The Metropolitan Police will have to lose 1,700 officers, PCSOs and staff and cut a number of services as it faces a £260m hole in its budget for the coming year, the force has said.
The Royal Parks police team will go, as will officers placed in schools.
At the end of last year, the Met Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, warned of “eye-watering” cuts which could have seen the loss of 2,300 officers.
At the time the Met was facing a £450m budget gap.
That scenario has been avoided, with the Met getting more money from central government and from the mayor.
It said it is “grateful” for the extra cash, but it was not enough to avoid “substantial tough choices”.
The force plans to make the savings by recruiting fewer people and not replacing those who decide to leave, rather than making people redundant.
The Met said, despite the cuts, it would protect front line services like neighbourhood policing, tackling violence against women and girls, and efforts to reform the force.
It detailed a long list of other savings as it tried to protect the number of officers in those front line and neighbourhood teams:
- Scrapping the Royal Parks Police
- Getting rid of officers in schools
- A 10% cut to forensics
- An 11% cut to historic crime teams
- A 25% cut to mounted police
- A 7% cut to dog teams
- Restricting front counter opening hours
- Possibly taking firearms off the Flying Squad
While most cuts are likely to go ahead, the Met said it had been allocated an extra £32m that could see some of them scaled back.
The Met said the cuts place “an extraordinary stretch on our dedicated men and women”.
It added it would work with the Home Office, mayor and MOPAC (the mayor’s office for policing and crime) through the spending review, to put the Met on a firmer financial footing.
The cuts come despite a record £1.16bn for the Met from City Hall for the coming year – money it said had protected more than 900 neighbourhood policing jobs.
Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan blamed the funding crisis on the previous government.
He said the Met was “chronically underfunded” and cuts to policing in London were the real-term equivalent to more than £1.1bn.
Like the Met, Sir Sadiq will look to the government for more help for Scotland Yard in the spending review this June.
He said “tough decisions” have been made to protect neighbourhood policing and he was “under no illusions” about the challenges ahead.
He promised: “As mayor, I will continue to work with the new government and the Met – ahead of the forthcoming spending review – to ensure the Met gets the sustainable funding it needs to help us to build a safer London for everyone.”
Source: BBC
