The Northern Ireland Police Authority has said that changing the name of the RUC will not lead to any significant increase in Catholic recruits to the force.
The authority chairman, Mr Pat Armstrong, also criticised moves to redress the religious imbalance in the proposed Northern Ireland Police Service through the use of 50/50 recruitment quotas.
He warned this could "stand the principle of appointment on merit on its head" and alienate the Protestant community. The authority outlined several misgivings about the findings of the Patten report. It launched a four-week consultation exercise across the North to help it reach a conclusion before issuing a detailed response to the report. British government insistence that the document must be taken as a whole and not "cherrypicked" could force people to take a stand against it "which would be to no one's benefit", Mr Armstrong said.
"We are not prepared to support change purely for the sake of political expediency, but we will give our wholehearted backing to reforms which improve standards and the quality of service."
In its initial response to the proposals, the authority expressed concerns about the role which former paramilitaries could have on the proposed district policing partnership boards.
The composition of the boards might lead to the "Balkanisation" of policing, with nationalist boards in nationalist areas and unionist boards in unionist areas.
Mr Armstrong expressed concern about renaming the RUC. "There is no reliable evidence to show that changing the name would produce any significant increase in recruits from the Catholic community. In the absence of this, we have a real fear that the proposal will alienate a large section of the community without having any appreciable impact on the problem it is designed to solve.
"The hurt caused by this one issue alone is so great that we would need to be persuaded by conclusive empirical evidence that the pain is worth bearing." Mr Armstrong and his colleagues welcomed the Patten report's proposals to increase partnership between the police, other agencies and local communities. They also endorsed moves to enshrine human rights. However, the authority expressed doubts about the appointment of an independent overseer for the Patten reforms, warning that it could prove to be an "unnecessary level of bureaucracy". The authority will publish its conclusions on the report before the end of November. However, Sinn Fein accused the authority of "being little more than a PR agency for the RUC" and said it could have no role in any new police service. The authority also released statistics assessing the performance of the RUC from 1998-99. These showed a 20 per cent increase in recorded crime in the North and a 5 per cent reduction in police detection rates. The authority's first "policing plan" for the North also showed a 21 per cent increase in violent crimes, a 20 per cent rise in car theft and an 8 per cent increase in domestic burglaries. However, it also noted that satisfaction levels with the RUC remained high, with a 75 per cent rating.
A group of nationalist protesters demanding the disbandment of the RUC last night disrupted a public meeting of the Northern Ireland Police Authority, adds Monika Unsworth.
The fifteen or so protesters, who were led by the veteran republican, Mr Martin Meehan, carried placards displaying an RUC officer wearing an Orange sash and calling for the disbandment of the force. Once the protesters had left the hall, the meeting, which was chaired by the authority's chairman Mr Pat Armstrong, dealt with policing issues raised in the authority's annual report as well as with its preliminary response to the Patten report.
Several of the 100 or so people attending the meeting expressed concern at the proposed abolishment of the authority.
Mr Armstrong replied that the authority itself, in its submission to Mr Patten, had suggested that a new authority should consist of at least 50 per cent of members with an elected mandate.
"What we are, however, concerned about is that policing could come under partisan political control in certain areas," he said.
Other members of the public said they were worried the setting up of District Policing Partnership Boards (DPPBs) could spell the end for the 144 police-community-liaison committees.