Met Police community support officer numbers fall 30% since 2015

The number of police community support officers in London has fallen by 30% since 2015, figures have revealed.

There were 1,215 full time PCSOs working in the Met this year compared to almost 1,800 eight years ago, according to Home Office data.

Nationally, more than 4,500 have been taken off streets in England since the Conservatives won a majority at the 2015 election.

Liberal Democrat MP for Richmond Park, Sarah Olney, said communities were “paying the price” for “brutal” funding cuts to forces.

“Londoners rely on these officers to keep our streets safe, yet the Met is being left under-resourced,” she said.

“Ministers are happy to sit in their Westminster offices while our police forces suffer the brunt of brutal cuts and local people pay the price.

“It’s just not good enough.”

In June this year City Hall launched a recruitment drive for 500 new PCSOs, with a starting salary of £30,232, in a bid to bring numbers in the capital back up.

Some 1,100 are due to be hired by mid-2025, Mayor Sadiq Khan said.

But it comes as the Met faces a collapse in trust following high-profile scandals, including the murder of Sarah Everard by serving officer Wayne Couzens, and PC David Carrick’s conviction for a horrific campaign of rape and abuse against women.

A damning report by Dame Louise Casey, commissioned in the wake of Ms Everard’s murder, branded the force “institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic”.

Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has vowed to rebuild trust in the Met.

The Government has also withdrawn £31 million in recruitment funding from the force, despite warnings that it could be 2,000 officers short by next year.

The Met was the only force in the country not to meet its recruitment targets in March, and as a result “lost” £30.8m in Home Office grant funding in 2022-23.

A Government spokesman said: “We have delivered on the promise we made to the British people to recruit 20,000 additional officers.

“We are keen to ensure that the Metropolitan Police has the resources it needs which is why it will receive up to £3.3 billion in 2023-24, an increase of up to £102m when compared to 2022-23 and now have more officers than the pre Police Uplift Programme peak in 2010.”