POLICING

GOVERNMENT MINISTERS are said to be considering a U-turn on police funding after the head of Scotland Yard has warned that the force is ‘stretched’ by terror attacks and violent crime.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd is under pressure to boost cash for the Metropolitan Police after Commissioner Cressida Dick said she was facing a shortfall of £400million over the next few years. She is also being pressed to scrap a controversial shake-up of a police funding formula following stark warnings that budget cuts in Britain’s biggest force would put London’s security at risk of a terror atrocity.

Met chiefs were braced to lose millions from their annual budget when the Home Office changes the method by which resources are allocated to forces across the country later this year. Before a previous shake-up was axed in 2015, Scotland Yard said it stood to lose £184million.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has warned the city has lost ‘thousands of police staff’ since 2010, while the Commissioner has said she would ‘obviously’ be seeking extra resources.

She said: ‘We’re not having any fewer calls from the public, so we’re stretched. We do undoubtedly need a very capable police service in the future for all the reasons people can see. I’m sure we can become more efficient, however, we need the resources to do the job and I am talking to the Government and to the Mayor about that.’

Mr Khan said: ‘I’m pleased that the Government look likely to drop their plans to change the police funding formula. However, this alone is not enough to protect police numbers in London or to ensure we are able to deal with major counter-terrorism incidents and the rise in violent crime.

‘The Home Office has already made the Metropolitan Police find £600million of savings following cuts since 2010. Their plans to make the Met find a further £400million of savings on top of this over the next few years will have a big impact on policing in London.’

The Government faced criticism during the general election over the scale of police cuts since 2010, which led to some 20,000 fewer police officers on the streets south of the Border, following the terror attacks in Manchester and on London Bridge.

A spokesperson for the Home Office said: ‘The Government is undertaking a period of engagement with policing partners and independent experts on the police funding formula. The arrangements are outdated and do not reflect the demands of modern policing.’

And it can also be disclosed that around 2,000 extra Met police officers will be armed with 50,000-volt Tasers to tackle the threat of terrorism and knife crime.

The force will hand more frontline officers with stun guns following a surge in violence – bringing the number carrying the controversial weapons to more than 6,400.

SCOTLAND

HUNDREDS of police officers in Scotland are to be axed despite the growing terror threat as Scottish ministers removes one of its flagship pledges to maintain manpower.

Senior officials in Scotland have published a report spelling out their vision for the future development of Police Scotland over the next decade.

The Policing 2026 document was almost identical to a draft published in February but the final report was handed to Justice Secretary Michael Matheson after a consultation.

A move to axe up to 400 officers remains central to the plan despite the spate of terrorist attacks on Britain’s streets during the consultation – which had a response rate among police officers and civilian workers of only 2 per cent.

Mr Matheson insisted recruitment would not be slowed until there was evidence officers had been prised away from desk-based roles and sent to the frontline.

But Scottish Labour said this was ‘barely credible’ given the financial constraints the force faces as it tackles a looming deficit of nearly £200million.

Andrea MacDonald, chairman of the Scottish Police Federation, representing rank-and-file officers, said: ‘The world has changed since February after the terror attacks, but Policing 2026 hasn’t.

‘The concerns of our officers have not been taken into account and the report is full of shorthand for cutting officer numbers.

‘We are also very concerned about the money being spent on this report and on implementing it, with high-salary jobs being created to make it possible, at a time of huge financial constraints.’

The Policing 2026 report was drawn up with the help of consultancy firm Deloitte, which was paid nearly £700,000 of taxpayers’ money.

It is a blueprint for the next decade that looks at how police should respond to new threats such as cybercrime.

The core of the plan is that more civilian workers will be needed for these tasks rather than uniformed officers.

But it comes as some violent crime continue to rise, which critics say will require more officers on the beat. Police and ministers insist that beat policing will not suffer because of the move to shift more officers away from their desks back onto the streets to mitigate the decline on overall officer numbers.

The final strategy was signed off by Chief Constable Phil Gormley.

Police Scotland outlined the initial plans in February to cut officer numbers by up to 400 as part of a ten-year policing plan.

Mr Gormley said recruitment levels would begin to slow between 2018 and 2020, while more specialist civilian staff in areas such as cybercrime will be recruited. He also pledged better use of technology such as body-worn video cameras, more effective deployment and releasing officers from ‘back office’ and corporate roles.

Mr Matheson said the Policing 2026 programme was ‘ambitious and challenging’, with measures to counter the threat of cybercrime and a greater emphasis on addressing vulnerability and mental health issues.

He said: ‘The Chief Constable has assured me that operational policing capacity will be increased and I have made it clear that officer recruitment should not be slowed until clear independent evidence is provided that this increase has been delivered. Officer numbers will remain well above the number we inherited in 2007.’

His comments end the SNP’s commitment to keep officer numbers 1,000 above the level inherited in 2007.

Scottish Labour justice spokesman Claire Baker said: ‘Police Scotland must plug the black hole at the heart of its budget.

‘The reality is that many of the difficulties experienced by Police Scotland sit at the door of an SNP Government that tied itself to a policy of extra officers that it didn’t properly fund, with support staff being cut and officers back-filling roles.’

Tory MSP Margaret Mitchell said recorded crime figures – which are at a record low – were not an accurate measure of demand on the force. She asked: ‘What is the Cabinet Secretary doing to ensure more accurate recording of demands on police time and how can the level of police numbers required to cope with the demand be decided without this accurate data?’

Mr Matheson said the Policing 2026 strategy was designed to reflect the fact 80 per cent of police calls do not relate to a crime.

Seven priorities – except crime

SEVEN ‘priorities’ have been published for the next decade of policing – which failed to mention crime.

A diagram in the Policing 2026 report showed the priorities printed on blue circles, with ‘localism’ at the top.

The others are inclusion, prevention, response, collaborative working, accountability and adaptability.

Last October, police published an earlier list of future ‘priorities’ – with catching criminals ranked in only fourth place.

‘Localism’, ‘inclusion’ and ‘prevention’ all came above ‘improving the well-being of individuals and communities by tackling crime’ – now ostensibly under the heading ‘response’. The list has been replaced by a circle in an apparent bid to show all of the priorities are now equally weighted.

The ‘main purpose of policing’, according to the latest Policing 2026 document, is to ‘improve the safety and wellbeing of persons, localities and communities’.

More local policing is included in the list despite station front desks being closed and fears of a reduction in officer numbers.

The list of priorities follows earlier Scottish Government figures showing 40 per cent of Scots lack confidence in the ability of police to ‘catch criminals’.

Earlier this year, Chief Constable Phil Gormley said officers should be judged on their compassion when they respond to vulnerable people in trouble and needing help. He said an average of 84 people a day go missing and a ‘significant proportion’ of them have dementia, while about 260 calls a day concern problems other than allegations of crimes.

But the comments come at a time when sexual crime and some forms of violent crime are rising.

Mr Gormley added: ‘Another issue for us is a broader understanding of what the nature of policing is, because it is often reduced to crime-fighting and of course crime-fighting is what we must and will do.

‘But so much of what the public call the police about is not crime. We have 260 calls a day from people who are worried about other people and that’s what policing does.

‘I need to create a service with colleagues that understands those challenges.’