1. Ms Sugden asked the Minister of Justice, in light of the reported comments of the Deputy Chief Constable that the PSNI can only deliver the service that it is funded to deliver, for her assessment of whether communities are safe with the current numbers of police officers. (AQO 1915/22-27)

2. Mr Buckley asked the Minister of Justice for her assessment of His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services' report ‘The Police Service of Northern Ireland: An inspection of police effectiveness and efficiency’. (AQO 1916/22-27)

7. Mr Bradley asked the Minister of Justice to outline what action she is taking to address His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services’ findings that the PSNI's child internet protection team does not have enough personnel to effectively manage its high workload. (AQO 1921/22-27)

9. Mr Frew asked the Minister of Justice for her assessment of His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services' report ‘The Police Service of Northern Ireland: An inspection of police effectiveness and efficiency’. (AQO 1923/22-27)

14. Mr Irwin asked the Minister of Justice, in light of His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services' report ‘The Police Service of Northern Ireland: An inspection of police effectiveness and efficiency’, to outline what action she will take to increase PSNI officer numbers. (AQO 1928/22-27)

15. Mr Harvey asked the Minister of Justice to outline what action her Department will take following publication of His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services' report ‘The Police Service of Northern Ireland: An inspection of police effectiveness and efficiency’. (AQO 1929/22-27)

Mr Speaker, with your permission, I intend to answer questions 1, 2, 7, 9, 14 and 15 together.

Minister, will you require additional time to answer all those questions?

I may require a little extra, even if it is just to read out the number of questions.

We will grant you that additional time.

At the outset, I thank His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services for its thorough inspection, as well as the PSNI officers and staff, whose professionalism and dedication were rightly acknowledged in the report. The inspection report highlights operational challenges for both the PSNI and the Northern Ireland Policing Board to address. Crucially, it underscores the impact of reduced police officer numbers on our communities. It also emphasises the urgent need to address this decline and warns of future risks if left unaddressed. The prioritisation of resources within the PSNI is a matter for the Chief Constable, who is accountable to the Northern Ireland Policing Board. As such, it is for the Chief Constable to manage his resources and live within the budget allocated.

I am conscious of the significant pressures across all Departments and the difficult decisions that need to be taken by the Executive. That said, safer communities are a priority within the Executive’s new Programme for Government. I remain firmly committed to ensuring our communities are safe so that citizens feel confident and secure to fully engage in society. Despite the ongoing financial challenges, I welcome the Finance Minister’s allocation of an additional £5 million towards making communities safer. The PSNI will receive £4·75 million of the £5 million available, which is equivalent to 95%. Furthermore, the PSNI has received a pro rata share of the constrained resources allocated to my Department, in addition to its baseline allocation. This applies to both the 2025-26 opening budget and the indicative June monitoring allocation for employers’ National Insurance contributions.

We are all operating within constrained budgets across the justice system, so I will continue to make the case for enhanced departmental funding for policing and the justice system.

Thank you, Minister. I recognise that operational responsibilities are a matter for the Chief Constable and the Policing Board. However, this is an issue that raises its head time and time again. Is there something more, even in an advocacy role, that we, as the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Executive, could do to appeal to the British Government to get the police the much-needed resources they need? It does impact on a key priority of safer communities. Indeed, we are starting to see it on the ground and constituents are telling us that it is impacting on how they feel safe on our streets. Is there more that we can do, and can you suggest anything, as the Minister of Justice?

I thank the Member for what I think is a very helpful intervention. There are real challenges that the PSNI faces, and those will also be faced by other constabularies right across the UK, particularly now that the British Government's spending trajectory on public services is heading for decline. That is a really challenging environment in which we are trying to rebuild.

There are two things to say. First, as you know, we have a business case with the Department of Finance to look at the stabilisation of numbers and increased numbers for PSNI staff and officers. I know that that is under active consideration at the moment, and I am optimistic about that. However, even if the business case is approved, it will require us to be able to demonstrate affordability, and that is a further challenge. The second thing that is unique to the PSNI as opposed to other constabularies, and which therefore does not have a repercussive effect, is the extent to which the PSNI has to absorb the costs of legacy. That is the case right across the justice system in Northern Ireland, whether that be the Ombudsman's Office, the PSNI, the judiciary or the Courts and Tribunals Service. There are real issues around how the legacy funding for justice in Northern Ireland has been calculated. The UK Government could assist us with additional funding for those areas that are unique to Northern Ireland and that would not have read repercussive implications for the rest of the UK Budget.

