Those partnerships allow the police to engage with local communities across Northern Ireland - and Sinn Fein has been taking up its places.

" The community wants the party to be in there and engaging," one republican source told Sunday Life.

While the issue of the devolution of policing and justice is important at a high political level, the source said it was also crucial that the PSNI gets "the community link right".

"It needs to look at its practice and how it engages with the community. We want to live in a stable and safe environment, and good policing is central to that."

Death threats from dissidents would not change Sinn Fein's policy, he added.

"In fact, in some senses it's making us more resolute in the face of it (the threats)."

One senior police officer said both Sinn Fein and the force "will be judged not on the high-wire stuff, but on what happens on the streets of west Belfast".

Said the senior officer: "Policing is so hugely complex. Sometimes it's a lack of understanding of what policing can actually do.

"A lot of what we have been doing is peacemaking. What you now need to do is the peace building on the ground in terms of relationships." The officer said recent dissident activity - including attacks on police officers and threats to republicans - would not damage the new relationship that is developing.

"People are sick of it (dissident violence). They don't want that agenda."