Nigel Goddard: Budget will mean less officers for neighbourhood policing and support hub for vulnerable

The Derry police commander issued the warning in the wake of last week’s 2023/24 Budget statement by Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris, which saw the Department of Justice’s budget slashed by -2.3 per cent from £1,184,200,000 to £1,156,700,000.

He said falling staff numbers will have an impact on the ground.

"It's a flat budget that is affected by inflation so it is actually a significant real terms reduction. Already the Chief Constable [Simon Byrne] informs us that there is a significant financial shortfall he has got to find in this year.

"We had one last year, which they managed to make up but each time you do that it gets harder and harder and the Chief has made it clear to us that with less money, that's going to mean less police officers, and with less police officers, it will mean less policing.

"They took out 300 police officers last year from the service. Some of that was able to be done through vacancies that existed but once you got rid of the vacancies that existed, we are now into people retiring.

"We are going to have to take out another 300 posts this year. As people retire they won't be replaced. So that is actually a real cut that people will see and whilst that will be spread across the service it will affect us here.”

Chief Superintendent Goddard promised emergency response will be ring-fenced.

“The Chief's [CC Byrne] reassurance is that we will always meet our responsibility of responding and keeping the public safe - 999 emergency calls, priority calls - that's number one, sacrosanct. You can't be a police service if you can't do that,” he said.

But Ch/Supt. Goddard warned the resource he can commit to neighbourhood policing and a multi-agency Support Hub that brings together professionals to help vulnerable people may be reduced.

“The Chief and ourselves here are committed to the policing functions that we think add real value, like neighbourhood policing and things like the Support Hub.

"But being committed to the function doesn't mean you can have the same number of people doing it and we will, and are, having to review the sort of numbers that we can put to the policing teams in order to make sure that we can protect the very front-line service of response policing.”

Ultimately numbers will fall as officers retire and fewer are recruited.

"We are looking at rationalisation as people retire. The Police College is not recruiting. Recruitment is paused at the minute. It is way pulled back even from the numbers they had hoped to [recruit],” he said.

The challenge of policing in Derry has been pressed upon the Department of Justice and Northern Ireland Office.

"We make a strong case and we think it is heard and well received that this area, specifically Derry City and Strabane faces challenges - historical challenges, current challenges - which mean that it probably needs that bit of extra help and resource.

"I have had NIO visit me and we have reiterated that. We've had representatives from the Irish Government, the British-Irish Council secretariat, and I think they get it.”

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