Affairs spokesman Michael Dunkley for being a year late in producing their annual report.

A spokeswoman on Tuesday that the 1998 report was "in the process of being distributed'' and they refused to say when the 1999 report would be ready.

She added: "We lost three to four months doing the national recruitment campaign last year. That took a lot of time. There are only two of us.'' "The 1999 report is being done and is on schedule.'' When asked when it would come out the spokeswoman said: "As soon as it's ready.'' Mr. Dunkley said: "An annual report should be available by the end of the first quarter of the following year but we haven't had the fourth quarter crime stats from last year. They should be ready by now.

"How are you going to fight crime if you don't have the current figures to base a policy on or you are looking at them too late? "This causes a problem. The figures lose their value if they are out of date.

"We'll be looking at the 1998 figures when we should be looking at the 1999 figures. They are making excuses but it just doesn't hold.

"If they were having problems they should have gone back up to their bosses and asked for more help.'' And Mr. Dunkley said the compilation of the report would have been made easier by information already collected for the core function review and the police pay review.

He said: "It would have made the report much easier to compile.

"These annual reports have valuable information and I would assume the government have had it for some time.

"Over the past couple of years there have been statements about responsibilities being changed from policing to more of a non uniform personnel role.

"You would have thought with all those people there they would have managed to get the 1998 report done by now.''