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Policing
Profligacy
Fortnight’s policing correspondent reports on an expensive exercise in international policing
The Policing Board these days seems to relish an up-market life style.
In February it organised an
international policing conference entitled Policing the Future in the Hilton at the cost of £500 per delegate. Patten talked a lot about policing with the community but this important element of policing reform seemed to have been overlooked by the Board when it planned the conference.
It failed to appreciate that the only voluntary and community organisations or individuals who could afford these fees were those operating on the wrong side of the law. It was only after a number of voluntary organisations drew the Board’s attention to its exclusionary policies, that it made 50 places available – free – to community representatives. Few took up the offer and preferred to attend an alternative event entitled: ‘Collusion: The Elephant in the Room’, which had been set up in protest at the failure of the policing conference to discuss collusion –a central issue at the heart of policing the future in Northern Ireland.
It was subsequently reported, that notwithstanding the high fees, the conference cost £245,000 – enough to support 8 youth workers in some deprived area. How can such profligacy be justified? In a Policing Board press release we are told that the speakers at the conference did not charge fees – how generous of these public servants! We are further told ‘that as a direct result of the conference’ representatives of the PSNI’ – what a quaint expression – have been invited to address police chiefs at a police conference in Chicago. Who are these ‘representatives of the PSNI’ – members of the Policing Board?
Two months after the big jamboree in the Hilton, no fewer than 6 members of the Board flew business class to Washington and stayed in an up-market hotel to celebrate St Patrick’s day. As we all know the function of the Policing Board is to oversee the PSNI and make sure that we have an efficient and effective police service in Northern Ireland. It has no brief to make sure that the Washington cops are up to scratch. The Police Act 2000, however, does make provision for the Board to provide advice and assistance to an international organisation or institution. So perhaps they were all advising various organisations in Washington how to defeat terrorism. Hopefully, they told them that you can not do this through heavy policing, anti-terrorism measures or bombing. At the end of the day, you have to take the political route.
We now look forward to a press release from the Board telling the public exactly what their members did in Washington, the benefits of the trip for policing Northern Ireland and the overall costs.
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