Minister, this was a worrying report. A particular worry for me was that it revealed significant gaps in the PSNI child internet protection team, contributing to ineffectiveness in investigating child sexual abuse offences and managing dangerous offenders and predators. It is an alarming statistic given the 98% increase in child online protection threats in the past five years. What urgent action can we take to address that? I agree with the previous contributor that it will not be good enough just to place it under the banner of "Police: budget issues". We really have to protect the vulnerable.

The Member is, of course, right to say that, of all police duties, that of keeping our children, in particular, safe from predatory adults is key. One of the challenges that the PSNI and other parts of the justice system face is that, whilst crime rates remain relatively low in Northern Ireland, the complexity of those crimes, particularly those committed in an online space, makes them much more expensive to investigate and prosecute. That is a challenge that the PSNI has to wrestle with. The PSNI is a key agency in public protection arrangements, and I value the work that it does under those arrangements to manage sexual and violent offenders.

I refer to previous reports from Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland (CJINI) and others. The Member is right that some of this is budget-related, but some of it is about prioritisation. Changes have already been made to the PSNI's arrangements for how officers manage the caseload in that sector. The concerns that the inspectorate raised shine a light on the fact that, with limited resources, there is an increased risk. We can never reduce the risk of offending to zero, but we can certainly mitigate and reduce it significantly. It is important that the PSNI is properly resourced to do that and that, within its resources, it perhaps prioritises doing that above other things that it has to do.

Given the urgency of the issue, why would the public have confidence that the Justice Department will act swiftly, having allowed that dangerous shortfall to develop? Will the Minister provide a specific timeline for achieving the necessary staffing levels and outline how progress can be monitored?

To be clear, the Department of Justice did not allow a gap to open up in funding or in numbers. The PSNI took decisions, for example, not to recruit police officers to replace those who had left. That decision was taken by the PSNI, not imposed upon it by the finances. That has had a knock-on effect, with a deterioration in numbers over time. In 2021, the Executive secured the resources to allow the PSNI to raise its numbers to 7,100. When I came back into office at the start of last year, the number, having reached that point, had dropped to 6,300. We have arrested the decline; that is the first stage.

The second stage is about getting the business case through. I cannot give a timeline for it, but it is under active consideration by the Department of Finance. Getting that through, with the resource that we need to seek on the back of it, will allow us to start to recruit new officers. Some of the money is already available to the PSNI to start the recruitment process, and some additional money will need to be found.

However, there is an upper limit to the number of officers that we can train and recruit in Northern Ireland. The upper limit for new officers coming through the police training college is around 500 a year. We lose around 350 by attrition, which means that, even at the college's peak throughput, we are talking about being able to add 150 newly trained officers a year. I have been discussing that with the Chief Constable. If there are other means of increasing the PSNI's complement, or other ways in which we can train people in order to ensure that we have PSNI officers available, we will look at them. Affordability will remain the biggest challenge, however, even if the business case is approved and successful.

Given that the report states that there is an increased risk in managing sexual offenders, will the Minister give credence to undertaking a review of the wider Public Protection Arrangements for Northern Ireland (PPANI) and the police's position within them?

As the Member will be aware, there are a number of arrangements to manage offenders. The multi-agency risk assessment conferencing (MARAC) process, which is for protection, is under review. An intensive piece of work is happening on that. We then have PPANI, in which the PSNI is one of the key agencies, but not the only agency, involved. We would need to look at whether the PPANI need a root-and-branch change. The indication in the report was more to do with the allocation of officers to cases than with a flaw in the structures that have been in place, so we would need to think carefully before investing our resource in a review rather than in officers who would be able to complete those tasks.

As the Member will know, the Department chairs the strategic management board for PPANI. It commissioned a review of PPANI-related demand and signed off on the report, so we have already looked at the demand piece and are working to implement the findings. The timing of the HMIC report has been useful, as it will inform how we implement the recommendations of the demand review that we have undertaken.

