Met to cut 1,700 staff to plug £260m 'black hole'

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 was "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 frontline services such as 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 frontline 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 placed "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.

Matt Cane, general secretary of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said: "Any cuts to policing - despite the mayor's funding announcement - will only make this dire situation much, much worse.

"The only thing you will get with 1,700 fewer police officers, staff and PCSOs is a lesser London police service for the public.

"Fewer police officers on the streets will clearly have a significant impact on the Metropolitan Police's ability to effectively police London but also on our already over burdened members."

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 Conservative government, but stressed the new Labour government had put forward "record" investment.

"In one year you can't undo 14 years worth of damage. What we're seeing are the consequences of those 14 years of cuts," he told BBC London.

However, shadow home secretary Chris Philp said: "The Conservatives in government delivered record police numbers across England and Wales, including in London.

"We warned the Labour government in December that their financial settlement for this year was inadequate and police numbers would be cut as a result. But they ignored us and now we see the results."

Like the Met, Sir Sadiq said he would look to the government for more help for Scotland Yard in the spending review this June.

"What I want from the government is a multi-year deal to give us certainty," he added, but said even this would not resolve funding issues completely.

"Unless the multi-year deal gives us every year - which is inconceivable - £1.1bn plus inflation, I think for some time you're going to have stretched police officers."

City Hall Conservatives' crime spokesperson Susan Hall has written to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper objecting to the cuts and urging her to intervene.

"It is absolutely clear that our capital simply cannot afford to lose a single police officer at a time when crime is so high," she said in the letter.

The Home Office has been approached by the BBC for comment.

Meanwhile, Richmond Council leader, Liberal Democrat Gareth Roberts, said disbanding the Royal Parks Police was a "huge mistake" and "losing this specialist team places an additional burden on already overstretched local policing resources and risks leaving our parks unprotected".

Claire van Helfteren, the former chair of the Met's Independent Advisory Group for Kensington & Chelsea, said it was a "bonkers" situation when millions of pounds had been spent policing football matches, Notting Hill Carnival and months of protests in London.

"Frontline policing has lost out to that, neighbourhood policing has lost out to that," she said.

Ms van Helfteren argued the impact of not having officers in schools on youth violence reduction would also be "massive", saying some of those she knew of had "probably prevented huge numbers of issues".

She added the Met should be able to ask football clubs and the Notting Hill Carnival Trust for contributions towards policing costs.

"Somebody's making money out of this, but certainly not the police, certainly not the council - follow the money."

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