An adviser to former UUP leader David Trimble says up to 90% of a major report that led to the establishment of the PSNI was written by the leadership of the RUC.
David Kerr, a former special adviser to Mr Trimble, worked closely with the former First Minister during Good Friday Agreement negotiations almost 30 years ago.
Mr Kerr has now revealed that senior RUC officers penned the vast majority of the Patten Report, which led to the establishment of the PSNI on November 4, 2001 – 25 years ago this week.
The force, which incorporated the RUC, came into existence after a review by former British government minister Chris Patten following the 1998 agreement.
The Independent Commission on Policing for Northern Ireland established sweeping reforms, including 50-50 recruitment, which was scrapped in 2011.
In recent months, fresh concerns have been raised about the fall in the number of Catholics applying to join the PSNI. The overall number of Catholics is currently at 31%.
Writing in the News Letter, Mr Kerr reveals that when the Patten Report was published in 1999, Mr Trimble’s “worst fears over symbolic changes to the RUC were realised”.
“While the report recommended extensive changes to operational policing, it also proposed replacing the RUC title with a new name, introducing new symbols and insignia, and altering arrangements concerning the union flag,” he wrote.
“What none of us in the UUP knew at the time was that 80% - 90% of the Patten Report had been written by the senior leadership of the RUC itself,” he said.
“We would learn, many years later, that the only significant recommendations not from the RUC leadership themselves related to the symbolic changes to the name and badge.
“As David Trimble criticised the Patten Report as the ‘most shoddy piece of work’ he had seen in his life, its main authors within the leadership of the RUC remained virtually silent.”
And he adds: “Clearly wary of the reaction from their own rank and file, they wanted Chris Patten to own the entirety of the recommendations and in doing so, by causative political default, they ensured David Trimble received all the political blame from anti-agreement unionists.
“There is no doubt, in my mind, that had the RUC leadership done more to promote and publicly own the Patten reforms, a lot more hurt to the police family could have been avoided, forced morale preserved, and a lot less political damage caused to pro-agreement unionists who were trying to build a new peaceful future for Northern Ireland.”
Mr Kerr said that during Westminster debates on policing, the UUP “sought amendments that would preserve greater continuity between the RUC any future police service”.
“When the Police Service of Northern Ireland came into being in November 2001, while David Trimble was disappointed by the UK government’s determination to push through the name and symbolic changes, he was proud that he and his UUP colleagues had ensured the policing legislation stated the RUC was fully incorporated into the PSNI,” he said.
“There was a new beginning but there was no disbandment.”