Four qualified officers miss special unit jobs over funding

At least four police officers who passed the entrance tests for the National Police Commissioner’s special unit have not been hired because of a lack of funding, mbl.is reports. Senior Superintendent Karl Steinar Valsson said the unit could already be larger.

The unit has 49 members, although funding is authorised for 56 positions. Valsson, head of the National Police Commissioner’s security and analysis division, said even that number was only a minimum given the tasks facing the unit.

Increasing the unit to 70 members would require at least one billion Icelandic krónur, including the cost of equipment and vehicles. Valsson estimated that each position costs about 30 million krónur a year in wages, putting the additional annual payroll for 21 officers at about 630 million krónur. Equipment costs several million krónur per person, and prices for weapons, ammunition and protective gear have risen sharply, he said.

Building up the unit would take several years. Applicants are drawn from a pool of about 800 to 900 police officers and must have a certain amount of service and meet strict requirements. Not all are interested in the work or the demands it brings, Valsson said.

The unit must be able to respond to the most serious incidents across the country. It is based in the capital region and Akureyri, and cannot assume that help from abroad would arrive quickly. Assistance from Denmark could take five hours to reach Iceland, Valsson said.

He also said he would like the unit to have better equipment for operations at sea, including replacement sea-operation suits. Asked about the unit’s operation to board the Bandero, a ship operated by Paul Watson’s organisation, he said he would not describe the unit as under-equipped, but said it could have newer equipment. The ship had been held off Iceland’s coast by protesters opposing Icelandic whaling.