-one has been brought to justice.

The Security Minister, Ian Pearson’s response at Conference was satisfyingly sympathetic. Clearly there are other factors weighing with Government on this complex issue but nonetheless matters seem to be progressing along acceptable and sensitive lines. Both the Government and the Chief Constable are to be applauded for their grasping of the nettle.

The Conference also benefited from separate addresses from three of the major stakeholders in the police service: Professor Des Rea as Policing Board Chairman, Mrs Nuala O’Loan as the Police Ombudsman and Paul Leighton, Deputy Chief Constable on behalf of PSNI. Their creditable willingness to engage through an opening address and to take unseen questions from the delegates produced first class dialogue between the Federation and the respective police bodies.

The entire Conference was characterised by the disciplined and dignified manner in which both the speakers were heard and questioned by delegates. The topics might have been extremely sensitive and of considerable anger to delegates but the ability of the Federation representatives to have constructive polite dialogue with its policing partners was both evident and remarked upon – especially by the Deputy Chief Constable.