News

Policing objectives and timescales not being met

Report into policing performance released to Justice Department.
Report into policing performance released to Justice Department. Report into policing performance released to Justice Department.

THE Auditor General for Northern Ireland has said the PSNI need to ensure realistic time-scales are set for improvement projects, following a performance related report into the police service.

Kieran Donnelly, issued his report on continuous improvement arrangements in policing.

Since last year's assembly election and the failure at Stormont to establish an executive there have been no elected members nominated to the board and the oversight body.

The Policing Board is responsible for monitoring the performance of the PSNI. It also makes senior staff appointments and has oversight of efforts to comply with the Human Rights Act.

However, political representatives have not sat on the board since the fall of the Stormont executive in January last year.

Despite this the report examining the performance of both the Policing Board and the PSNI for 2017 has been carried out and delivered to the Justice Department.

The report is not an audit of PSNI’s performance but does look at objectives set out on the policing plans and if those objectives were met on time.

It found the delivery of the objectives and completion of some projects was not clear and the "consistent subsuming of projects into new or other projects", was making an assessment of the delivery difficult to assess.

Mr Donnelly said: "The Board and PSNI need to continue to develop appropriate outcome-based indicators.

"In implementing its continuous improvement projects, the PSNI must ensure that time-scales set for the full completion and implementation of projects are realistic, and that sufficient resources are available to complete projects as planned.

"This is particularly relevant in the current environment of austerity, where the PSNI faces significant resourcing challenges", he added.