LONDON POLICING BUDGET FACES £100MILLION SHORTFALL - FEATHERSTONE

12.01.00am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 18th Oct 2004

London Assembly Liberal Democrats today revealed new figures, which show that Londoners face a massive 18.7% rise in the GLA Council Tax precept demand just to pay for policing.

The figures, taken from the Met Police Authority Draft Budget submission, show that the Mayor is facing a funding gap of £98million to implement his policing proposals.

The MPA have warned Mr Livingstone that unless money is found from Government before April 2005, either Safer Neighbourhoods will have to be scaled back dramatically, Mr Livingstone will run the risk of his budget being capped or Council Tax will have to rise by an average of £35 per London household to pay for policing. This rise would not include funding for transport or other money the Mayor would need to raise to balance his budget.

The Step Change programme that was put forward as a key plank in Ken Livingstone's manifesto, but Ministers have so far failed to give the Mayor the extra money to fund the policing requirements. The MPA has warned that on top of an extra 9.8% precept requirement for general policing, the MPA is highlighting that a further 8.9% will be needed to fund Safer Neighbourhoods..

Commenting MPA member and Liberal Democrat London Assembly member, Lynne Featherstone, said:

"So soon after the Mayor has promised to massively increase fares, the possibility of such a colossal hike in Council Tax will come as a bitter blow for Londoners.

"Unless the Chancellor comes forward with extra cash for Mayor Livingstone's ambitious spending, then either Step Change will be scaled back dramatically, Council Taxpayers will face a massive leap in their bills, or Ken Livingstone will face being humiliatingly capped by his own party.

"Mr Livingstone must go with begging bowl in hand to get Gordon Brown to stump up the extra £100million needed to fund the changes in policing in the capital. Otherwise, if Safer Neighbourhoods is scaled back because of a lack of cash, Labour could be open to the charge of being soft on crime."

ENDS

Notes to editor

1. The Safer Neighbourhoods initiative, which involves the creation of dedicated teams of 3 police officers and 3 PCSOs in each ward/neighbourhood of London, is part of the wider Step Change programme which aims to increase the number of uniformed officers to 35,000 over the next 4 years.

2. The Home Secretary is expected to announce central government grants to police authorities for 2005/6 in November 2004.

3. The 2005/06 Met Police Authority Draft Budget review is due to be submitted to the Mayor by 8 November 2004. The submission will therefore have to be approved by the full Authority on 28 October. The submission will be reviewed following the provisional grant settlement, expected to be announced around mid November, and finalised at the Authority meeting on 7 December 2004.

Below is the relevant abstract from the submission:-

Precept implications

16. The position as currently reflected in the draft budget submission therefore closely approximates to the higher intermediate budget option agreed by the Finance Committee in July. To achieve a precept increase of just 5% would require a further reduction of £25 million, with an additional £13 million to get the precept increase down to 2.5%. If these reductions had to be made substantially against expenditure they would inevitably include a significant reduction in police officers.

Step Change options

17. At the time of writing this report the MPS had not exemplified a range of options for the continuation of the Step Change programme in accordance with the requirements of the Mayor's budget guidance. A single proposal only has been provided which would require funding from the precept, after allowing for additional grant expected in relation to PCSOs, of £46.6 million in 2005/06. This alone would mean an 8.9% increase in the precept on top of the 9.8% increase identified at paragraph 13 above.

Council tax capping

18. The Government has demonstrated this year its intention to cap council tax increases which it considers excessive. The criteria for determining an excessive increase in 2004/05 were as follows:

§ in relation to the GLA group, including MPA, an increase in budget above 6.5% and council tax increase above 8.5%

§ for precepting police authorities (does not apply directly to MPA) an increase in budget above 7% and an increase in council tax above 13%.

All the indications from government are that the capping limits will be set at lower levels for 2005/06.

19. If the budget as currently drafted had also to incorporate the continuation of the Step Change programme on the basis currently proposed by the MPS, it would clearly be unsustainable in the context of council tax capping. Therefore before the submission is finalised in December further Step Change options must be produced with more realistic funding requirements and pressure must be maintained to identify further savings which could be incorporated in the 2005/06 budget.