Andrew Dismore

At today’s Mayor’s Question Time Andrew Dismore AM , Labour London Assembly Member  for Barnet  and Camden challenged the Mayor over the decision to move funding from Safer Neighbourhood Sergeants and Inspectors to pay for more firearms officers. Video https://vimeo.com/175557487

Mr Dismore told the Mayor:

 

‘At the  Police and Crime Committee on 28^th January, I was told by the then Deputy Mayor that the cost of the necessary uplift in the numbers of firearms officers

 

‘.. will not have an impact on neighbourhood policing.’

 

‘However, at yesterday’s PCC meeting,  the Deputy Commissioner said  that 500 sergeants and inspectors are being taken out of Neighbourhood Policing  in order to fund the uplift in firearms officers  confirming  what Camden’s Chief Inspector wrote to the Safer Neighbourhood Board:

‘ [to] fund the uplift of an additional 600 [firearms]  officers … the MPS has had to make savings from middle management tiers.  Camden, will therefore reduce by one Inspector and five Sergeants…. I along with the management team at Camden …. decided that the reductions will come from the NPT portfolio…’

 

‘And that ward clusters would be merged.

 

‘I’ve been told that similar cuts to Safer Neighbourhoods  are happening in Barnet too.

 

‘Can I assume that despite your election and election pledges , the Met. are carrying on the plans of the previous  Mayor. Given your commitment  to Safer Neighbourhood policing , will  your Police and Crime Plan reverse these cuts?’

 

The Mayor acknowledged these changes were implementing the previous Mayor’s polices and that the funding for the Met was tight. He was lobbying the Home Secretary for more policing resources. He said that he wanted as many front line officers visible to the public as possible, and these were supervisory roles. Further details of his intentions would be in the new Police and Crime Plan.

Mr Dismore also told the Mayor:

 

‘The Deputy  Commissioner also confirmed the Met was moving to a basic ratio of 1 sergeant to 10 PCs. compared to 1/6 now, with a national average is 1/4.8

 

‘As a lot of the training of new officers is now done on the job  and  as over a third of the constables in Neighbourhood Teams have under two years’ experience, with cuts to the sergeants and inspectors isn’t this going to risk inexperienced officers in such important public facing roles  going under  supervised, lack of co-ordination and lack of public engagement  with a named sergeant ?’

 

 

After Mayor’s Question Time, Mr Dismore said:

 

‘I look forward  to hearing more from  the Mayor on this. It is not right that the numbers of  officers on the Boroughs and in Safer Neighbourhood Teams,   including inspectors and sergeants,  should be reduced to pay for more firearms officers centrally. These additional officers ought to be funded by the Home Office as we were originally led to believe would be the case by the then Home Secretary’.