Policing Authority claims gardaí not meeting public's expectations over detection rates and increased assaults

A Garda watchdog has expressed concern that initiatives by gardaí to address falling detection rates and increased assaults are not generating the results expected by the public.

The Policing Authority has questioned claims by gardaí that communities were better protected at the end of 2019 than at the start of the year and warned that measurable improvements might not be seen for at least another 12 months.

It also raised concerns that gardaí were not meeting targets on road deaths, serious injuries and breath tests.

In its annual assessment of the performance of An Garda Síochána, the Policing Authority said it was difficult to see how results in 2019 were linked to all the activity and investment which it knew had taken place.

On reform within the force, the report said gardaí were “critically hampered” by persistent challenges in relation to planning, prioritisation, resourcing, focus, agility and self-evaluation.

It claimed that An Garda Síochána was still only at the stage of understanding the problem rather than addressing it.

The Policing Authority said it was not convinced that gardaí understood there was a direct relationship between the challenges that everyone agreed existed and the systems it had recommended and the effectiveness of the force’s performance.

“It is also difficult to see how An Garda Síochána can make the argument that people are as safe, or safer, at the end of 2019 than they were at the end of 2018,” the report said.

It added: “At the moment it seems that the most the Garda Síochána can point to is its inputs rather than its outputs or outcomes. There are more divisional protective service units; there is more accountability; there is a detections plan and an assaults strategy but there are not yet any results.”

The Policing Authority said last year’s results were not encouraging as the incidence of crime during 2019 was either increasing or stable while detection rates were decreasing across crimes against the person and property as well as drug offences.

It noted road deaths and serious injuries also rose slightly last year after several years of improvement.

The watchdog said there was a risk that falling detection rates and increased crime levels could have an impact on public confidence if it could not measure the effectiveness of its initiatives.

It warned that there was a more fundamental risk that activities and investments were not being directed towards “the things that matter to people in the community in this community”.

The report also criticised of the absence of a workforce plan within the force and the redeployment of only 344 gardaí to frontline duties when the target had been 500.

Other issues of concern were training, performance management and lack of progress in supporting vulnerable people in the criminal justice system.

The Policing Authority said the number of initiatives behind target due to a reported lack of resources suggested that Garda management’s belief that they were achievable were “misplaced or, at least, over-ambitious.”

It said gardaí had still not been able to provide it with detailed, evidence-based information for additional funding, despite being advised on a number of occasions that they had a statutory obligation to provide annual updates on the adequacy of their resources.

On a positive note, the Policing Authority welcomed the fact that nearly two-thirds of initiatives in the 2019 Policing Plan were on target compared to less than half the previous year.

It said the figures represented “a distinct improvement”.

However, it said the performance was not yet at a level that could be classified as “achievement” but rather “partial achievement”

Overall nearly half of all initiatives contained in last year’s plan were fully achieved with nearly 80% achieved to some extent.

The Policing Authority said it had a sense that the force had aimed for a higher level of performance towards the end of the year and that senior Garda management was disappointed not to have achieved more targets.

The watchdog said the launching of the new Garda operating model last year represented one of the most significant organisational changes in the history of the force.

It said a review of misclassified homicide cases demonstrated a welcome new approach to critical, transparent self-evaluation by gardaí.

The Policing Authority chairman, Bob Collins, said that while such reports can sometimes be seen as criticism of garda, they were very often “a reflection of the scale of the challenges an organisation faces.”

“This is very much the case with this report which must be read against the extraordinary challenges confronting the Commissioner and his colleagues in making deep and fundamental changes that he and they know are necessary and vital to the future success of the organisation and to the quality of the service it will offer to the people of this country,” said Mr Collins.

He descried the report as “a powerful statement of what has been achieved”.

Mr Collins said new strategies produced by gardaí last year were a reflection of the organisation finally coming to a settled view on the way forward across a range of crucially important areas.

“The implementation will be challenging but the outcome of their full implementation will be a much better policing service for the people,” he added.

While the performance had improved during 2019 as well as the awareness and measurement of performance, Mr Collins said the pace of assessment of performance at an individual level was “not as encouraging” and “remains a task of urgent importance”.

Noting the historic high level of gardaí in the force, Mr Collins said increased staffing numbers were important but they were neither a guarantee nor measure of success or effectiveness.

“Building on the levels of public confidence, persuading victims that their interests are central and showing the public that they are well served and safer will be a surer foundation and a more eloquent testament to the work that has begun,” Mr Collins said.