Wandsworth loses out again on police numbers ......

Councillors have condemned the way a new formula used to allocate police officers to London's boroughs is being applied after it emerged that Wandsworth will be losing almost 60 per cent of the new officers it had been assigned.

Wandsworth already has one of the lowest levels of police manpower in inner London. Since February 1997 it has lost a total of 83 police officers to other parts of London.

This year, using a newly revised formula to calculate police numbers, the borough should have received an additional 29 officers to patrol Wandsworth's streets. The announcement come after senior police officers had warned that the borough needed around 50 extra officers.

But at the eleventh hour, the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) has decided to place an artificial cap of two per cent on the increase, in order to avoid transferring officers from other boroughs.

This means that instead of the 29 officers the borough should be receiving under the uncapped formula, the actual allocation will be just 12.

This will bring the number of police officers in Wandsworth up from 567 to 579. In February 1997, figures given to Parliament by the Home Office showed the borough's allocation was 662.  In comparison, Lambeth this year will have 947 officers, Lewisham will have 634, Islington 676, Southwark 856, Camden 807, Tower Hamlets 741 and Hackney 739.

In terms of population, Wandsworth's loss is even more pronounced. Under the new arrangements there is one police officer in the borough for every 473 residents.  In Camden the figures is one officer for every 245 residents, in Lambeth it's 280, Islington 260, Southwark 286, Tower Hamlets 264 and Hammersmith & Fulham 319.

Analysis showed that the previous formula did not take enough account of the incidence of many of the most threatening crimes including muggings, assault and burglary. These crimes are a prime example of the types of offence where the culprit travels out of his home area in pursuit of 'richer pickings'.

Using the formula rather than recorded crime figures as the basis for determining police resources saw Wandsworth's allocation remain static in 2002 and increase by just nine in 2003. This total represented 3.1 per cent of London's police to deal with 3.7 per cent of London's crime. If the Wandsworth share of officers had matched true local crime levels, the increase by the end of 2003 should have been 110 officers rather than the nine received.

Council Leader Edward Lister described the news as "another slap in the face for local residents".

He said: "Just as this new formula was about to give us a significant increase in police numbers, a cap is introduced to leave us little better off than we were under it's defective and inconsistent predecessor.

"It means that Wandsworth residents will continue to suffer from a serious shortage of police officers. We had been told that we needed around 50 extra officers to bring the division upto strength - but instead we are going to get just 12.
 

"This borough has been consistently short changed by both the Mayor and the Home Office in recent years. Wandsworth residents pay their taxes and they deserve the same amount of protection from crime as other Londoners. Sadly they are not getting this.

"We are now calling for an urgent re-think of this year's allocation so that it takes much greater account of crime figures, population and geographical size. Under all three criteria Wandsworth is losing out. For years now our Borough Police Commanders have had to operate below strength. Yet the more local people pay for policing, the more officers get sent to other boroughs.

February 28, 2005