PSNI chief criticised over PM budget appeal

PSNI chief constable Jon Boutcher said he had a number of statutory responsibilities

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Chief Constable Jon Boutcher has been criticised by the top civil servant at the Department of Justice, for making a direct plea to the prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, for extra funding.

Hugh Widdis, permanent secretary at the department, wrote to Mr Boutcher after he wrote a letter to Mr Starmer outlining the financial and staffing issues facing the PSNI.

In the leaked letter, reported by the Nolan Show and the News Letter, Mr Widdis wrote to Mr Boutcher suggesting he had undermined the authority of the minister and the wider Stormont executive.

The Department of Justice has said it does not comment on leaked private letters.

'Entirely appropriate'

However, Stormont's Justice Minister Naomi Long said the correspondence from Mr Widdis to Mr Boutcher "is entirely appropriate, and it is regrettable that private correspondence has since been leaked".

As the principal accounting officer for the department, she said Mr Widdis "carries with it responsibility for ensuring the regularity and propriety of departmental expenditure, for promoting value for money and for ensuring there are robust systems of corporate governance and financial control within the department".

She added that this included "living within the budgetary controls set by the [Northern Ireland] Assembly".

It is understood the PSNI estimates the cost of policing the recent street disorder in Northern Ireland at just under £9m.

That figure is contained within the initial letter sent by the chief constable to the prime minister, asking for specific assistance for this from the Treasury.

Mr Widdis said there are "certain protocols" which "must be followed when engaging with the UK government on matters of funding".

He added this was "in order to respect the constitutional arrangements in NI and, in particular, the authority of ministers in a devolved government".

Sir Keir Starmer met Mr Boutcher, injured police officers and people from minority communities in Belfast, earlier this week.

Dozens of PSNI officers were injured as they dealt with racially-motivated trouble on Belfast's streets in recent weeks, linked to anti-immigration protests.

The prime minister called the recent racially-motivated violence in Northern Ireland “intolerable".

Sir Keir Starmer met the chief constable during his visit to Northern Ireland earlier this week

On Thursday, Mr Boutcher said his "role is to deliver an effective policing service for all communities in Northern Ireland".

"This must be delivered with operational independence having regard to my Accounting Officer obligations of which I am very well aware," he added.

He said he had a number of statutory responsibilities, "not least those set out in Section 32 of the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000", which he said requires him and his officers to:

• protect life and property

• preserve order

• prevent the commission of offences

• and where an offence has been committed, to take measures to bring the offender to justice

Mr Boutcher said that in seeking to discharge his duties he had been "highlighting the critical issue of PSNI funding and the significant under resourcing" since his appointment as chief constable.

The chief constable is on-record as stating the PSNI budget has suffered a real-term cut of 29% since 2010.

Earlier this month, he told the Northern Ireland Policing Board it had projected funding pressures of £140m this year.

This includes the estimated compensation costs over a major data leak in 2023.

PSNI officer numbers have been at record lows for more than a year; it currently has about 6,300.

'Appalling'

Liam Kelly of the Police Federation for Northern Ireland said the letter sent to Mr Boutcher by the permanent secretary of the Department of Justice appeared to be a "high-handed attempt to gag, embarrass and chastise" him.

He said it was "appalling" and the "football equivalent of showing the chief constable a yellow card".

“It is unlikely this letter was compiled as a solo run," he added.

"Mr Widdis needs to clarify who endorsed this approach and explain their collective motivation and intention.

“In my view, the tone and tenor of this letter was disgraceful and was a crude attempt to put the chief constable firmly back in his box."

Former Ulster Unionist leader Doug Beattie also said the letter sent to Mr Boutcher was "appalling".

He told The Nolan Show on BBC Radio Ulster that the chief constable has "no choice but to recruit and in recruiting he's going to be over budget".

"If the Department of Justice won't do something about it, I don't know who will fight his corner," he added.

"The budget he has been given is unworkable and people need to know that."

'Pointless process spats'

SDLP assembly member Mark Durkan said that the letter to the chief constable from the Department of Justice is "astounding".

Mr Durkan, who is a member of the policing board, said that ministers should be "working intensively to address the public service funding crisis rather than diverting energy and attention to pointless process spats".

The DUP's Joanne Bunting, who chairs the assembly’s justice committee, said Stormont's Justice Minister and Finance Minister need to "clarify their position" in relation to the letter sent by Mr Widdis to Mr Boutcher.

"The chief constable, and indeed his predecessor, have been very clear about the impact that cuts to the policing budget are having," she said.

"We are all very aware that the financial situation for the PSNI is dire and that has significant consequences for wider society and public safety.

"Those are issues which obviously concern the chief constable and it would be remiss of him were he not to raise those issues, including at the highest levels of His Majesty’s government."

'Substantive issue'

Ms Long said the PSNI situation was caused by budgets being "continually squeezed'

In her statement, the justice minister, Naomi Long, added that the "substantive issue" is the "underfunding of the justice system".

"As a result, the PSNI is under resourced, and officers and staff are under extraordinary pressure due to falling numbers," she said.

"Whilst that pressure is significant even when things are calm, it is compounded when there is unrest such as we witnessed over recent weeks, in which officers were injured whilst keeping our communities safe.

"The position the PSNI are in now is as a direct result of budgets being continually squeezed over many years."

Mrs Long said she fully supported "the call for additional funding" and had met with the chief constable last week "to discuss how we can jointly maximise our ability to secure more resources".

"I have also raised the need for more investment with the [Northern Ireland] secretary of state and the prime minister," she added.

Mrs Long said she had offered the support of her officials to "help the PSNI build a sustainable and robust case for extra funding to put to the Executive" and will continue to support the chief constable "to secure what funding I can".