Delays in new PSNI training college 'disappointing'
Departing Oversight Commissioner Al Hutchinson today revealed his dismay at the continued delay in building Northern Ireland's new police training college.
With the Treasury still to rubber-stamp Secretary of State Peter Hain's plan to fund construction, Mr Hutchinson urged the Policing Board to keep pressuring the authorities on the £130m state-of-the-art academy.
The former Royal Canadian Mounted Police chief, whose role ends this month, praised the transformation within the force since he came to the North six years ago to monitor the overhaul.
He spoke of improved political leadership, and predicted Sinn Féin's decision to embrace the justice arrangements would only further strengthen the reforms mapped out by Chris Patten's commission to make Northern Ireland's Police Service acceptable to all sides.
But the lingering uncertainty over when the facilities to train new recruits will be erected at the site in Cookstown, Co Tyrone, was not ignored.
Mr Hutchinson said: "In 1999 the commission recommended this. In 2001 the Government agreed to it. And it's going to be a decade before this college is built. The facts speak for themselves, and it's disappointing."
Both Mr Hutchinson and his predecessor Tom Constantine, whom he worked alongside after the Oversight Commissioner's Office was set up in Belfast, viewed a new academy to replace the city's crumbling Garnerville facilities as one of the most important of the 175 Patten recommendations.
Uncertainties over a £40m funding shortfall plagued the project until earlier this year when Mr Hain announced the cash would be provided for a joint college to train police and prison officers alongside firefighters.
Never outspoken, Mr Hutchinson expressed his concerns without criticising the authorities.
Yet the wait for construction to begin contrasted with the speed with which a new courthouse was built in Belfast.
And his message to the Policing Board, which is to be reconstituted with Sinn Féin representatives, was clear.
"This is one of the areas the board has to keep pursuing," Mr Hutchinson said.
With his role coming to an end, he will deliver a 19th and final comprehensive report on May 31, setting out the advances made in the process and identifying future challenges.
He regards republican engagement with the police service as a continuing process, but cautioned against expecting too much too soon.
As the new arrangements continue, concerns have been raised about intelligence issues in Northern Ireland being handed over to MI5. The national SDLP has warned about a potential lack of scrutiny.
Mr Hutchinson, who rose to the rank of Assistant Commissioner during 24 years with the RCMP, believed the only possible concern would be around a possible grey area of overlapping operational responsibilities.
During the North's journey towards political stability, some have felt political representatives have failed to support and guide the reformed police service.
But with the power-sharing administration headed by Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness restored at Stormont, the Oversight Commissioner said the future looked bright.
He said: "I'm very pleased to report I have a strong sense that politics is on the road to a better place and it will provide the leadership to policing and others that the people of Northern Ireland deserve."
"Tom and I said at the beginning of the process that if this succeeds, people from around the world will come to Northern Ireland with respect to policing and conflict resolution to find out what were the factors to making it work. Over this last few years people are doing that."
Even though it has taken years, Mr Hutchinson disregarded any suggestion of opposition to the policing changes.
"There was in some cases bureaucratic inertia, but I don't think there was any deliberate resistance," he said.
As he looked back on his role at the heart of the reform programme, packed boxes in his south Belfast offices were a sign that he would soon be leaving. During his time in the North he and his wife Dianna have fallen in love with the province.
They plan to go on a three-week 'farewell tour' of Ireland after he finishes his post, before returning home to Ottowa.
On one office wall hangs a painting of Queen's University, Belfast where he completed an MBA during his time spent in the city.
Another is given over to a print of nine old-fashioned English bobbies sitting enjoying pints of beer. Mr Hutchinson sees the illustration as a sign of the changing face of policing.
"Now we are facing international terrorism and organised crime," he said.
"What's happening in Northern Ireland may seem unique to Northern Ireland, but the future of policing has changed throughout the world and Northern Ireland has to catch up with that."
