My letter to London – Police Commissioner Cressida Dick
I have been privileged to lead the Metropolitan Police Service for the last five years. I will always look back on my time as Commissioner with pride for what has been achieved, with humility for when Londoners have been let down, and with huge confidence the changes we have been making will ensure you can be proud of the Met going forward. I leave with the fondest of memories of the fantastic people I’ve been lucky enough to work with.
When I first took this role I set out my priorities. I knew we had to focus on what matters most to Londoners, particularly tackling violence which has been far too prevalent – often having the worst impact on the most vulnerable.
We had to work more closely with others so we could collectively keep people safer and bring more offenders to justice.
Five years on, despite new and unexpected demands, grave tragedies and the toll of the pandemic I know we have made significant strides.
The Met is nearly 200 years old and remains a world class police service. Our original principles of policing by consent, operational independence and impartiality are still utterly fundamental.
Violence is down, our partnerships are strong and we are on course to achieve a step change in the number of crimes we solve. We have thousands more volunteers working with us, better ways of communicating with the public and higher levels of involvement by and engagement with our citizens in their police service.
Murders, shootings and stabbings are all down. These figures are not an accident. They are not repeated in other major UK cities. They are down because we, working with our partners and communities, drove them down and have brought ever more serious offenders to justice. I am confident the reductions will be sustained: violent and predatory people, drug dealers and those involved in county lines gangs and organised crime will find it much tougher to operate.
We have also learnt lessons from the terrible terrorism we saw in 2017. In the last five years, counter terrorism policing and UK intelligence services have stopped 29 attacks.
We’ve innovated with our Counter Terrorism Operations Centre, a central London hub that brings together CT Policing’s core capabilities and our partners – both in London and at a national level – under one roof. We have invested in better modern technologies to make us more effective and able to do more for less cost.
But these successes, and so many others, are possible because of the brilliant, compassionate and courageous people of the Met, undertaking extraordinary work and caring deeply about the people, places, communities and victims they come to work to protect and serve.
We will soon grow to a record size with thousands more officers – and we’ve just surpassed our highest number ever with over 34,000 officers as of last month. These are additional officers that you’ll see in your neighbourhoods and keeping your town centres safe.
The Met is far more diverse and inclusive than it has ever been. It is a wonderful place to work and we need women and men of all backgrounds to join us and continue to make a difference.
Of course as I look back there is more I wish we had achieved.
We hear the criticism, know not everyone has confidence in us to provide a good service when they need us, and have seen among us those whose horrific actions have let you all, and us, down so terribly.
Each one drives us to get better, to root out those who don’t uphold our standards and don’t deserve to wear our uniform. To improve our response so all our communities feel protected by us.
We are listening and acting on what you tell us so we can change for the better. Just this week we launched our violence against women and girls plan, shaped by the views of hundreds of Londoners.
The current politicisation of policing is a threat not just to policing but to trust in the whole criminal justice system. Operational independence from local and central government is crucial for an effective democracy and is a model respected around the world. We must all treasure and protect it.
Now more than ever the mission of the Met is to keep this amazing, global, diverse capital city safe for everyone, to get back to basics, to improve, to innovate and make sure we bring offenders to justice.
On a personal level I’m sad my time in this great job is fast drawing to a close however I am extremely optimistic for the Met’s future. It is bigger, more diverse, more capable than ever.
My message to London is this: London is a safe city in so many ways. You have a fantastic police service. We all need the Met to be successful in keeping London safe and for the public to have confidence in our service. The 44,000 women and men of the Met care passionately about getting it right and always want to be here for you.
he Met’s police officer strength is now the largest it has ever been in its history – meaning thousands of extra officers are now dedicated to serving London’s many communities.
As of the end of March, the Met had reached its highest ever total number of officers with a head-count of around 34,000 (*34,542 officers).
The Met will also continue to expand further throughout 2022 to 2023 as part of the Policing Uplift Programme- from government funding- and Mayoral investment.
