Northern Ireland's 26 district councils will not be given independent policing powers or the authority to establish separate police forces, under the terms of the Patten report on reform of the RUC to be published next week.
The councils will, however, be able to raise some £36 million sterling in total towards the cost of additional police services in their areas. The Patten Commission is expected to propose involving local boards in the provision of closed-circuit television systems in commercial and other public places and in youth and community schemes, which would follow the example of the recent British Crime and Disorder Act.
This emerged last night after Mr Chris Patten earlier angrily dismissed as "a total fabrication" suggestions that his report would result in "the Balkanisation" of policing in Northern Ireland, breaking it up into 26 separate and largely independent forces.
For members of a council-recruited force to be given the power of a constable would require legislation in the House of Commons, and it is understood the Patten report makes no such proposal. The Irish Times has learned that the commission will recommend giving the existing 26 local authorities power to raise an extra 3p on the rates to spend on additional services, which may be bought in from the police and other statutory agencies or from the private sector.
The plan is clearly designed to give greater meaning to the concept of "community policing" in line with the expected recommendation that local superintendents should exercise greater autonomy as part of a decentralising process in the renamed Northern Ireland Police Service.
It is understood the proposed district police boards would be required to deploy the extra resources in consultation with the police.
The total potential additional revenue would represent almost 6 per cent of the existing RUC budget. There would be four local police boards to cover Belfast, all to be appointed by the city council. And an international commissioner would oversee the ongoing programme of police reform.
Following last week's leak of part of the report to the Belfast Telegraph, unionist politicians expressed fears that the proposals would result in the recruitment of paramilitaries to local police services and what Mr Ken Maginnis MP described as "vigilantism by the back door".
The report is expected to define a largely consultative role for local boards. Moreover, it seems certain these boards would have no authority to amend the annual policing plan, which would continue to be drafted by the chief constable and approved by the central police board.
That new police board, to replace the existing Police Authority, is expected to be 19 strong, with 10 of its members elected representatives, drawn according to the d'Hondt procedure from the ranks of Assembly parties sitting on the Northern Ireland executive.
Anti-agreement unionists are outraged that this will guarantee Sinn Fein representation on the new board. However, the latest indications about the eagerly-awaited report will disappoint nationalist politicians who have argued for a new, regionalised structure for policing in the North.
Contrary to earlier assumptions, it is being increasingly accepted in political circles that the Patten report would fall should the parties fail to form the executive and so trigger the collapse of the Belfast Agreement.
Patten is also expected to follow the British pattern and amalgamate the Special Branch and CID - a plan opposed yesterday by a former chief constable of the RUC, Sir John Hermon.
Some policing experts last night said other concerns expressed by Sir John - namely that Patten would re-create the situation following the Hunt Report, leaving an unarmed police force dependent on the army and with no security role in an ongoing terrorist situation - were unlikely to be realised.