Hugh Orde: Risk-taking is a skill that is sadly disappearing in modern policing

If someone had told me when I joined the Metropolitan Police in Londonin 1977 that 25 years later I would be appointed chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, I would have had them certified.

Back then, as a young police officer in London, my only concern was to police the streets of the city as a constable. In time, if I was fortunate, I might, I hoped, get the chance to specialise, or seek promotion to sergeant.

By 2000 I instead found myself being asked by John Stevens – then the Met’s deputy commissioner, but about to become its commissioner – to take day-to-day control of his investigation into the murder in 1989 of the Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane.

Looking back, I have no doubt that if the Finucane inquiry had not become such a central part of my life, I would never have applied to become the first chief constable of the PSNI in 2002.

It gave me the chance to learn about policing in Northern Ireland – about its troubled past, about the people in uniform, about the pain within and without the police and about those left victims of the Troubles.

It was far from guaranteed that I would get the job, or that I was wanted. My appointment became quite a pantomime, with unhappy members of the Policing Board not slow in speaking out against it.

The inspector of constabulary, Dan Crompton, who had been present throughout the interviews with all of the candidates, was wheeled out to confirm I was okay and reasonably normal.

That being said, a number of my close friends and colleagues from my policing days in London – never an easy patch – thought I was completely mad to walk willingly into Northern Ireland’s politics.

It was unsurprising that policing was such a difficult issue, during and after the Belfast Agreement in 1998, although the decision to give former Hong Kong governor Chris Patten the job of creating a blueprint was sound.

His September 1999 document, carefully prepared by serious and experienced players, led to the most comprehensive, practical reforms of policing anywhere in the world in modern history.

It had the potential – as the authors described it when they unveiled the document at the Independent Commission on Policing offices in Adelaide Street, Belfast – to deliver the best police force in the world.

By the time I arrived, my predecessor, Ronnie Flanagan, had already brought about the change in name from the RUC to the PSNI, and a new uniform – no easy tasks, but ones better delivered by a veteran who had led through painful times.

My task was to deliver the remaining 170 or so recommendations that ranged from the 50-50 split of Catholic and Protestant recruitment into the force, through allowing officers to play Gaelic football.

[ Recruiting more Catholics to PSNI should be ‘front and centre’ of political agenda, says former chiefOpens in new window ]

I was determined that Patten would not gather dust on a shelf, like so many reports. We had to move quickly so that change was noticeable and real to everyone in Northern Ireland, regardless of how they viewed the force.

New measures to improve accountability, including the Police Ombudsman, which preceded the Patten Report, ensured progress was examined in minute detail. People were kept informed.

The oversight offered by the 19-person Policing Board – led by Prof Desmond Rea and his deputy, Denis Bradley – was, in my judgment, one of the cornerstones of reform.

[ Denis Bradley: ‘Partition doesn’t work, never has worked, never will work’Opens in new window ]

In addition, the Independent Oversight Commission; the two governments; interest groups; American politicians, who nearly all claimed Irish ancestry; the EU; and others meant that the PSNI was the most scrutinised police service in the world.

I had no problem with that.

Having restructured senior management, the very best people were in the key positions and each of them given responsibility for delivering a share of the Patten recommendations, and the freedom to do it.

I chaired the so-called Gold Group within the PSNI, which monitored strategic progress, but I did not interfere with tactics. Driving decision-making down the chain of command was essential, if chaotic at times.

One of the reasons we were successful was because the team stayed together for such a long time. That is highly unusual in modern policing. I was very lucky to have every one of them alongside me.

Patten had been very clear that his report could not be cherry-picked. It was all or nothing. Early on it became clear that 50-50 recruitment was unpopular with some, with court challenges and criticism. We fought every challenge.

In any country where policing is done by consent, legitimacy is critical. That needs well-trained officers, but those officers must represent the communities they serve, in all of their differences.

Throughout my seven years as chief constable, policing remained very high on the political agenda, while efforts to bring about the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons moved in parallel.

