Percentage of burglaries solved in Barnet and Camden drops as police cuts bite
Percentage of burglaries solved in Barnet and Camden drops as police cuts bite:
92% of burglaries in Camden and 96% of burglaries in Barnet went unsolved last year
Concern is growing about the Metropolitan Police’s ability to deal with a further £800m of budget cuts without a significant impact on frontline services, local London Assembly Member Andrew Dismore AM has said.
Mr Dismore’s comments come after the Met. Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe was forced to deny suggestions that budget cuts could stop the police investigating some low level crimes, such as burglaries.
Despite the Commissioner’s assurance, Mr Dismore warned that officers are already struggling to deal with some crimes as a result of budget cuts. Since 2010, when the Met.’s budget was cut by £600m, the percentage of domestic burglaries in London which are solved by the police has halved from 12% in 2010/11 to only 6% in 2014/15.
In Barnet and Camden it is an equally concerning situation.
92% of the 2869 domestic and non-domestic burglaries reported in Camden over the last 12 months went unsolved according to the latest annual figures from the Metropolitan Police; and Barnet also reflects a similarly poor performance, with 96% of the reported 3715 domestic and non-domestic burglaries in Barnet unsolved over the same period, and with only half of those resulting in a prosecution.
Whilst the Met. has changed the way it records some crimes, the figures revealed by Andrew Dismore AM still mean that over 2,629 burglaries in Camden and 3,553 in Barnet went unsolved last year. Mr Dismore warned that the figures showed the police were already stretched too thinly, with crimes such as burglary not allocated the resources as they were previously.
Since 2010, the Metropolitan Police has been required to cut £600m from its budget and is expected to face a further £800m cut in the Government’s Autumn Spending Review. Whilst the Commissioner has pledged the Met.. will continue to investigate burglaries, he has admitted that there would have to be “a compromise somewhere, saying “we are going to struggle to do everything we used to do.” Even the Mayor of London recently admitted that “you cannot have a city growing as fast as London, with the challenges London faces, without putting more money into the MPS.”
Earlier this month it was reported that the Metropolitan Police are planning to axe all their Police Community Support Officers. Mr Dismore said the move would mean the police will not have the local intelligence needed to drive down burglaries.
309 uniformed officers have already been cut from Camden’s streets since 2010 with dedicated neighbourhood policing teams also cut from six to only two officers each; and in Barnet 188 uniforms have been cut, reducing the safer neighbourhood teams there from nine to two. Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe has accepted that the forthcoming cuts mean London will “end up with some less police, but I am not going to be precise.”
The Commissioner was forced to deny burglary would no longer be investigated after comments from Sara Thornton, the head of the new National Police Chiefs’ Council suggested that in the future, police officers may no longer attend burglaries due to strains on their time and resources.
Labour London Assembly Member for Barnet and Camden, Andrew Dismore AM said:
“The fact that 92% of burglaries in Camden and 96% in Barnet are going unsolved shows that London’s police service is already being stretched to the limit. The Met’s plans to cut all PCSOs will undermine vital links with our communitiesThe police won’t have the local intelligence needed to drive down burglaries.
“Ms Thornton’s clear warning, that in the future the police may no longer be able to investigate some types of crime will be deeply disturbing. Whilst there is a debate to be had about the role of the police in the 21st century, we cannot pretend that the Government’s cuts are not already having a profound and damaging effect on frontline policing.
“With another £800m of cuts coming, the Mayor will leave London with a far thinner blue line than when he came to power in 2008. That should be a worry to all of us, particularly as the Commissioner has said this scale of cuts means the Met. will to struggle to provide the service Londoners need.”
