‘One step behind’ crime bosses: Met fury as force to cut 2,300 police due to £450m budget black hole
10 December 2024, 12:17 | Updated: 10 December 2024, 12:37
The Met police will be forced to ‘scale back’ its ability to tackle serious violence and organised crime, Sir Mark Rowley admitted today as he proposed scrapping 2,300 officers to make up a £450m budget black hole.
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Sir Mark said it would be necessary to “make cuts to the teams that help us get ahead of criminals” in order to balance the books.
He has proposed scrapping 2,300 officers and 400 staff members to make up a £450m budget shortfall next year - and admitted that the Met will have to be more selective in choosing what it responds to.
He said different ‘thresholds’ are going need to be set for when mounted police and dog units will be ordered to respond to events.
The Met has also faced spiralling costs incurred from pro-Palestinian protests, which have cost more than £40 million since October last year.
Last month he warned that his force faced having to make “eye-watering cuts”.
Speaking to the London Policing Board Sir Mark said the current vacancies already hampering resources won’t impact on the numbers they need to cut.
“This is an actual reduction. This isn’t about clearing out vacancies or anything like that. It’s an actual reduction of the headcount of those policing London.
“To do that; we will be slowing recruitment to a much lower level than we would otherwise want to do.”
The Commissioner said key target areas, such as neighbourhood policing and tackling violence against women and girls would be protected, but admitted that efforts to rebuild confidence among the public would be made much harder.
Responding to a question from Stuart Lawrence, the brother of Stephen Lawrence who was murdered in 1993, Sir Mark said: “Clearly if you have less capacity and capability, it’s harder to do - you need to be more focused, you need to be more choosing.
“Policing in a democracy I’m absolutely wedded to the idea that it only succeeds if you see trust and crime fighting as being conjoined.
“It gets harder to do but the two matter.”
The Met’s report for the London Policing Board also outlines plans to reduce the number of officers working in intelligence and forensics gathering and cutting the number of investigations done by the Met into historic crimes.
The Home Office has promised an increase of £260 million for the core police grant, but as chiefs wait to find out how that will be allocated, many police and crime commissioners are eyeing up council tax rises to make up their own shortfalls.
Earlier this week, Essex Police’s chief constable BJ Harrington and his PCC Roger Hirst wrote to the Home Secretary expressing their concerns.
The force is preparing for reductions of up to 2,300 officers out of a force of 34,000.
Sir Mark told the London Policing Board the Met’s £450m funding gap represents over 10 per cent of its budget for policing London.
He said: “This is going to be really difficult for our people because we are asking more of them. We are expecting policing to improve.”
London Mayor Sadiq Khan has also warned the Met police is facing a ‘massive black hole’ in its funding.
A report by the commissioner explained the Met “will be forced to make tough choices to reduce the service we offer Londoners”.
Sir Mark has promised not to make any cuts to “already overstretched emergency response teams”.
