A reliance on rookie cops is hurting Police ability to patrol the streets, a massive report on the service admitted yesterday.

The review said that more than 60 percent of officers assigned to the three divisions had less than three years' experience on the job. And the just-released Core Functions Review added it could take up to two years to sort out the problems and provide a decent service.

The review said: "Inexperienced or inadequately trained Police officers increase the time required to answer calls for service and decrease the level of service provided.'' The report also suggested that an unexplained drop in calls for help from the public could be due to fed-up people feeling it was a waste of time.

It added: "This is not a good sign of effective client service delivery in a service intent upon increasing the interface between itself and the public.'' The report said that as few as 140 officers out of an "informal establishment'' of 207 were ever available to answer calls.

It added that a major recruiting drive and the re-introduction of the Police Cadet scheme is expected to produce at least 50 new recruits. But the report warned that the influx would "seriously stretch'' the Police training school and street officers' ability to properly prepare them for full-time duty.

Police training under scrutiny The report said: "When the new recruits arrive in the uniformed divisions, they will further dilute the experience base of these divisions and greatly increase the need for `on the job' instruction in the divisions.

"Unfortunately, the divisions are having difficulty keeping up to calls for service at the present time due to staff shortages and an influx of 50 inexperienced recruits will add to the problem.'' The report admitted there was also a lack of experienced officers -- partly due to retirements and resignations -- to carry out training roles in the stations.

And it added that experienced officers -- including Parish constables and Traffic Department staff -- had been stripped from specialist units just to maintain the presence on the streets.

The report said one option was to slash current Police programmes and eliminate entire units to shore up the gaps -- but added that specialist officers would regard transfers to routine patrol duties and baby-sitting probationary constables as demotion.

The review added: "They would not enthusiastically return to answering calls for service and training probationary constables.'' And the review appeared to back calls -- including from inside the Service -- for a major recruiting drive overseas with an emphasis on signing up officers prepared to take an on-the-job training role.

But the review warned that -- even with agreement -- it could take six months before overseas officers joined the Bermuda beat.

The report said: "Employment should be for a limited period but should be directly related to the training needs of and successes of Bermudian probationers and recruits.'' And the report painted a grim picture -- at least in the short-term -- for the force and its efficiency.