Met Police facing lowest staffing levels in a decade, boss says

Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has warned that the Metropolitan Police will reach its lowest staffing levels in a decade by March next year.

Britain’s biggest police force has seen the fallout, according to Sir Mark, partly due to underfunding and low recruitment.

Plans to reform the force will have to slow down as the Met faces a £400m budget hole in 2025-26, according to a document submitted to London’s Policing Board.

According to the Home Office, the Met will receive up to £3.5bn in 2024-25, an increase of up to £125.8m on the previous year.

The document said frontline teams were under “high operational strain” as they had to deal with large-scale protests in London that cost £70m last year and increased demand to tackle violence against women and girls.

A request for £70m from the Home Office to cut around 1,000 officers from back-office roles has been rejected, a report says.

Sir Mark wrote: “By March 2025 there will be 310 police officers for every 100,000 Londoners.

“In March 2012, there were 350 police officers. This position is expected to deteriorate and is headed for its lowest point in a decade.

“This is due in part to underfunding and low recruitment in recent years due to the rising cost of living in London compared to other parts of the UK and other challenges.”

Figures in the report show a fall from March 2023 – from 342 officers per 100,000 Londoners that year to 330 in March this year and 310 in March 2025.

The Met was already 1,400 officers below the staffing target set by the Home Office at the end of 2023-24 and is expected to fall by a further 1,250 by the end of 2024-25.

Force chiefs are already planning to move 300 officers out of back office roles in a bid to help plug the gap.

The Home Office said the £3.5bn the Met will receive in 2024-25 includes £185.3m in recognition of the increased demand the Met faces from policing in the capital.

Zoë Garbett, Greens member of the London Assembly’s Policing and Crime Committee, said: “The long-promised and long-awaited cultural reform of the Metropolitan Police cannot wait another day.

“It is inexcusable that this Government is refusing to provide the Met with the resources it needs to progress this urgent work.

“The faster the Met can reform and the faster the Met can recruit new officers, the faster the Met can work on community priorities.”

Paul Kohler, Liberal Democrat candidate for Wimbledon, said: “These shocking figures show that local forces are being decimated by this Tory government.

“We have lost thousands of good local officers from our communities and now too many criminals go unpunished.”

Kohler added: “Liberal Democrats are calling for a return to proper community policing. That’s why I successfully took the Mayor to court to stop the closure of Wimbledon Police Station.

“It’s the only way to keep our streets safe.” We need to give local forces the resources they need to reduce crime.”

Susan Hall, a Conservative member of the London Assembly, said London mayor Sadiq Khan – who has overall responsibility for the force – had failed to meet the government’s targets for officer recruitment.

She added that the Labor mayor had instead increased the number of “pen-pushing bureaucrats in his Police and Crime Office”.

Labor declined to comment.