Public confidence in the Metropolitan police has fallen sharply in the five years Cressida Dick was leading Britain’s biggest force, figures published on Wednesday show.
Only 51% of those in London said they believed the Met did a good job in their local area, down 17 points compared with the last survey before Dick became Met commissioner in April 2017.
In the majority of London’s 32 boroughs, 50% or less said they believed the force did a good job. In March 2017, not a single borough was below 50%.
Figures for police reliability, fairness and listening to people’s concerns are all down by 10 percentage points or more in the past five years.
The polling is done on behalf of the mayor’s office for policing and crime and was introduced when Boris Johnson was London mayor as a way of holding the Met to account.
Falling public confidence was cited by the current London mayor, Sadiq Khan, in his showdown with Dick that led to her resignation last week. Conservatives blamed Khan, who is also the police and crime commissioner for London, for the “shocking plummet in public confidence”.
The new figures follow polling in December 2021. Comparing them with the figures in March 2017, the month before Dick became commissioner, shows the shift in public confidence.
The poll asked whether police could be relied on to be there when needed. In March 2017, 79% said yes, but by December 2021 that figure had fallen by 20 points, with 59% agreeing.
Compared with five years ago, the proportion of people who believe police treat everyone fairly has fallen 15 points, from 79% to 64%.
In March 2017, 76% of respondents thought police listened to local people’s concerns, but that had fallen by 14 points in the latest figures.
Some former senior Met insiders see the survey questions as a key test of the Met’s legitimacy.
In the March 2017 survey, 68% agreed their local policing was good, with every London borough above 50%, the lowest being Enfield in north London at 58%.
In the latest survey, 51% said they believed local police did a good job in their area, with the majority of London boroughs at 50% or below. Croydon in south London came out worst, at 43%, and Richmond upon Thames the best, at 70%.
Victor Olisa, a former head of diversity at Scotland Yard, said: “It shows a clear diminishing of confidence across a whole range of measures, and fall in trust that the Met can keep people safe and solve crimes. The Met has not delivered what the people of London want or explained to them why they can’t have it.”
In the latest survey, only 27% of people said they knew how to contact their local ward officers, supposed to be the cornerstone of neighbourhood policing, down from 36% in March 2017.
Olisa said big changes to local policing and how the Met is organised appeared to have left officers more distant from communities.
While the survey does not offer reasons for the fall in confidence, there have been a series of scandals during Dick’s term and claims that the Met leadership mishandled them, such as the murder by a serving officer of Sarah Everard.
There has also been controversy over big increases in stop and search, and claims it disproportionately affects innocent black people, as well as renewed anxiety over violent crime, especially stabbings.
The Met said it was committed to reforms, which were under way and would be boosted by the findings from its own inquiry chaired by Lady Casey: “There is need for real change in our organisation. More than ever before we have been looking at ourselves critically and asking hard questions to improve our culture and professional standards, and we do not underestimate the scale of the change required.”
The Conservatives in London blamed Khan, in office since May 2016. Their police spokesperson, Susan Hall, said: “He has overseen this shocking plummet in public confidence in the Met police. Sadiq Khan himself has said that without trust and confidence in the police, the force cannot function.”
A spokesperson for the mayor of London said: “A series of events have shattered public trust and confidence in our police. When this trust is eroded, our model of policing, and therefore public safety, is put at risk.”
