Speaking to the press just a year ago, the RUC Chief Constable, Sir Hugh Annesley, denied he had any intention of applying for the top job in any of the British police forces, but said he would give due notice when he finally decided to leave his position in Belfast. His announcement yesterday that he will retire in November has obviously been well considered, and at 56, with seven years in the most exacting security job in these islands behind him, his decision to call it a day is hardly a surprise.
Is it serendipity then that his timing could hardly be better from the point of view of the current debate about the RUC itself. A police force which faces change, on a scale which is not yet clear but must inevitably be more than cosmetic, cannot demonstrate; readiness to look to the future more convincingly than by a change of leadership. To say that is not to criticise the Annesley style. In the seven years since he became Chief Constable, Sir Hugh has helped to carry through reforms dating from the Anglo Irish Agreement in 1985, and also tackled some basic problems' such as low recruitment of Catholics.
For five of those years he faced the increasing, ruthlessness of the bloody paramilitary campaigns, and in the last two years of relative calm he has handled the difficulties of policing a deeply divided society with its ingrained residual distortions: major, crime networks based on drugs, continuing organised violence, the stubbornness of Orange lodges which are determined to force their way through nationalist areas. It is not a climate in which a mindset oriented to radical reform is engendered.
Even in a more ordinary situation, it is probably too much to expect a senior serving officer to have the flexibility and imagination to see the point of extensive change. Sir Hugh admitted as much when he agreed about 18 months ago that there was "some truth" in the suggestion that "policing is too important to leave to the police". But he argued that equally "it is too important to be left to any individual political party, or body, which has neither the overall mandate or experience to lead such a debate and harness its conclusions". The recent tensions in the Northern Ireland Police Authority, and Sir Hugh's own difficult relations with its former chairman, Mr David Cook, have highlighted the formidable obstacles even to agreeing on how to come to a rational decision on the future organisation of the RUC, let alone reach a conclusion.
Some progress has been made under Sir Hugh in increasing the number of Catholic applicants, particularly since the ceasefires. But more than this is necessary to make the force acceptable across the community. Its symbols are unlikely to put off men and women who want to join and feel free to do so but they do represent a past that predates partition, in some respects, and opposition to them by many nationalists cannot be dismissed as perversity. The next few months are likely to see clearer proposals for reform emerging, accelerating the need for political consensus which is vital to their success. The force must then have leadership capable of persuading it that far from undermining its role, change will strengthen its position in the community.