Agreement Reached in the Multi-Party Negotiations - Transitional ...

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The scheme describes how the Police Service of Northern Ireland proposes to fulfil the Section 75 duties and obligations with regard to all of its policies, functions and duties. Policies will be screened to identify those that are likely to have a significant impact on equality of opportunity. 299 The Police Service will prioritise its policy review programme on the basis of: • relevance to social need • effect on people's daily lives • effect on Human Rights responsibilities of Police Service • effect on economic and social rights • scale of expenditure incurred by the policy 300 These are ambitious aims but the plan offers no detail as to how they will be achieved. If these are priorities for the PSNI, then how will ‘relevance to social need’ or ‘effects on people’s daily lives’ be determined? If it is through the local partnership structures then it is important that women are well placed within these so that their concerns can be articulated. It provides an opportunity, for example, to prioritise domestic violence. As shown above, the district partnerships may not be easy for women to access. Unlike the Criminal Justice Review, which steered clear of social justice issues, the PSNI is to prioritise policy with regard to the ‘effect on economic and social rights’, a matter of interest to women, but gives no information as to how this would be done. 9.8.2 PSNI Neutral Working Environment Policy The policy is intended to create a workplace: free of behaviour, comments, items or materials that may cause offence to officers or civilian staff. Inappropriate behaviour or comments towards an individual or group which is based on the gender, religion, marital status, political opinion, race, disability, sexual orientation, age, personal characteristics and/or their social/economic/welfare background of an individual or group of individuals. Designed to prevent offensive sectarian behaviour, it also forbids sexist behaviour. 301 9.8.3 PSNI Recruitment From April 2002 to May 2003: 564 PSNI officers were recruited (384 men, 180 women) ‘on a 50/50 basis between the Catholic and non-Catholic communities’. 302 The first 7 299 Ibid. The Police Service will systematically review each policy in terms of the nine categories listed at Section 75 of the Act. For each policy the following criteria will be considered: • Is there any evidence of higher or lower participation or uptake by different groups*? • Is there any evidence that different groups have different needs, experiences, issues and priorities in relation to the particular main functional areas? • Is there an opportunity to better promote equality of opportunity or good relations by altering policy or practice, or working with others in Government or the larger community? • Have consultations in the past with relevant representative organisations or individuals within groups indicated that particular policies, functions or duties create problems that are specific to them? If the answer to any of these questions is positive then consideration will be given as to whether the policy will be subject to an equality impact assessment procedure. Where it is found that there is insufficient data to reach an opinion then additional information will be sought to inform the decision-making process. 300 Ibid. 301 For example, touching, gesturing and/or any other act that may be reasonably perceived as inappropriate, intimidating, offensive and/or oppressive including jokes, innuendo or direct insults. Also excluded are materials such as e.g. glamour posters/postcards, caricatures, cartoons, satirical poems, religious tracts etc and sending inappropriate emails and graffiti. Items indicating assumed national identity, with a few exceptions, and military memorabilia are also forbidden. 65
competitions for police officers (up to September 2004) drew 38,275 applications – 37% were from women. In January 2003 the PSNI launched the first phase of a three-year programme to create 1,500 new part-time (working between 4 and 12 hours per week) policing roles in local communities in Northern Ireland. Applications were welcome from groups currently under-represented, such as women. 303 9.8.4 PSNI Human Rights Programme of Action This was published in response to Patten recommendation 1 on human rights. 9.8.5 PSNI Gender Action Plan 304 A working party was established to submit a plan to the Board which would examine the number of females within the PSNI and address issues arising from the findings: underrepresentation within the police service, the areas of work undertaken by females, recruitment and training, and work/life balance. The report will look closely at the work profile of the police service, examining roles of females as police officers and as civilian staff and propose recommendations; issues relating to promotion, specialist postings, development opportunities and cultural issues. The action plan gives a thorough assessment and under a number of different headings gives practical suggestions for carrying out reform. Recruitment: Since direct recruitment for officers to serve within the PSNI started in April 2001, the percentage of females joining has fluctuated between 22% in competition three to almost 44% in competition five, in March 2003. If this trend continues it will raise the overall percentage of females among full time officers from its current level of 16.47% to over 26% by 2010. The removal of the physical competency test as part of the recruitment process has seen the level of female recruits rise. 305 Deployment: It is recommended that a series of practical steps be implemented which will tackle the ‘gentrification’ of roles within PSNI which will remove the focus on gender within the Police Service. These steps will include the discontinuation of PW numbers and duty sheets being issued which are based on seniority not gender. All officers should be treated equally and be expected to carry out the full range of police duties irrespective of gender. Specialisms: The increasing numbers of women entering the Service will lead to an increase in female officers in frontline service delivery. Proportionally fewer female officers apply to specialist units, however when they do apply they seem to be as successful as male officers. It is recommended that a communications campaign is commenced aimed at encouraging under represented groups to apply to specialist units. This campaign will initially focus its attention on female officers. 302 PSNI press release 2 May 2003 303 PSNI press release 24 January 2003 304 PSNI Gender Action Plan: ‘Dismantling Barriers to Reflect the Community we Serve’. September 2004. The Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000 (Section 48) tasks the Northern Ireland Policing Board to develop a gender action plan to monitor the number of women employed in the Police Service of Northern Ireland across the Police Service, the Police Service support staff and the Northern Ireland Policing Board’s staff. 305 The issue of the fitness test had been raised by the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition, NIWC Press Release, 25 October 2002 66
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Women and the Implementation of the
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5.5 Women Victims Post the Good Fri
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Women’s Rights in Transitioning a
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language of the Agreement) this was
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An overall assessment of the succes
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1. RESEARCH 1.1 Sources Primary doc
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2. MAIN FINDINGS The main findings
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3. THE GOOD FRIDAY AGREEMENT In 199
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ecent history of communal conflict
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4. PARTICIPATION OF WOMEN IN PUBLIC
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Ad Hoc Committee - Life Sentences (
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