Profit-making events to be charged for policing, MPA decides – but football clubs remain exempt outside grounds

55/04
19 July 2004

Organisers of all profit-making events in London will be pursued for the full policing costs, including overtime, the Metropolitan Police Authority has decided.

However, under current regulations, football clubs remain exempt for the huge cost of policing outside their grounds on match days.

The MPA today accepted the recommendations of a review team that looked at the Metropolitan Police charging policy for the hundreds of commercial events held in the capital every year.

It concluded that there was too much uncertainty over which events were billed for the cost of policing them and that there should be a more consistent approach to charging organisers who make money large sums of money while police budgets are squeezed.

But the MPA accepted the team’s recommendation that there would be no charging for policing community and charitable events because of the contribution made to community life within London.

MPA member Richard Sumray, who chaired the review, said:

“It is important that there is a consistent application of the policy to charge for policing of commercial events on a full cost recovery basis in accordance with current statutory powers.

“One area where we have particular concern is with the high cost of policing outside football grounds. Under current legislation we have no powers to recover the costs but we are continuing discussions with the football associations to reduce costs as much as possible.

“We also recognise the enormous amount of community-based projects initiated by football clubs in their local areas and are determined to support and enhance these. We will be meeting with the football associations quarterly to pursue all of these issues.

“Our view is that community and charitable events would not be charged for policing them, and we will be in discussion with the Association of Chief Police Officers which is drawing up guidelines that may require some of these events to make a contribution.

“We are also looking closely at how the new licensing laws will impact on charging of pubs and clubs, although we are mindful that some events held at clubs are for the benefit of the community.”

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