Office of the Oversight Commissioner

synonyms: Oversight Commissioner In the wake of the Good Friday Agreement an Independent Commission on Policing was set up in order to review the future role of policing in Northern Ireland and to make recommendations to the British government. In the final chapter of its report, commonly known as the Patten Report, a proposal was made that an independent figure, to be known as the Oversight Commissioner, should be appointed to ensure that the proposed changes were implemented in full. In turn the Oversight Commissioner was expected to carry out this task in a way that guaranteed public confidence and as a result to publish regular public reports. In May 2000 Tom Constantine, the former head of the US Drug Enforcement Administration was appointed to the post (2000-2003). Then in February 2003, Paul Murphy, then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, announced an extended two-year term of the Oversight Commissioner for Policing Reform in Northern Ireland, meeting the original five-year term recommended by Patten. This coincided with an announcement by Tom Constantine that he would retire from the position in December 2003. As a result Al Hutchinson, existing Chief of staff, was invited to take up the position of Oversight Commissioner which he did on 1 January 2004. The terms of the governing legislation that established the Office of the Oversight Commissioner expired on 31 May 2007, which was also the date of the 19th and final report. List of Reports by the Office of the Oversight Commissioner