With respect, Minister, will you commit today to increasing staffing levels. If so, by when?

On staffing, there is the business case that I have referred to. I am absolutely committed to seeing the PSNI increase its numbers of officers and staff so that it can conduct the work on behalf of the public that needs to be done. However, it is not just for me to make that commitment: it requires every party in the Chamber to agree to it and to funding it. That is a challenge for all of us, not just for me.

When I am given the money, I prioritise policing. Look, for example, at the allocations that we have had already this year. A significant amount of money has been given to the PSNI from those allocations. It is important that we recognise that it is not that we deprioritise policing when we get money in Justice; Justice needs to be a higher priority when it comes to the Executive as a whole.

I thank the Minister for her answer. Given that the Chief Constable has recently voiced concerns that officer numbers are at an all-time low, will the Minister be mindful of that and commit to a review of the PSNI's funding, if the report indicates that there are clear difficulties with service delivery as a direct result of minimal funding and reduced recruitment?

As we have an annual Budget, we review the funding allocations every year. That happens on an ongoing basis. If you look at the allocations that have already been made to PSNI, you will see that, of the £132·3 million of additional allocations to my Department, PSNI has received just over £86 million. That is 65% of the additional funding that the Department has received and 86% of the £100 million of pressures reported by PSNI to my Department, so I do not think that anyone can argue that we are not giving the PSNI priority.

We also have the business case for restoring workforce levels to 7,000 officers and 2,572 staff over the next three years. That proposal is, as I said, under active consideration by the Department of Finance. I am optimistic that the business case is robust. There are costs to our society from not increasing police numbers and not investing in those services. However, we will still have a challenge with affordability, because, without additional resource, there will be limited ability to implement that plan as quickly as we would wish. As you would expect, I will not be shy when it comes to asking for additional resources for the PSNI.

Minister, I commend you for talking in detail about PSNI operational matters. It is the 30th anniversary of 'Father Ted', and I am glad that you are not saying, as you often do, "That would be an operational matter".

There is a real sense among some people that confidence and optimism around the PSNI have declined since the time of the Patten report. Do you agree that we need to renew that broad, cross-community optimism about policing and that a more fundamental review — Patten II — is required?

There are a couple of things in that. First, they are not operational matters for the PSNI; they are funding issues, which are within my bailiwick. If Members ask the right questions, they will get fulsome answers on any occasion. I am more than happy to give fulsome answers where it is within my vires to do so.

The second issue that you raised is about declining confidence in the PSNI. At times, we all need to reflect on the fact that the PSNI comes under considerable pressure not just from the public but from politicians. It comes in for considerable criticism and negativity, all of which contributes to the overall public perception of the PSNI's effectiveness, efficiency and capability.

There is a fine line between arguing that the PSNI needs more resource and arguing that it is incapable of delivering on its objectives. We need to be cautious about not crossing that line. Northern Ireland remains one of the safest places to live in these islands; we should not lose sight of that. I also recognise, however, that there is much more that the PSNI could do with additional resources.

Would I put resources into root-and-branch reform? I offered to do so in the previous mandate. I offered to carry out a wider review of the roles of and relationships between the Assembly, the Justice Committee, the Policing Board, the Police Service and the Justice Department. At that time, the Policing Board told me in no uncertain terms that it did not wish to see such a review. One of the most vocal critics of my proposal was one of your colleagues.

Future-proofing the PSNI is important. That can also come about as a result of efficiency in its spend. It is not just about resources; it is also about capital. I am a member of the Policing Board, which looks into these matters closely. What is the Minister's assessment of the NI Audit Office's (NIAO) recent report on the PSNI's fleet management?

When the Northern Ireland Audit Office looks at any organisation, it is important that we take time to learn the lessons from its report. I thank the Comptroller and Auditor General and her staff for the report.

The Northern Ireland Policing Board is, as you say, responsible for securing the maintenance of an efficient and effective police service, including, for example, how it acquires and maintains its fleet and where that expenditure is made. My officials will study the report closely and discuss, as appropriate, its findings with the board and the PSNI at the tripartite meetings that we hold. It is, however, possible that that Northern Ireland Audit Office report will be the subject of a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) hearing. For that reason, it would not be appropriate for me to comment further at this time on its findings.