News from London Assembly Labour

Police cut as Boris Johnson refuses to guarantee local police teams

London’s popular local police teams are under threat after Conservative Mayor Boris Johnson refused to guarantee their future based on a minimum of six team members in each neighbourhood. The current core of the teams, which are dedicated to policing in each of London’s wards, is one sergeant, two constables and three police community support officers (PCSOs). Some wards in London have been enhanced above this base.

Pressed by Labour’s London Assembly member Joanne McCartney AM on whether he would guarantee the future of the police teams based on the core current deployment of six he refused to do so, saying:
“These will be matters for the commissioner, for the borough commanders to work out and I have no intention of imposing a one size fits all model across the whole of London. I think that would be a pointless piece of top-downery.”

Labour’s Karen Buck MP, who raised the issue at Prime Minister’s Questions today, said:

“High visibility police patrols are the public’s number one priority for reassurance and crime prevention and Boris Johnson’s failure to guarantee the current strength and deployment of our dedicated Safer Neighourhood Teams shows he is out of touch with what Londoners want. Labour in London will fight to force the mayor to back down from allowing this growing threat to our Safer Neighbourhood Teams.”

Boris Johnson’s refusal to guarantee the safer neighbourhood settlement came during the debate on his budget which also saw Conservative members vote through the mayor’s cut to the police – with each local borough commander forced to make year-on-year cuts of five per cent and a reduction of 455 police officers in London. It means that over his four budgets Boris Johnson will have cut police numbers in the capital.

It emerged during the budget debate that the mayor had an additional £5.7million this year due to a council tax windfall – but he ruled out using this cash to protect police numbers in the capital.

Opposing the police cuts, Labour members of the London Assembly voted for a motion that urged Boris Johnson to take account of “Londoners’ number one concern about crime and community safety by ensuring that police services in London are adequately funded, preserving police numbers on the front line and developing and protecting community policing initiatives as well as developing a fair measure to monitor performance.”

Labour’s John Biggs AM said:
“Boris Johnson was elected on a manifesto of leading and protecting the police but he is planning to cut almost 500 officers and is slashing their funding. These are real, painful cuts for boroughs to absorb and beg the question whether community policing in London is safe in the hands of the Tories. A reduction in the Met’s publicity budget would be enough to reverse the cuts this year.

“If he wants to go on freezing the council tax and saving Londoners a few pence off their bills he should come clean and admit there will be consequences for services – one of those being cuts to police officers.”

Earlier this month Boris Johnson resigned as chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority, performing a u-turn on his election manifesto pledge to chair the authority and personally lead the fight against crime.

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