Policing board receives proposals on intelligence reform

The North's policing board has received wide-ranging proposals on how to improve accountability and efficiency in intelligence gathering against paramilitaries.

The report makes six main proposals:

* that Special Branch liaise with ordinary detectives at an early stage in all investigations

* that regional police chiefs be included in this process; that the evaluation of intelligence reliability, sources and distribution be improved

* that computer systems storing intelligence be shared more widely

* that Special Branch detectives receive experience of working outside their own department

* that the decision-making process be more transparent.

The report's author, a former British chief constable, also expressed serious concern about the RUC's handling of warnings prior to the 1998 Omagh bombing.