Police face cuts in area of soaring crime

A NEW formula for allocating police funding in London could mean a fall in officer numbers in a borough where crime levels are soaring.

Lambeth, which saw a startling 28 per cent rise in muggings last year, could lose around 60 officers under the system being examined by the Metropolitan Police Authority.

The formula will for the first time take account of factors other than crime levels in deciding how police resources are handed out to the 32 London boroughs.

The "need" factors include deprivation levels, population size, commuting, the number of pubs and nightclubs and education results.

Despite being an area of high deprivation, Lambeth is the only London borough where crime levels far exceed these levels of need, and consultants who have drawn up the formula for the Metropolitan Police Authority are unable to explain why.

Community leaders in Lambeth fear that they will be left with a massively inadequate force as a result of flawed statistics.

After a consultation seminar on the proposals, the Labour leader of Lambeth council, Tom Franklin, said: "The formula takes police resources away from areas where crime is highest. Any formula which does that is not using common sense.

"Gun crime is particularly high in Lambeth and that should be reflected in the formula. The presence of a large number of guns makes dealing with every crime in the borough more difficult. You never know when someone's going to pull a gun on you.

"These stats seem to be saying, 'There's more crime in Lambeth than there ought to be'. That's no reason to take police out of the borough."

The Greater London Authority member for Lambeth and Southwark, Valerie Shawcross, said Lambeth was already 60 officers below full strength and, under two of the three implementation options being considered, those numbers would not be made up.

She said: "The police are already short-staffed and struggling to keep on top of crime, and that stops them from doing preventative work.

"When it was announced that there would be a new funding formula there was a real feeling-that the cavalry were coming-This has been a massive blow to morale."

The MPA wants to revise the formula to combat the "boom and bust" nature of the existing, crime-rate-based system which puts officers into areas of high crime then immediately takes them away when crime levels start to fall.

At Wednesday's meeting, Met Deputy Commissioner Ian Blair described the old system as "decibel management". He said: "A needs- based formula prevents the punishment of success and the reward of failure."

He added that built into the plan would be a system of "commissioners' judgments", whereby the head of the Met could override the formula in a particular case if there appeared to be a significant anomaly. A system of weighting is also envisaged for high levels of violent crime in particular areas, although critics say this does not go far enough.

By Richard Allen A NEW formula for allocating police funding in London could mean a fall in officer numbers in a borough where crime levels are soaring.

Lambeth, which saw a startling 28 per cent rise in muggings last year, could lose around 60 officers under the system being examined by the Metropolitan Police Authority.

The formula will for the first time take account of factors other than crime levels in deciding how police resources are handed out to the 32 London boroughs.

The "need" factors include deprivation levels, population size, commuting, the number of pubs and nightclubs and education results.

Despite being an area of high deprivation, Lambeth is the only London borough where crime levels far exceed these levels of need, and consultants who have drawn up the formula for the Metropolitan Police Authority are unable to explain why.

Community leaders in Lambeth fear that they will be left with a massively inadequate force as a result of flawed statistics.

After a consultation seminar on the proposals, the Labour leader of Lambeth council, Tom Franklin, said: "The formula takes police resources away from areas where crime is highest. Any formula which does that is not using common sense.

"Gun crime is particularly high in Lambeth and that should be reflected in the formula. The presence of a large number of guns makes dealing with every crime in the borough more difficult. You never know when someone's going to pull a gun on you.

"These stats seem to be saying, 'There's more crime in Lambeth than there ought to be'. That's no reason to take police out of the borough."

The Greater London Authority member for Lambeth and Southwark, Valerie Shawcross, said Lambeth was already 60 officers below full strength and, under two of the three implementation options being considered, those numbers would not be made up.

She said: "The police are already short-staffed and struggling to keep on top of crime, and that stops them from doing preventative work.

"When it was announced that there would be a new funding formula there was a real feeling-that the cavalry were coming-This has been a massive blow to morale."

The MPA wants to revise the formula to combat the "boom and bust" nature of the existing, crime-rate-based system which puts officers into areas of high crime then immediately takes them away when crime levels start to fall.

At Wednesday's meeting, Met Deputy Commissioner Ian Blair described the old system as "decibel management". He said: "A needs- based formula prevents the punishment of success and the reward of failure."

He added that built into the plan would be a system of "commissioners' judgments", whereby the head of the Met could override the formula in a particular case if there appeared to be a significant anomaly. A system of weighting is also envisaged for high levels of violent crime in particular areas, although critics say this does not go far enough.

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