Our Commitments to you

If you have been listening to the news today, no doubt you will have heard your Chief Constable speaking about our Policing Commitments to you.

I don't intend to go into them in detail, because over the next few weeks your very own personal copy of our 10 pledges will drop through your letter box.

The most important point to highlight is that these Commitments are a result of having listened to you, your neighbours, public representatives and community leaders. These are things which you have told us matter most.

We are here to deliver a Police Service to you regardless of religion, politics, cultural identity, age, gender or sexual orientation. This is not about having a set of promises to hang on the wall in your local police station, but about standards that you can judge us upon. We will also give you the opportunity to tell us how well you think we have performed against those standards.

We have already delivered significant crime reductions, increased confidence and more police officers to visible policing roles and through our Commitments we hope to build on these achievements and deliver even more.

We know that the vast majority of people support us and want to work in partnership with us. Your support is vital to ensure that the small number of people who want us to fail and drag us back to the past do not succeed. Quite frankly they have nothing to offer society as an alternative.

The Chief Constable is absolutely determined and personally committed to delivering personal, professional and protective policing to every single person in Northern Ireland. This for me shows the commitment of our Chief Constable to raise policing here to another level and I know he is absolutely determined to see this through over the next few years. This will not be easy - it is undoubtedly very challenging and it is my privilege to support him in this regard.

I hope, in the words of your Chief Constable that: "One day all communities will simply say that the Police Service of Northern Ireland is our police."

These are our promises to you which I believe we can deliver. We are setting ourselves high standards. With your help and support, I believe we can achieve them.