Mr. Alan Todd:

Post the Patten commission, the original structures were called district policing partnerships. There was one district policing partnership in each of the policing districts, which are coterminous with the council areas in Northern Ireland. Local authority areas are coterminous with policing and district policing partnerships in order to maintain accountability. That role changed over time. A number of partners and functions were merged, through the councils, into policing and community safety partnerships but the ethos remains the same. It is a slight play on language. They sit under the auspices and governance of the Northern Ireland Policing Board, which is analogous to the Policing Authority here. They are managed, supported and funded through that structure. While the policing board holds the Chief Constable accountable for the performance of the police service, the language around policing and community safety partnerships is that they monitor local performance but there is actually an accountability framework, or at least we treat it that way, which errs on the side of more rather than less accountability.

Typically the meetings would begin with the local police commander and some of his or her team providing an update on performance against the local policing plan. Having a local policing plan which sits under the umbrella of the Northern Ireland Policing Board's policing plan for Northern Ireland is another function of the policing and community safety partnership. That is designed to give that body, in dialogue with the local commander, a say in the policing priorities for the local district within a wider framework over the next year. The commanders use those meetings to report back on how they are performing against that plan, on what is working and on what is not working, and on anything that has changed in the meantime.

There is then a general discussion forum for any other policing issues of the day. That might include signal crimes, incidents, developing trends and that sort of thing. As the Deputy might imagine given this morning's conversation, that conversation often wanders off into determinations that certain issues will be a matter for the council or one or other department. Very few problems have one answer from one place. That experience is probably foremost in my mind when I see what the likely future for that structure is. I think we should retain that local planning because legislation in the North has introduced the concept of community planning. The local councils are involved in community plans, of which policing and policing plans are aspects. However, if one takes community planning, local accountability and partnership working, that seems to be a rich space for a true police and community safety partnership on which all the relevant agencies would sit and take a holistic view of the problems in the area and how they can be influenced holistically by local service delivery.

That is where it has to go to. That is the current structure and its current format. The important parts from my perspective is that it has helped to change the culture down through the years. Accountability has gone from being viewed as a novel idea to being part of the air that one breathes. Accountability is a complete non-contentious matter and it is what one expects to do as a local commander. As a commander, in the districts I have run I use the cultural change opportunity to take my local sergeants down to those meetings. If we are truly into local neighbourhood policing, run by the local team, under the local sergeant, then who better to hear what the public is saying and to respond in terms of what the police are doing one the ground, without any filtering by the senior manager such as me, than the local sergeant and local inspector on those teams? I used that process quite deliberately to try to build that relationship. We talk about maximum devolvement of decision making. I believe in devolving the accountability as well. I actually believe the local TD, MLA, MP or local representative should be able to ring up the local sergeant. If they ring me, I will only ring the sergeant anyway and give him or her my version of what I heard on the phone. The local relationship is germane to local policing, local understanding and local relationship building. That is what we have done, almost as a collateral benefit to that structure. That is a bit like social media, letting go the control and letting that happen at that level. As a senior manager, I am acting as an enabler and putting a wrap around to it, so that one gets flagged on critical issues with which the local team needs support or what is happening in the area.

Accountability works on a number of levels. There is more we could do with it, as I have outlined further this morning. That is my rationale behind it.