Matt Baggott, Chief Constable pictured with NICC Chief Executive, Ann McGregor, President, Bro McFerran, and Vice President Francis Martin

The Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce were delighted to welcome Matt Baggott, Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland to an in camera with 40 Chamber members on 21 April 2010.

The Chief Constable has pledged to be ruthless in cutting the red tape that currently results in 200,000 man-hours being spent preparing files for the Public Prosecution Service.

New powers due next year allowing police men and women to issue fixed penalty notices or cautions instead of referring every case to the courts will hand officers more discretion and free up time to tackle crime head on, he added.

The Chief Constable made the commitment at the launch of the Policing Plan that sets out the PSNI’s objectives for the next year under the three overarching themes: service excellence; tackling serious harm; and personal policing in dealing with local concerns.

The strategic blueprint published by the service’s oversight body, the NI Policing Board, requests that 600 officers are transferred from desk jobs to front line services.  Around 400 of the 600 target have already been deployed to neighbourhood beats.  Mr Baggott said the plan set out a vision for a world-class service.

“This plan is not just a glossy brochure in a box, this is a radical reshaping of how the police service will deliver in a devolved administration the things that truly matter to communities,” he said.
“We are determined to be the finest in the world – that’s exactly what we’re about and what we stand for.”

In regard to the bureaucracy busting measures, he added:

“We will be ruthless in cutting the red tape and the bureaucracy that currently puts hundreds of thousands of police officers’ time into dealing with the administration of the justice system rather than dealing with speedy and proportionate justice.”

Among initiatives being planned by Mr Baggott is a new call-back service to give victims of crime the opportunity to rate the response of their local police officers. It is included in a PSNI list of pledges to the community that contains a series of standards that will enable people to measure the effectiveness of the service.