Letter: The PSNI badly need support amidst all the challenges they face, yet the Policing Board seems to stay silent

A letter from the Rev Norman Hamilton:
By Letters
Published 4th May 2023, 07:59 BST
Chief Constable Simon Byrne arrives for at the University of Ulster Street campus for the visit by President Biden. Mr Byrne has one of the most difficult jobs in Northern Ireland. ​He and his officers need the best backing this society can give – led by the board. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEyeChief Constable Simon Byrne arrives for at the University of Ulster Street campus for the visit by President Biden. Mr Byrne has one of the most difficult jobs in Northern Ireland. ​He and his officers need the best backing this society can give – led by the board. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye
Chief Constable Simon Byrne arrives for at the University of Ulster Street campus for the visit by President Biden. Mr Byrne has one of the most difficult jobs in Northern Ireland. ​He and his officers need the best backing this society can give – led by the board. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye

The PSNI chief constable, Simon Byrne, has much on his mind and to fill up his in-tray. He is having to deal with some very nasty staffing issues, a significantly increased security threat, and the hugely damaging reality of budget cuts and reduced numbers in the PSNI. It is therefore deeply troubling that the Northern Ireland Policing Board seems to have gone virtually silent on the challenges that the PSNI is having to face. Accountability is fine, but where is their public support for policing when the PSNI do their job well, and where is their public support when they are put under intense operational pressure?

I may well have missed something, perhaps even something important, but I cannot see any statement or press release in the past 12 months that unambiguously asserts the support of the Policing Board for our police service. Indeed, I would go further. Its website is a depressing litany of matters largely relating to governance and procedural detail. It is seriously hard work for ordinary members of the public, like myself, to be energised by what is there – and I say that as an enthusiastic member of a local Policing and Community Safety partnership.

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In calling for the Policing Board to offer proper public support under the leadership of its new chair and vice-chair, I am not suggesting any reduction in accountability. Nor would support mean that every decision or policy is accepted without questioning or even challenge. What I am suggesting is the board is publicly up front in accepting that the restrictions on the budget and limitations on recruitment will mean that very difficult decisions will need to be taken on almost a daily basis, and that PSNI accountability will be shaped with those facts clearly in mind.

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Alongside this they should publicly acknowledge that in spite of the huge challenges they faced with the visits of presidents, prime ministers and other high-profile guests attending the recent Good Friday conference at Queen’s University, no event was disrupted and every person came and went in total safety. Is this not worthy of public commendation from the Policing Board as well as wider society? And is accountability not enhanced when it is accompanied by credit when credit is due?

Simon Byrne's job is high up on the list of the most difficult public jobs in Northern Ireland. And our society is in a quagmire – not least because of the fact of there being no government in Stormont. He and his officers, from the most senior to the newest recruit, deserve the best support that this society can give them – and the Policing Board must unambiguously set the public example in giving it. Are they up for it? Or will their silence continue to speak volumes?

(Very Rev Dr) Norman Hamilton OBE, Ballymena

Related topics:PSNISimon ByrneNorthern Ireland