The Curious Case of the Patten Report

Abstract

The Report of the Independent Commission on Policing in Northern Ireland, chaired by Christopher Patten (the Patten Report) and entitled A New Beginning: Policing in Northern Ireland and published in September 1999, has received a curiously uneven response over the past decade: Ellison describes its trajectory as ‘torturous’. Immediately upon its release it received a very warm reception from the government of the United Kingdom, which endorsed its approach and the thrust of its recommendations. The then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, welcomed the Report by saying that the Report ‘charts the way forward in the interests of all the people of Northern Ireland’. This support was soon eroded once legislation began to be drafted to implement its recommendations. The Bill brought before parliament in late 1999 to set up the framework for the implementation of the Patten Report proved to be a far cry from what the Report had recommended. The government’s initial rhetoric was not translated into action.