We want to grow further to 36,500 officers by March 2023 and, taking into account the number of people who will retire and leave, our overall recruitment will be close to 4,000 – double the number of officers we normally recruit in a year.
Met Police Commissioner, Dame Cressida Dick, today led her last passing out parade, reviewing 157 PCs and 25 DCs.
The Commissioner, speaking after the parade, said:
“This is a very special time for the Met as we mark having the highest ever number of officers in our long history, and a very special day for me as my last passing out parade. I have always been honoured to attend these events and have the opportunity to celebrate the achievements of the recruits alongside their families and friends, and today is no exception. I was very proud of each and every one of them, and wish them all the very best for the future.
“As I end my time in the Met, I know that our newly recruited officers will learn from their many respected and experienced colleagues how to show the courage, professionalism and compassion that the public expect and rightly deserve; qualities we see officers from all roles and ranks display on a daily basis across our great capital city.
“We have committed to bold steps to build a workforce that truly reflects all of London’s diverse communities that we serve, and are seeing positive results. The Met has truly made strides in this area, and I know in future it will not hesitate to adapt its approach when necessary in order to further these aims, as the decision regarding the London residency last month underlined.
“As we grow even further we will have thousands more officers. They will be out on your streets, providing more presence and protection, helping to reduce crime, bring even more offenders to justice and play a vital part as we continue to strive across all fronts to increase trust and confidence.
“I’d therefore like to take this opportunity to again encourage anyone who would relish serving London’s communities and building an exciting, rewarding and challenging career. We know there are many people out there that want to help others – and I can testify from my own personal experience that there is no better way of making a difference than becoming a police officer. Your skills, your strengths and your varied experiences will help to create an even better Met police service in the future.”
All the additional officers will help us drive down crime, prosecute greater numbers of offenders and help us continue to transform the Met while we work to increase community trust and confidence.
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “This is an extraordinary achievement and I’m really proud that we now have more police officers than at any other time in London’s history. These new officers will help to build on the progress made in tackling violent crime, improve support for victims of crime and, crucially, help to restore trust and confidence, which is so vital to policing London’s diverse neighbourhoods and communities by consent.
“The Met is currently recruiting, and I would encourage Londoners from all backgrounds to apply and be part of a bigger and better Met.”
Policing Minister Kit Malthouse said: “Demands on policing have changed dramatically over the past ten years, with forces needing to adapt quickly to the complex and changing nature of crime.
“That is why the Government promised to recruit an additional 20,000 police officers by March 2023, with over half already in post.
“The Met continues to work hard to increase officer numbers and create a workforce that increasingly reflects London’s diverse communities. I look forward to seeing the Met recruit its full allocation of new officers by the end of the uplift programme.”
The Met is also more diverse than we have ever been – which we know is important for the communities we serve and for everyone who makes up our organisation.
We are proud to employ more than half of all police officers in England and Wales that are from under-represented groups.
Our officer strength shows that a total of 16.4%** of the Met’s police officers – 5,508 – are of Black, Asian or mixed ethnic heritage, and 29.7% of the Met’s officers – 9,956 – are women (correct as of end March, 2022).
This increase within our workforce is also reflected in the huge variety of different skills, characteristics and backgrounds of officers – all bringing their unique strengths and experiences into the job they do for Londoners day in and day out.
Many recruits have chosen to join from other professions, from university lecturers to professional athletes and entertainers to accountants and journalists.
Our thousands of serving officers also come from dozens of different ethnic backgrounds, including Irish, Indian, Chinese, Cypriot, Black British as well as many other mixed ethnic heritage groups.
The Met also has 22 flourishing different staff associations – with some of the most recent to be formed including the Gypsy Roma Traveller Police Association and the Slavic Association.
Hundreds of officers belong to faiths ranging from Christian and Buddhist to Muslim, Sikh and Jewish, and almost 1,000 officers have currently self-declared as Gay/Lesbian, Bisexual, Intersex, Transgender or Transsexual. More than 500 have declared they have a disability.***
In addition, a total of 1,188 of the Met’s police officers are currently 55 years or older – and of these 149 are aged 60 up.
