A senior civil servant has been accused of a “high-handed attempt to gag, embarrass and chastise“ Northern Ireland’s police chief after warning him about a direct funding bid he made to the UK prime minister.
Permanent Secretary at the Department of Justice Hugh Widdis cautioned PSNI chief constable Jon Boutcher that he had acted “outside well-established financial protocols” by writing to Sir Keir Starmer making the case for more financial support.
Mr Widdis told Mr Boutcher that requests for further UK government funding should only be made by Stormont’s Department of Finance following engagement with the Department of Justice.
The leaked letter, first reported by the News Letter, suggests the police chief undermined the role of devolved Stormont ministers by bypassing them in a direct approach to No 10.
Mr Boutcher has been flagging grave concerns about the PSNI’s financial situation since he took the job last year, insisting he does not have the necessary resources to police Northern Ireland effectively.
He maintains Stormont does not get enough money to sustain public services in Northern Ireland, including the PSNI.
The police chief raised those issues in his letter to the Prime Minister and again in a face-to-face meeting with Sir Keir when he visited a PSNI training college in Belfast on Monday.
The Police Federation for Northern Ireland, which represents rank and file officers in the region, reacted angrily to the intervention by Mr Widdis.
Federation chair Liam Kelly branded the letter “appalling” and characterised it as the football equivalent of showing the chief constable a yellow card.
“It is unlikely this letter was compiled as a solo run. Mr Widdis needs to clarify who endorsed this approach and explain their collective motivation and intention,” he said.
“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.
“The letter was deliberately copied to the Prime Minister, the First and Deputy First Ministers, the Justice Minister, the Assembly Justice Committee, the Finance Minister and the Northern Ireland Policing Board.
“If this approach is endorsed by our local political cadre, what hope is there for our police service?”
He added: “It was a shocking insight into how a senior civil servant regards our chief constable without as much as a mention of the officers who were injured in street unrest or a credible acceptance of the day-to-day struggle to make ends meet with a wholly inadequate budget.
“Policing is on its knees and the pleas for positive intervention are not being heeded.
“Mr Boutcher was right to go over the heads of local ministers and appeal directly to the Prime Minister.
“He was forced to do that because he has already evidenced and outlined to ministers the facts around the critical position policing is in.
“From the minute he was appointed, he has been making the case for more resources, but nothing tangible has changed. The ongoing dithering and procrastination at local level has dictated his actions.”
Mr Kelly said the federation completely supported Mr Boutcher’s approach.
“The service is in crisis mode,” he said.
“Officer numbers are alarmingly shrinking, workplace pressures and demands are unsustainable and breaking our officers, and services are having to be pared back.
“We have politicians and departments that are seemingly more concerned with their positions of power and slavishly following their protocols and processes rather than actually fixing a problem that is getting worse.
“This federation completely supports Mr Boutcher and what he is doing to highlight the funding ‘famine’ and adverse impact on our officers and the policing services they provide. He cannot be put in a ‘straitjacket’.
“Warning him of ‘consequences’ for going outside Civil Service referral processes is risible if it wasn’t so serious.
“Attempting to gag the chief constable to prevent him from speaking out about the cuts and the failure of Stormont to campaign for a proper budget is yet more evidence of a system that is dysfunctional and broken.
“We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Mr Boutcher and say loudly to our politicians, Mr Widdis, and his peers to get real around this crisis in policing rather than resorting to what can only be viewed as coercive tactics to curtail, restrain and admonish someone who is doing his level best for both the service and this entire community.”
In response to the letter from Mr Widdis, Mr Boutcher highlighted his operational independence.
“I am the chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland and my role is to deliver an effective policing service for all communities in Northern Ireland,” he said.
“This must be delivered with operational independence having regard to my Accounting Officer obligations of which I am very well aware.
“It is important to highlight that I have a number of statutory responsibilities, not least those set out in Section 32 of the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000 which requires me and my officers; to protect life and property; to preserve order; to prevent the commission of offences; where an offence has been committed, to take measures to bring the offender to justice.
“In seeking to discharge my duties I have been highlighting the critical issue of PSNI funding and the significant under resourcing and I have been doing this since I became chief constable last October.
“I have and will continue to work with all stakeholders involved in the difficult challenges of police funding including, the Northern Ireland Executive, First Minster, Deputy First Minister, Justice Minister and Westminster to ensure the Police Service of Northern Ireland has the funding necessary to deliver the policing the people of Northern Ireland are entitled to while at the same time providing for the health and wellbeing of our police officers and police staff. I am sure we are all committed to this endeavour.”
Stormont Justice Committee chair and DUP MLA Joanne Bunting has called on Justice Minister Naomi Long and Finance Minister Caoimhe Archibald to “clarify their position in relation to the letter”.
“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,” she said.
“Given the tone of the letter sent by Mr Widdis and the reference to respect for the role of ministers, it would seem logical to assume the Justice Minister was aware of its content and supported it being sent to the chief constable.
“Unless she now states otherwise, it would be useful then to hear from the Justice Minister exactly what her opposition to the chief constable’s actions are, beyond a focus on protocol and position. This is not the time to be more focused on ego and position than on the impact of underfunding on policing.”
SDLP MLA and Policing Board member Mark H Durkan described the letter as “astounding and appalling in content and tone”.
“This is such bad judgment and it is a total distraction from the acute challenges we’re facing,” he said.
“The funding situation faced by the PSNI is an existential threat to policing. In these circumstances exceptional measures are required. It means a plan to address the structural underfunding of policing that has developed over the last decade, a plan to increase officer numbers to at least 8,000 and to start that work now.”
The UK Department of Justice has been approached for comment.
