"Confidence in police will suffer if promised workforce targets for boroughs not achieved" - warns MPA Chair

98/02
26 September 2002

The Metropolitan Police Authority has warned that police credibility will be damaged if a promise to introduce a fairer distribution of officer numbers in London boroughs is not met on time.

Toby Harris, Chair of the MPA, told a meeting of the Authority today:

“The MPA was given an absolute assurance by the Met that the new borough workforce targets for police officer numbers would be achieved by 31 March 2003.

“We in turn have assured London’s communities, local authorities and MPs that boroughs would benefit from the new workforce targets by the end of the current financial year.

“If the Met is now saying the additional officers will still be in training and not in boroughs until June or July, we want to know what must be done to achieve the targets by 31 March 2003, and what the consequences would be of taking such action.”

Met Commissioner Sir John Stevens admitted that the problem should have been identified earlier and answers sought. 

The meeting heard that because of the high level of terrorist threat against the capital, the Met was provided with funding by the Home Secretary to strengthen the counter-terrorist effort and this had put back the growth on boroughs by three months.

The Met said all of its recruitment targets would be achieved this year but trained officers would not arrive on boroughs until July 2003.

Sir John agreed to provide a report to the next meeting of the MPA’s Co-ordination and Policing Committee on 4 October outlining the implications on counter-terrorism and borough resources if borough workforce targets were met by 31 March. 

Notes to editors

1. The report on progress in recruiting to borough workforce targets presented to the Metropolitan Police Authority today was prepared in response to concerns raised as to the ability of the Metropolitan Police Service to achieve the Borough Resource Allocation Formula (RAF) target for the year to 31 March 2003. It outlines the current breakdown of borough strengths, the actions being taken by the Metropolitan Police Service to ensure an equitable distribution of personnel, and the target date for achievement of RAF.

2. Within the MPS, overall RAF and a Budgeted Workforce Target control police numbers. The BWT for 2002/3 saw an increase of 1,896 police officers to a total of 28,340.

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