We are also making good progress towards the diversity aspirations stated previously by Commissioner Cressida Dick. We achieved our aspiration to have 16% of our police officers be from under-represented groups for the financial year 2021 to 2022, and we are very close to achieving milestones for both female (29.7% against 30% aspiration) and black officers (3.6% against 3.8% aspiration).
The Met remains committed to working towards its aspiration for 21% of its officers to be from Black, Asian and mixed ethnic heritage groups by 2024 and 28% by 2030.
We also have ambitious aspirations for our new recruits including that from April 2022, 50% will be women, and 40% from under-represented ethnicity groups.
In the financial year 2021 to 2022, 39.7% of new trainee officers**** to the MPS were female, while 23.6% were from under-represented ethnicity groups.
To help ensure we meet the scale of our volume growth ambitions quickly enough, the Met announced last month that it was temporarily lifting the London Residency Criteria (LRC) – meaning that those who want to join us no longer need to have lived or studied in the capital.
Alongside welcoming applications from outside London, the Met will continue to make efforts to attract those working and living within the capital’s communities to inspire people to choose a career in the Met. The focus on recruiting Londoners to police London remains our ultimate aim and we will seek to reintroduce London Residency at the earliest point we can.
Today, we have nearly 4,000 more officers than at the start of 2019 – and we are investing the recent increase in police numbers to address the things that matter most to Londoners.
We have invested in 12 new VSU teams driving down violence in local hotspots, and created 12 Predatory Offender Units [POU] in 2020, which continue to focus on the most dangerous offenders involved in domestic and child abuse, sexual exploitation and human trafficking.
Within a year, as of last November, the POUs had arrested more than 2,500 offenders who present the highest harm to adults and children.
In October 2021, the Met also announced London was to get an additional 650 police officers to work solely in busy public places and other areas, including those where women and girls often feel unsafe.
Five hundred of these officers are going into new town centre teams (TCT) across the capital and will be based permanently in busy neighbourhoods, while 150 officers are joining London’s dedicated ward officers – commonly referred to as ‘bobbies on the beat’. Those TCTs that have launched are already achieving visible results and positive community feedback.
We are also seeing good reductions across a variety of crime types. From January to December 2021, compared with the same period prior to the pandemic in 2019, homicides decreased by 13 per cent, knife crime by 32 per cent, knife crime with injury by 20 per cent, knife injury by 27 per cent, gun crime by 35 per cent and lethal barrel discharges by 21 per cent – figures that buck the national trend.
+++++++++++
* Headcount refers to all police officers including part-time. As of 31 March, the number of full-time officers (‘full-time equivalent’ or FTE) was 33,567. The previously highest recorded police officer strength was a headcount of 33,818 (33,404 FTE) in November 2009.
**All Met figures included are FTE unless otherwise specified.
*** These numbers are based on what people have chosen to declare about their protected characteristics and or faith/religion.
**** Excludes officers transferring in from another force or returning to the Met.
DID YOU KNOW – the Met in numbers
Our 34,000 serving police officers will work a total number of hours of 65,280,000 over a twelve month period.
[This figure is based on multiplying workforce strength figure by 40 hours per week, and 48 weeks a year = 52 weeks minus average of 28 days annual leave].
The Met has forty-one different sports clubs offering a wide range of activities from kayaking to water polo.
There are dozens of specialist units in the Met – marine, dogs and mounted branches, art and antiques, wildlife crime unit, ‘cold case’ investigations unit, forensic photography and cyber-crime are just some examples.
1,416 officers or staff registered as volunteers speaking 127 languages.
Uniform services have carried out 3,146 recruit fittings in the past year
Our tallest recruit is recorded as being 6 feet, 7 inches
All new officers get taught to – save lives, gather and analyse evidence, build a case file, safely de-escalate situations to avoid unnecessary use of force, and complete a ‘community impact task’ to come up with practical solutions to a local policing problem.
Leave a Reply