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Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley told London politicians that he is predicting a gap of £450m in funding and 2,300 less police officers for the capital’s police force as he runs out of options of how to plug the deficit, citing serious crime units, dog units and mounted police as places to target savings in a series of “worst case scenarios.”
“It has been a really challenging year,” the Commissioner told the London Policing Board his week, with protests and riots placing huge pressure on the Met. It has taken a lot of effort to deliver the New Met for London Plan he remarked, but he said that new tactics like the roll out of live facial recognition were making a difference with more than 500 arrests made as a result of its use in London.
Speaking ahead of the upcoming annual national police funding settlement, he said he wanted to strengthen performance and make reforms but needed funding to do so. Previous predictions of a £300m shortfall for 2025/26 had proven to be an underestimate. The Commissioner’s Report to the Board noted: “The gap has since grown, driven by unfunded pay increases, the reversal of non-recurrent 2024/25 savings, exhaustion of our reserves, the need to invest in our estate and the need to continue to invest in reform.”
Short term funding settlements affect the Met’s work, he cautioned, because 75% of the Met’s £4bn budget comes from the Home Office. The predicted shortfall of £450m equates to 2,300 fewer police officers and 400 less police staff for London.
In his report, he commits the Met to making 2.5% efficiencies – that’s £100m – to make it “as lean as possible as an organisation.”
“Despite all these steps, it still leaves a very substantial gap and leads to some tough choices ahead.”
The report includes options to reduce costs in areas like the police dogs’ unit and mounted police as well as cutting teams policing the Royal Parks. He also said that reductions could impact the Met’s resources to deal with serious and organised crime including reducing the size of the Flying Squad – commonly known as the Sweeney.
He said that previous tactics and what he called “props” to deal with financial shortages, such as shutting police stations, are no longer available to him. The current budget pressures are a cumulative impact of decisions made over last ten years, he told the Board.
Responding to questions from Board Members, Sir Mark said that the Met is determined to focus on areas of progress and reform, not salami slicing but deliberately acting in line with the strategy set out in the Met’s reform plan. This includes protecting funding for neighbourhood policing and work to reduce violence against women and girls.
Read more about police funding from the Home Secretary’s recent speech at a senior police chiefs’ conference where she trailed the increase in overall police budgets but said that improved performance and efficiencies would be required as part of a ‘new roadmap for policing reform.’
