The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) chief constable has warned that his force will shrink to its lowest levels since it was founded because of a funding shortfall.
Simon Byrne said there will be fewer officers and vehicles, postponed building maintenance and a potential delayed response to calls.
Briefing his officers and staff on Thursday, Mr Byrne said the PSNI will have a funding shortfall of £80 million by March, with larger shortfalls to come in the years ahead. He the PSNI as a result will shrink over the next three years.
“By March there will be 309 fewer police officers and 115 fewer staff, a reduction of nearly 6 per cent,” he said. “We will then have 6,699 full-time officers. This is 800 officers fewer than the commitment made in the New Decade, New Approach Agreement and the lowest officer numbers since the Police Service of Northern Ireland was formed.”
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Difficult choices
Mr Byrne said with a growing population and increasing workloads, police are already having to make difficult choices every day to minimise the risk to the public and to reduce the harm these reductions pose.
He said police will protect core emergency incident responses, continue neighbourhood policing, and protect areas of risk such as domestic abuse, sexual crime and child abuse. There are no planned redundancies.
However, he said non-emergency calls may take longer to answer, capacity to investigate crime may be reduced, neighbourhood policing will shrink, there will be reduced road policing and they will review access to and closure of stations. He also warned that police ability to respond to public disorder may be reduced.
By March, there will be 75 fewer neighbourhood police officers, 96 fewer detectives investigating murder, terrorism, drugs and organised crime, and 97 fewer officers in the Operational Support Department, which includes Roads Policing and specialist search/public order teams of the Tactical Support Groups (TSGs).
‘Bleak’ message
There will also be 115 fewer police staff across a range of roles, a reduced vehicle fleet, damaged or broken police vehicles will wait longer for service or repair, and building and maintenance work on the police estate and other modernisation plans – digital and estate – will be deferred.
“The message we delivered today is a bleak one. Inevitably with less police there will be less policing,” he told officers and staff.
“In spite of this, as a police service, our core work will not change. The public can continue to have confidence that we will still answer 999 calls quickly, we will continue to patrol our neighbourhoods, we will continue to investigate high harm crime and bring offenders to justice.
“As far as possible we have minimised the impact on service delivery in 2022, but through 2023 these reductions will have real and noticeable impacts. These will be felt in communities across Northern Ireland.”
Mr Byrne insisted he does not intend to cause alarm, but wants to make the situation clear to colleagues and the public in terms of changes they may see.
“We will continue to serve the people of Northern Ireland with professionalism and remain committed to delivering a visible and impartial human rights-based policing service,” he said. “We will continue to protect the public in Northern Ireland to the very best of our ability.”
Policing Board chair Deirdre Toner said the board has been deeply concerned about the funding shortfall and the implications.
“Despite the reductions confirmed, it is important to note that there is still a significant resource available to policing in Northern Ireland so the board, like the chief constable, would want to assure the public of the commitment within policing and within the board to doing the best with what we have,” she said. “We are all very aware of the importance of policing within our community, and the wide range of work that the service delivers.” - PA