Mr. Alan Todd:

As I said in my introductory note, funding for policing is a political choice. I point to the Patten report which, in more peaceful circumstances than exist now in Northern Ireland, recommended a policing service of 7,500 officers. We refined that in 2013-14 to a figure of 7,000. As of today, in terms of full-time equivalents, we have just shy of 6,600 members. By any stretch, we are below the number required. That has not been driven by our choice but by the political choice to reduce funding for policing. Our police staff side has been reduced as well. Those involved in police staff roles perform a large number of support roles in contact management centres, forensic science, human resources departments, finance departments and all the other roles that make an organisation work and without which we could not function.

We have reduced those across the board. One can see the stress in the system. Over the past three years, we have gone from 84 neighbourhood policing teams to 34. We have targeted those teams in areas of high deprivation. That relates to the conversation we had earlier about engagement and making sure that those people do not fall into the clutches of paramilitarism in those areas. Going from 84 to 34 was a big cut in neighbourhood policing teams. We moved some of those functions into local policing teams, but that model is not sustainable with our current numbers because we keep taking numbers out of it for all the reasons I outlined and it has that triple impact on local policing. The model is creaking and that is why it is not working. Some of that is down to numbers. The Chief Constable, the senior team and I are charged with delivering the best service we can in the most effective and efficient way with what we have but I do not think anyone on my senior team would say we are not struggling for resources.