The North's new police Chief Constable, Mr Hugh Orde, began his first day in office yesterday by provoking a political row with Sinn Féin.
The head of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said that the police full-time reserve must be retained for the foreseeable future because the force was under strength.
The Patten report proposed that the full-time reserve be phased out when the security situation allowed, but Mr Orde signalled clearly yesterday that the reserve would remain in operation for some time.
"If I look simply at the figures at the moment, we are recruiting successfully, but I cannot train new recruits quickly enough to get numbers up to what is needed to deliver an effective service," he said.
At the weekend he said it could be a number of years before the reserve was fully disbanded. At the moment there are fewer than 2,000 officers in the reserve force, who work on three-year contracts.
Patten recommended there should be 7,500 in the regular force, but because there are only 6,846 currently in the full-time frontline force and because of attendant staffing problems of sickness and low morale, Mr Orde is arguing that it would not be feasible to phase out the full-time reserve.
The Ulster Unionist leader, Mr David Trimble, in a statement from South Africa where he is attending the Earth Summit, welcomed Mr Orde's comments. "I am glad that he is willing to commit himself to maintaining the reserve as a crucial component of local law enforcement," he added.
However, the Sinn Féin MLA, Mr Gerry Kelly, accused Mr Orde of running against the Patten proposals. "He should be bound by what was agreed by all the parties in the Good Friday agreement and should not move from that," he said.
The SDLP Assembly member, Mr Alex Attwood, said Mr Orde should clarify what he meant by "foreseeable future".
He said he was happy that Mr Orde was committed to Patten, including the phasing-out proposal, even if he was not time-specific, and said staffing levels could be improved if issues such as low morale were properly addressed.
