Question
The Patten Report recommended to enlarge the Part Time Reserve (Rec 104) of up to 2,500 officers, recruiting in particular from those areas where there were currently very few reservists or none at all. The main purpose being to strengthen police connections with local communities and secondary to that, a reserve of up to 2,500 PTR could, if necessary, be called on to substitute for regular officers who were removed from their normal duties to meet a public order emergency.
Can the Chief Constable provide the Policing Board with detail on:
(i) the utilisation of PTR/POPT for operational duties in order to reduce the overtime working of full time Police Officers for the year 2020/21 to date?
(ii) Whether PSNI has been deployed to provide operational resilience for Covid-19?
(iii) The number of PTR/POPT employed, and the number active as of January 2021 in comparison to the same period in 2020?
(iv) PSNI view on enhancing the capacity and capability of PTR/POPT in PSNI?
Answer
For the financial year 2020/2021, as of 28 January 2021, Part Time Reserve (PTR) colleagues completed 33,256 hours duty, however it should be noted that PTR are not detailed to reduce overtime working for full-time Police Officers.
- PTR Officers were deployed to assist operational colleagues throughout the Covid 19 pandemic. They have not, however, been deployed in dedicated
Covid protected crews. The presence of PTR officers enables us to maintain operational resilience where regular officers were abstracted for dedicated Covid duties or who were absent through sickness or mandatory self-isolation. - As of 27 January 2021 there are 249 PTR officers employed by PSNI. On 27 January 2020 there were 263 PTR officers. (These figures include 16 PTR officers currently on a career break. On the same date last year, there were 14 PTR offices on career breaks).
- The Neighbourhood Proposal Paper 2019 made the following recommendations pertaining to PTR
Recommendation 19: Service Executive Team to strategically review the role of PTR with a view to aligning them from LPTs to NPTs through the Neighbourhood Policing Delivery Board
Recommendation 19 has been completed with the Draft PTR Guidance outlining the key role of the Part Time Reserve is to support the delivery of Neighbourhood Policing and they have been aligned to NPTs providing a visible, targeted presence that supports communities and victims.
Their functions are as follows:
1. In support of Neighbourhood Policing Teams to tackle local policing priorities
2. In support of surge activity and the management of major incidents
3. Duty at parades and public events which require a policing input
4. In support of policing the night time economy
Point 1 has been an addition to the capability of PTR.
The Neighbourhood Policing Delivery Programme has not reviewed enhancing the capacity of PTR to date.
Partnership Committee