Examining Officer and Staff Requirement: Insights from the Police Service of Northern Ireland
Introduction
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) (1) plays a critical role in tackling crime, ensuring public safety, and supporting peace, security and community cohesion in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland had a ‘severe’ terrorism threat for 9 of the previous 10 years, due to which PSNI officers and staff worked in a uniquely challenging context: PSNI officers routinely need to check under their cars for explosives, and require additional security officers to safeguard police vehicles when attending areas with terrorist threats or low trust in policing.
The Challenge
Despite this, there had been significant disinvestment in Northern Ireland’s policing since 2010, worsened by the Assembly not being in session for two years. Between 2010 and 2022, PSNI’s budget declined by 3% – a fall of 29% in real terms given inflation. Officer numbers dropped from 7,405 in 2010 to the lowest ever level of 6,440 in February 2024 – despite demand remaining broadly stable. Declining investment also took a toll on the workforce’s wellbeing and morale: officers and staff didn’t get the pay rises that other UK forces received, and the legacy of the Troubles, continued high risk and increasing workloads led to higher sickness levels.
Chief Constable Jon Boutcher had been working hard to advocate for investment in PSNI. In February 2024, the newly formed Northen Ireland Assembly and Executive planned an additional spend of c.£3 bn across public services in Northern Ireland – which posed an opportunity for PSNI to secure much needed investment. While PSNI had invested significant efforts to understand their capacity requirements in the past, these estimations were outdated. PSNI were in the process of a detailed bottom-up analysis of their officer and staff requirements based on demand forecasts across functions, but this was a multi-year process. As decisions on public sector resourcing were expected within weeks, early results were essential.
Our Approach
Leapwise were requested to conduct an urgent assessment of PSNI’s officer and staff capability and capacity requirements. Our team undertook rapid analysis and benchmarking to estimate PSNI’s officer and staff requirements across key functions, and produced defensible comparison with forces in England and Wales. Given the need for a quick turnaround, we worked intensively with PSNI to assess their requirements – producing a report within two weeks that served as an evidence base for senior leaders advocating for investment.
Our analysis had 3 main components:
- Contextual analysis to understand PSNI’s financial and performance position, demonstrating the extent of disinvestment in PSNI relative to both Great Britain police forces, and other public services in Northern Ireland.
- Top-down analysis of PSNI’s resource requirement to assess officer and staff capacity PSNI would need to “keep up” with other UK nations, which we compared with trends in crime and non-crime demands. This partially reflected the distinct policing context in Northern Ireland, as PSNI had historically received higher resources compared to England and Wales in recognition of the distinct policing challenges in Northern Ireland.
- Benchmarking through functional analysis to account for additional officer and staff capability and capacity requirement in Northern Ireland compared to other UK forces by function. Here, our team identified PSNI’s additional demands, and found five areas of additional officer and staff requirement in PSNI:
- Role differences, as PSNI is responsible for some functions largely performed and funded nationally in England and Wales
- Operational risks due to the unique risk environment in Northern Ireland
- Maintaining infrastructure and enabling capabilities due to risk factors
- Legal and judicial requirements due to differential arrangements across the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland
- Other areas, primarily the significantly higher long term sickness levels in PSNI due to both psychological reasons and musculoskeletal impacts of officers needing to wear protective armour
This assessment was initially validated through internal workshops and interviews with area leads, PSNI leadership, and PSNI officers with experience working in other UK police forces. Subsequently, our findings were further tested with Chief Officers in other UK forces that had previously worked in PSNI who could independently speak to the differences.
Results
All three analyses demonstrated that PSNI faced a considerable funding gap, and shortage of both officers and staff. The report therefore helped support Chief Constable and PSNI senior leadership advocate for appropriate investment in PSNI. Findings were shared by PSNI with key stakeholders in Westminster and Northern Ireland, including the Prime Minister’s Office, the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee MPs, the Policing Board, among others, though decision-making is ongoing.
Senior leaders in the PSNI had been working tirelessly to support their workforce through fair pay increases, and to advocate for much needed investment to maintain a good service for the public. And the recent approval of the pay rise for officers and staff is a testament to the commitment of senior leadership to advocate for their workforce that have been working hard to deliver a good service to the public.
“The Leapwise team worked really well with us at pace! We had gathered much of our internal baseline data and analysis but … Leapwise worked with us to review our available information, to benchmark and challenge us, and to bring enhanced rigour to statistical analyses supported by bringing to bear their broad understanding of wider UK policing context“
– Aldrina Magwood, Assistant Chief Officer for Strategic Planning and Transformation
In the current context, all police services – and public services more broadly – are under financial pressure. It is therefore critical to understand service demands and delivery costs, and provide political decision-makers with clear evidence about investment requirements. Only by making clear the performance that should be expected at different funding levels, can leaders make informed and effective choices for the public. There are always routes to finding greater productivity and efficiency in any public service, but the starting point for driving reform is an appropriately funded core service with clear performance expectations.
For more insights on budget setting and evidence-based policing, please reach out to our team to discuss.