Losing out on policing

Published: 19 February 2010

• BORIS Johnson’s budget was recently passed at City Hall, despite being opposed by all the Green, Labour and Liberal Democrat Assembly Members.

The budget says London will lose over 450 police officers under Boris Johnson.

He has also cut the amount of council tax going to the police by £16million and is asking borough commanders to find 5 per cent savings in their budgets. One has already described this as “painful”. At the same time, the mayor is refusing to guarantee the community policing set-up (a sergeant, two PCs and three PCSOs for a ward) introduced under Ken Livingstone.

Boris is also recruiting thousands more part-time volunteer police officers and says there will be more on the street, even after his cuts. While I fully support the additional resource special constables bring I would be extremely concerned if they were being used to replace full-time officers. And so would the police.

When Boris’s party was last in power police, officer numbers in London dropped dramatically, a decline only reversed by a Labour mayor and Labour government.

LEN DUVALL
Labour group leader, London Assembly