The Patten Commission Report on the Future of Policing in Northern Ireland is an unusually articulate and elegantly written document by the standard of official public reports.

Besides citing predictable policing authorities such as Sir Robert Peel, Rowan and Mayne and the Lords Scarman and Denning, it also finds room to quote Abraham Lincoln, the poet Louis MacNeice and the Roman poet, Juvenal.

More than that, it is an intellectually reasoned and logically argued convincing manifesto to transform the 77-year-old Royal Ulster Constabulary from a police force to a renamed and rebranded Northern Ireland Police Service.

But equally, it does not mince its words in estimating the enormity of the task or the visionary gains to be made. "There is no perfect model for us, no example of a country that, to quote one European police officer, `has yet finalised the total transformation from force to service'. The commitment to a fresh start gives Northern Ireland the opportunity to take best practice from elsewhere and to lead the way in overcoming some of the toughest challenges of modern policing."

Little wonder, then, that at his news conference yesterday morning, Mr Patten, the former Northern Ireland Minister and last Governor of Hong Kong, the man who pulled down the flag on the wealthy colony and the man who now proposes to pull down the Union flag from RUC stations, claimed that this was the most difficult job he had ever done.

However difficult he and his fellow commissioners may have found it, the report is certain to be acclaimed by historians as achieving both its aims and its title, circumstances permitting, by articulating with sympathetic understanding and feasible detail a new beginning for policing in Northern Ireland. With the uncertainties surrounding the review of the future implementation of the Belfast Agreement by Senator George Mitchell, there is the possibility of collapse and the inevitable shelving of much of the Patten report, as befell that of Lord Hunt in 1969, when its high ideals were engulfed by violence.

However, there remains optimism that even if the peace process collapses, much of the Patten report can be pressed ahead with regardless.

One of the most remarkable features of the report is its penetrating analysis of the failure of policing in Northern Ireland for several generations.

"The identification of police and state is contrary to policing practice in the rest of the United Kingdom. It has left the police in an unenviable position. In one political language, they are the custodians of nationhood. In its rhetorical opposite, they are the symbols of oppression. Policing, therefore, goes right to the heart of the sense of security and identity of both communities and, because of the differences between them, this seriously hampers the effectiveness of the police service in Northern Ireland.

"Policing cannot be fully effective when the police have to operate from fortified stations in armoured vehicles, and when police officers dare not tell their children what they do for a living for fear of attack from extremists from both sides. We have studied policing in other countries and while we can discover no model that can simply be applied to Northern Ireland, we can find plenty of examples of police services wrestling with the same sort of challenges."

Having so succinctly defined the dilemma, the commission goes on to set authoritative parameters and the baselines for the way ahead. The most emphatic baseline is to be the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The report deplores the fact that in the present RUC training curriculum, there are only two sections out of 700 dedicated to human rights, compared to 40 of drill and 63 of firearms training. It goes on to prescribe that respect and understanding for human rights should be fully integrated into the ethos of the new police service through training, monitoring, a new code of ethics, the appointment of a specialised legal adviser and the incorporation of an undertaking to respect and uphold human rights into the oath of office to be taken by all officers in the police service. One of the most important tasks the report fulfils is to grapple with and suggest a specific solution to the central question of delineating the limits of responsibility between the suggested new oversight body, the Northern Ireland Policing Board (to replace the existing Police Authority) and the Chief Constable. It opts for, by present standards, an unthinkable degree of openness. For instance, it insists on monthly public meetings between the board, which would consist jointly of elected representatives from the Assembly and people representative of the community, and the Chief Constable, where the community would be seen to be visibly holding the police to account for its conduct and actions. It goes on to define the scope of the relationship between the "operationally responsible" Chief Constable and the requirement for him to account for his decisions afterwards, spelling out the doctrine that he could not be told in advance either by government or the board how he should deploy resources and officers under his independent command and control. This has been one of the most vexed questions at the heart of accountable and open police public relations for many years.

The management style of the RUC is also severely criticised by the commission. It says the RUC is an "organisation which is commanded rather than managed" and quotes an operational officer in Newry who told the commission: "Nobody comes down to discuss policy decisions - we are told ." The commission says this hierarchical and bureaucratic style of management must change.

Such criticisms will attract widespread support from within the ranks. The commission significantly singles out the Disabled Police Officers' Association and the Widows' Association, saying that in many cases injured officers and widows have not been treated as well as they should have been by the police and the welfare services. It says that compensation packages awarded in the early years of the Troubles were derisory and that a substantial fund should now be established to provide adequate recompense.

There will now be a period of consultation and discussion about the recommendations. The commission says: "We cannot be judge and jury now of the precise timing of implementation. The Government and others responsible should not take our realism as an excuse for footdragging." To ensure that the Patten proposals are not shelved indefinitely the commission has wisely advised that someone of international standing should be appointed to monitor change, to publish a progress report and to ensure that it takes place. Chris Ryder, a former member of the Police Authority of Northern Ireland, is the author of The RUC: A Force Under Fire