Scotland Yard has warned ministers and City Hall that it risks being unable to police London effectively and overhaul its performance because of a £250 million funding shortfall as it seeks to win more money for the coming year.
The force says that rising demand and changing crime patterns, which are both affecting the capital disproportionately, are among the causes of the huge gap in its budget for the next financial year.
Other causes include the increasing complexity of crime, which makes it more time consuming and costly to investigate, as well as the extra capital city costs of policing public protests such as those prompted by the conflict in Israel and Gaza and the disruptive activities of Just Stop Oil.
In a document submitted to London’s Policing Board, the Met says it also needs extra money to improve its use of data and update equipment so that it can focus its crime fighting efforts more effectively.
Further funding is required, the Met says, to boost frontline policing and to continue its purge on unsuitable officers, plus other reforms to overhaul its performance in response to the damning report last year by Baroness Louise Casey on the wide-ranging problems afflicting the force.
The document also points out that the Met is already funded less generously than forces in comparable cities abroad, citing New York and Sydney as examples, and that its funding has not kept pace with London’s rising population, which has jumped to a record high of just below 9 million.
Requests for extra investment have been presented both to London Mayor Sadiq Khan - who at the weekend found an extra £30 million to buy off a planned Tube strike this week - and the Home Office, which provides the bulk of the Met’s funding.
But with only limited hope that any extra money will be forthcoming, the Met has warned that it could be forced to cut officer numbers by as many as 2,000 and take other similarly drastic action to balance its books unless its financial situation improves.
It adds that the budget shortfall will continue beyond the next year without extra investment and is on course to hit between £850 million and £950 million by the time of the financial year ending in March 2028.
Setting out the scale of the problems, the Scotland Yard document states: “The Met does not have enough money to police London effectively while trying to reform.
“Crime is changing, with demand and complexity rising, and ..these changes have .. disproportionately affected London. In particular, the increasing complexity of crime, and the shift towards online perpetrators, requires much more sophisticated (and costly) capabilities to combat it.”
The document adds that the force is also incurring higher costs because of its greater use of “communications data” to solve crimes and from changes to court procedures and forensic accreditation that are beyond its control.
It further highlights the impact of the capital’s rapid population growth over the past decade, which it says has created a real terms cut in “per capita funding” per Londoner “of 27 per cent, the equivalent to £878 million since 2012.”
The document adds: “Whilst other countries have increased real terms funding to their capital cities, the Met’s funding lags behind .. compared to global cities such as New York and Sydney. New York and Sydney’s budgets per head are circa 50% higher than ours, at £530 and £550 respectively, compared to £360.
“If we do not get the investment we need, there will be an impact on Londoners and difficult decisions will be needed.”
In response, the Home Office said the Met would receive £3.5 billion in the next financial year, “an increase of up to £119 million on the previous year” and that it was the highest funded force nationally per head of population.
“Decisions about how funding and resources are utilised in London is a matter for the Commissioner and the Mayor of London,” it added in a statement.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who has already written to the Home Office urging it to provide more funding for the Met, said it was “a real kick in the teeth to our hard-working police officers that the Government has not listened to the concerns the Met have repeatedly outlined.”
He added: “Ministers have chronically underfunded the Met for far too long, and it will be Londoners left to pay the price.
“The recent unprecedented pressures and demands, on top of the Met’s unique national policing responsibilities, including policing sporting, cultural, state and ceremonial events, have brought the impact of this into sharp focus.
The Commissioner has spoken of the Met having to pull significant numbers of officers from neighbourhood roles in our communities to deal with protests. That’s why I’m supporting the Commissioner in calling for the Government to fund the Met properly.”
