The ‘Public Consultation on Local Policing’ was jointly developed and delivered by the Policing Board and the PSNI in 2018 and whilst we welcome the early indications from Ulster University, we are still awaiting the final report. Once this is received the PSNI will be keen to work collaboratively with the Board on how we might implement the findings.
In 2018, the PSNI took the decision to slow down the review of District Policing to allow the results of the public consultation to be fully considered in conjunction with the Board.
As a result of the £150m reduction in the PSNI budget over the last 5 years, 156 posts have been removed from local policing. None of these posts have been removed from Neighbourhood Policing Teams in Critical Neighbourhoods.
The PSNI has not yet been allocated a main grant budget for 2019/20 and given the current pressures, it is likely that we will commence the year overcommitted. There is no immediate capacity to recruit additional officers this year to local policing from main grant funding.
Unfortunately, any additional resources into local policing will have to be drawn from other areas of police work. We therefore feel it is crucial to consider a range of options for how local policing can be enhanced by alternative models for providing community safety. This is something that we would wish to explore with the Board and map out the way ahead.
We have now received confirmation of £16.48m funding from Treasury to support our EU Exit Policing plans in 2019/20 and we hope to make an investment of up to 200 police officers (in addition to the 100 uplift in 2018-19) into local policing from this money.
In 2019/20 we will be exploring other funding streams, such as Additional Security Funding, to see if there is capacity to invest in more police officers for local policing.