11293 report 19 - CAIN - University of Ulster

accountabilityoften, often with the DCU Commander or other senior officers, either in full committee or invarious sub-committees.Recommendation 37: Openness of the Police ServicePatten Recommendation:37. The police service should take steps to improve its transparency.The presumption should bethat everything should be available for public scrutiny unless it is in the public interest - notthe police interest - to hold it back.Lead Responsibility: Chief Constable/Policing BoardRecommendation StatusCompliance with this recommendation has been achieved.HistoryThe PSNI's Transparency Policy with respect to the publication of information was approved bythe Chief Constable on 11 April 2003 following consultation with the Policing Board.This wasfollowed in September 2003 by the publication of the Police Service's Communications Strategy2003-2007.This specified the sorts of public relations activities police would undertake. Later thatyear the Police Service issued a Media Guide which authorised any officer to speak to the mediawhen approved by the Media and Public Relations Office.The guide gives advice on managingmedia relations, as well as providing explanations of police policy for a long list of topics.The Police Service’s freedom of information policy was published in October 2004.According tothe Policing Board's second annual human rights report, it is based on the ACPO Manual ofGuidance on the Freedom of Information Act which had been approved by the InformationCommissioner. (pp. 146-147) The Police Service reports that it has a two-person Freedom ofInformation Team which reviews all publications to ensure on-going compliance with the UKFreedom of Information Act.These activities compare well with "best practices" in the UK, Canada, and the United States.Taken together, they meet the performance indicators for transparency that we specified at theoutset of our oversight process.At the same time, the police have not been as forthcoming with respect to the publication ofpolicies as have other UK police forces.The Human Rights Programme of Action 2005-2006commits the Police Service to placing "all new instructions on the Internet" unless not publishingis "justified in terms of the sensitive nature of the content or other strong public interest." (p. 22)The Police Service's website currently provides an extensive list of information that is available tothe public.The Policing Board's second annual human rights report observes, however, that "thenumber of policies made available to the public is small and does not compare favourably withsome police forces, for example Greater Manchester Police." (p. 21) It recommends that "ThePSNI should speed up the process of making more of its policies available to the public." (p. 21)And it recommends more generally that "The PSNI should review its publication scheme withinthree months of the publication of this Human Rights Annual Report." (p. 147)51