Sinn Féin delayed joining the Policing Board until it finally became obvious to them that they had no choice but to get on board, as confidence in the new service grew and crime fell. Independent surveys showed we were getting a lot right.

Not everything went smoothly. Day-to-day policing had to go on, while reforms proceeded in the background. Every incident threatened to throw progress off course, but end games in terrorism are messy; they are not straightforward.

The murder of Robert McCartney, the police raid on Stormont, the Northern Bank robbery, public disorder, the murder of Constable Stephen Carroll, all could have had disrupted progress. Stevie was the first officer of the PSNI to be murdered by terrorists, a stark reminder of the environment into which my officers went willingly every day to protect fellow citizens.

In my time in charge, 90 per cent or so of Patten was delivered. That is a testament to the bravery, commitment and professionalism of the men and women who served in the PSNI uniform.

If I was fortunate in those alongside me in uniform, I was fortunate, too, in the politicians and officials then serving. Without exception, they played their part – they supported us, they found the money to pay for reforms. Without that, we would have failed.

However, the past left by the Troubles was never going to go away. I created the Historical Enquiries Team to offer families information about their loved ones’ deaths.

It was, I believe, a unique approach that was making a real difference, until a half-baked report from the inspector of constabulary – which failed to understand the enormous complexity of the challenge – signed its death warrant in 2013.

Equally, the failure to adopt the recommendations of the Eames-Bradley Report – a legacy commission, encouragement for those involved in crimes to tell the truth short of an amnesty and victims’ compensation – has never been recovered.

[ Hugh Orde 'staggered' by North’s lack of progress on the pastOpens in new window ]

Families still face an uncertain future, with some of the same ideas no further forward today than they were 20 years ago. Legacy remains unfinished business. Brushing the dust off that report would be a sensible thing to do.

Looking back, I am proud of what we had done by the time I left Belfast in September 2009. It is still a matter of regret that we remained a fully armed service, but circumstances did not, and still do not, allow otherwise.

Critically, the PSNI maintained its operational independence. I had an absolute red line that we would not allow our operational responsibility to be compromised by political interference.

The moment policing becomes subject to such interference is the day legitimacy is lost – something that has happened in England and Wales since with the creation of Police and Crime Commissioners.

Operational policing decisions must be made by police officers, who are then held to account. Any blurring of that line is a bad idea. Policing is too important to be subject to dangerous experiments by politicians.

My time as chief constable was, without question, the most rewarding, frustrating, enjoyable, sad, challenging and delightful experience of my professional career.

Watching new officers march on to the parade square having passed the new training programme every five weeks or so buttressed my belief that we were going in the right direction.

Meeting highly experienced officers who had decades of policing behind them in the RUC, but who had embraced the new service, was equally important. You should never, ever underestimate your people.

The simple answer that explains the scale of reform that took place is the men and women of the PSNI who embraced change, but, more importantly, were prepared to take risk.

That, frankly, is a skill that is sadly disappearing in modern policing. In the imprecise world in which police officers operate, a willingness to take risk, to accept things will go wrong and to realise that one cannot control or second-guess everything is essential.

Instead, we increasingly see that this approach is now obstructed by risk-averse blanket policies created by those up the chain designed to constrain innovation and decision-making by officers on the front line.

This is then aggravated by bureaucratic review processes that try to second-guess what has been done from the comfort of a nice office, and on occasions reviewed again by another layer of management.

In other words, most supervisors now seem to spend their time checking and double-checking every event rather than actually getting out on to the streets to provide front line support and guidance.

Such ills are rampant now in policing in England and Wales, where the power enjoyed by police and crime commissioners to “hire and fire” chiefs, as one home secretary famously declared, has changed the balance of power.

Fortunately for Northern Ireland, the Policing Board remains as a far more broadly-based oversight body that ensures citizens can relate to the membership and feel represented.

Frontline officers, wherever they are, require the support of superiors. Leadership is about empowerment, not condemning those after the fact who have done their best in the uncertain world of policing.

Hugh Orde has written about the PSNI’s 25th anniversary for Policing the Peace: The Burden of Duty, a series of essays that will be published online from November 5th