Petition – police officers for Southwark

Report: 5
Date: 30 January 2003
By: Clerk

Summary

A petition will be presented to the Authority calling for greater numbers of police officers to be allocated to Southwark borough.

A. Recommendation

That the Authority receives the petition and responds to it as set out in Appendix A of this report.

B. Supporting information

1. A petition is to be presented at the Authority meeting in the following terms: “We, the undersigned, call for 1,000 police officers for Southwark. It is time for the Metropolitan Police Authority to show that they take crime in Southwark seriously by working with the Mayor to ensure Southwark has the 1,000 police officers needed to police the borough.

2. This petition has received support from the three constituency MPs - Harriet Harman, Tessa Jowell and Simon Hughes; Valerie Shawcross, the GLA constituency member; Southwark Council; Police Sector Working Groups; the Southwark Community Police Consultative Group; Tenants and Residents Associations and Southwark Chamber of Commerce.

3. A petition in similar terms was presented to the London Assembly by Valerie Shawcross on 11 December 2002 and passed to the Mayor for a response.

4. The Clerk recommends that the Authority responds to this petition in the terms set out in Appendix A to this report.

C. Equality and diversity implications

No direct implications

D. Financial implications

None apart from the fact that additional police officers would require additional funding.

E. Background papers

Petition

F. Contact details

Report author: Simon Vile, MPA

For more information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

Appendix A

Proposed response

In January 2002, the Authority set a resource allocation formula (RAF) for numbers of police officers in each of London’s boroughs. The original RAF formula for Southwark was 797 officers, but it was agreed that five boroughs would have additional officers. Southwark was the major recipient with 11 additional officers allocated, making a total of 808, the third highest resourced borough in London.

In this financial year the police strength of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) will have increased by 1,896 police officers to 28,340. However, the need to augment units involved in counter terrorism work, to achieve the safer streets targets and to fulfil contractual obligations with Transport for London has meant that there have been conflicting demands surrounding the allocation of officers. In September it became apparent that RAF target strengths would not be met on all boroughs by 31 March 2003 as agreed.

This concerned the Authority and it required the MPS to review the situation. As a result, steps have been taken that should reduce the shortfall to 74 by 31 March 2003, with RAF strength being met in all boroughs within a few weeks of 31 March. Some probationers undergoing training at the moment will be posted to Southwark, bringing its police strength to 805 by 28 February, with a further 30 probationers scheduled to join the borough on 24 March raising the potential total to 835.

In 2003/04, the provisional budget set by the Authority will, if approved, further increase police numbers in London in 2003/4. Once the budget has been confirmed, detailed consideration of the various options can take place. Any growth in borough police officer numbers resulting from an increased budgetary provision will need to be set in the context of the many other competing priorities, such as the Specialist Crime Directorate. Increases allocated to the Specialist Crime Directorate will not necessarily detract from borough policing, and areas such as Southwark are likely to be one of the major beneficiaries from the specialist resources that aid boroughs in response to major crimes. An initial report considered by the MPA Finance Committee on 16 January suggested that of an overall allocation of 1,000 extra officers, 600 should be allocated to borough operational command units (OCUs) and 400 to non-borough OCUs, most of which, as mentioned above, supply direct support to borough policing.

All of the Authority’s actions to date have demonstrated that it takes crime seriously in Southwark as across London. It is committed, where appropriate in partnership with the Mayor and the Assembly, to achieve the best possible resources to combat crime – not just through growth in police numbers but also through such initiatives as police community support officers and the continued development of the Transport OCU. It addition to a growth in overall numbers, much work is also being done to ensure that, wherever possible, police officers can be returned to front line duties and that a realistic measure of police numbers – the ‘operational policing measure’ – is developed.

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