The outgoing Policing Board is to meet for the last time

It is expected to end its term on a positive note, with evidence of growing confidence in the police.

Policing has been a controversial element of the peace process in recent years, and the board has been, at times, a political battlefield.

The meeting is expected to be relatively low-key. A new board is to be formed after the Stormont assembly is restored next week.

Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde will not attend as he is otherwise engaged.

His deputy, Paul Leighton, will step in and he is expected to reveal that research carried out in recent months indicates growing public confidence in the police, particularly in nationalist areas.

Next month's first meeting of the new board is expected to be a very different affair.

At that point, Sinn Fein is expected to take its seats for the first time, which will be anything but low-key.

A former IRA prisoner is one of Sinn Fein's three nominees to the reconstituted Policing Board.

Martina Anderson was convicted of conspiracy to cause explosions in England in 1986.

She is now an assembly member for Foyle and the party's director of engagement with unionists.

She will join party policing spokesman Alex Maskey and North Antrim assembly member Daithi McKay on the board.