Mayor hits back at Home Secretary’s ‘unbalanced’ criticism of GMP
ANDY Burnham has responded to Priti Patel’s letter detailing her concerns about a damning report into Greater Manchester Police.
The Home Secretary wrote to both the Metro Mayor and GMP to express ‘deep’ concerns about the findings of the inspection report into the force - and to demand their plans for improvement.
Ms Patel warned that the ‘most troubling’ aspect of the report was GMP’s failure to safeguard vulnerable victims.
She went on to express concerns beyond the recent inspection.
Mr Burnham, responding in a letter to Ms Patel, said that while he too was ‘deeply concerned’ by the report’s findings, her letter had ‘disappointingly’ failed to provide a ‘fair and balanced picture’ of what was happening within the force.
“While I can assure you I take the recent HMICFRS report as seriously as you do, I think it is important that we recognise the successes that police forces achieve,” the mayor writes.
Mr Burnham addressed the issues raised by Ms Patel; namely police resources and numbers, GMP’s ‘failure’ to safeguard vulnerable victims and failures of iOPS, GMP’s new computer system.
In relation to police resources, the mayor said that she herself had acknowledged that cuts to police forces between 2010 and 2019 ‘went too far’.
“Those cuts have had consequences to policing and the Government needs to be honest about that”, he wrote.
Mr Burnham went on to defend himself and the force against her criticism of the handling of Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE), citing his major review into such cases and Operation Augusta. He says the action was ongoing and had resulted in arrests.
“This is clear evidence of our commitment to protecting victims of CSE”, the letter adds.
Responding to Ms Patel’s criticism of the iOPS computer system, Mr Burnham admitted that ‘implementation has undoubtedly brought problems’.
However, the mayor said that the new IT system and investment in call handling had led to improvements in the recording of crime., including a rise in the reporting of domestic abuse offences, stalking and harassment crimes.