Baggott questioned over rehiring

Last week a report from the Northern Ireland Audit Office revealed that more than 1,000 members of the former police force are working as agency staff.

Mr Baggott has admitted a "lack of accountability" by the PSNI over the rehiring.

He was questioned alongside Assistant Chief Constable Judith Gillespie by members of Stormont's spending committee on Wednesday.

"We welcome this report, it's something we invited and fully cooperated with. And you have my absolute assurance that it will be used wisely with the policing board as an opportunity to improve our governance and our oversight in our value for money further," he told the committee.

"We accepted all the recommendations fully and they will be subject to continuous scrutiny by the Policing Board itself but also but also by our own internal audit committee."

Judith Gillespie said: "At the time we may have turned down the Board's suggestion to review it (contract management), it has been reviewed since and reviewed every year since.

"We are in a very different procurement and contract regulation context."

The Audit Office report said more than £106m has been spent by the PSNI on agency staff since 2004.

The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officers retired with generous severance packages as part of Lord Patten's scheme to overhaul the force and introduce more Catholics to policing following decades of conflict in Northern Ireland.

Since then, almost a fifth of retirees have been re-employed - four for longer than seven years and others re-employed within three months of leaving.