THE PSNI WILL have to stop providing assistance to other police forces and looking after people with mental health issues in hospitals if a funding crisis is not resolved, Chief Constable Jon Boutcher has said.

Boutcher told a Westminster committee that if the number of officers in the region falls below 6,000 by 2025, then the policing situation would become “untenable”.

The chief constable told the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee that his officers had recently travelled to London to provide assistance with public order situations as well as providing water cannons to An Garda Síochána following rioting in Dublin.

The service is facing a budget shortfall of £52.5 million this financial year – a figure that includes funds needed to introduce a 7% pay rise.

The recommended officer number for the PSNI is 7,500, but the current number of officers is around 6,300.

“With what we have recently in the Middle East, the PSNI, because we are very experienced in this space, have been sending over PSUs (police support units), officers to deal with the protests that you’ve seen in London in recent weeks,” Boutcher said. 

“We are sort of the first port of call because of the experience of our officers,” he said. 

The chief constable said that “Londoners will have seen the green uniforms of the PSNI dealing with that protest”.

“When the Metropolitan Police have an issue with regard to firearms, which they have had recently with regard to a couple of incidents with firearm officers facing sanction with regards to their actions, it is the PSNI which is the first port of call because we are an armed service and we are experienced in dealing with these issues,” he said. 

“We provide a level of resilience with regards to mainstream policing because of our specialist skills,” he added. 

“We will get to a position, because of the numbers, where we simply won’t be able to do that.”

He added: “Equally, when we saw the disturbances in Dublin recently I reached out to the commissioner of An Garda Síochána. We are able to provide support to them with regards to what they were facing.

“That support reassured officers, with the water cannon, that the commissioner was there for them and they were getting the kit they needed to deal with any challenges they may face on subsequent nights. It sent a message to people how they would be dealt with.

“There are a lot of elements of what the PSNI do, almost unseen, that we won’t be able to do moving forward.”

Mental health patients

Boutcher also spoke about the number of officers who sit with mental health patients in hospitals while doctors are dealing with other patients.

He said: “You get to a position where there are more police cars sitting in the accident and emergency car park than there are patrolling the streets and responding to 999 calls.

“Those sorts of decisions have been made by me about how we are going to have to reduce those services.”

He said the force would have to prioritise fighting crime.

“That doesn’t include looking after people in hospitals. There will have to be other provisions made for that.”

Boutcher said if funding issues continue without relief, the force would have to come up with a new policing model.

He said: “We will understand where every single resource in the PSNI is.

“We have already started this work to redesign an operating model to work with 6,358 officers at the end of March, below 6,000 officers at the beginning of 2025, which is untenable.

“We will be having some very difficult conversations with people.

“That includes when we get the call from other organisations like the Met to help, we simply won’t have the resources to send to them.”