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Policing

The face of policing in Northern Ireland has changed dramatically over recent years.

A new name, new uniform, new recruits and new oversight arrangements have all helped transform policing.

The road to change was set down in the Agreement. An Independent Commission was established to look at policing and under the chairmanship of Chris Patten made a number of recommendations in its report on September 1999.  

The Government has been extremely active in helping to lay the foundations for these new policing arrangements as set out in the Patten Report and has taken two major Police Acts through Parliament since then.

Developing a police service that is more effective and representative of the community it serves, and which obtains the confidence and support it needs, has been the Government’s aim throughout the change process.

Among the first series of changes was the establishment in November 2001 of a Policing Board, with nationalist participation and extensive powers to hold the police to account.

The RUC was renamed the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), and a new badge for the service was unanimously agreed by the Policing Board.

The first recruits, appointed under the 50:50 arrangements for the recruitment of Catholic and non-Catholics, began graduating in April 2002.

And the creation of District Policing Partnerships (DPPs) across Northern Ireland in 2003 has given local people a stake in policing.

The Oversight Commissioner has regularly reported on these reforms which have been described as the ‘most comprehensive change programme ever embarked upon by a police service anywhere in the world’.

Together with the office of the Police Ombudsman which deals with complaints about police conduct, Northern Ireland has one of the most rigorous systems of independent civilian oversight of policing in the world.

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