Taking on the Met

On the day she takes over as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Cressida Dick’s first task is to attend the funeral of Pc Keith Palmer, killed in the Westminster terrorist attack last month. It is a tragic and poignant reminder of the dangers inherent in the job of policing one of the world’s great cities and a target for global jihadists seeking to spread fear and gain notoriety.

Counter-terrorism is one of the Met’s core functions; indeed some have questioned whether the force has too much to deal with and if the responsibilities that Ms Dick assumes today are simply excessively onerous. The past three commissioners all left before they intended to, which gives an indication of the difficulties of the job, which is about politics almost as much as it is about policing.

Ms Dick, the first woman commissioner in the Met’s 188 years, arrives with a reputation as one of Scotland Yard’s most experienced operational officers and is widely respected within the force, which she left to work in Whitehall, before being enticed back by the top job. Those who know her say she is a natural consensus-builder who will be able to steer a course through the rocky political shoals she will inevitably encounter.

Unlike many of her predecessors she has not run a provincial force as an apprenticeship for the Met, though that is not necessarily a required qualification. However, there are difficult managerial decisions to make at a time of public spending squeeze that might expose that lack of administrative experience. Miss Dick is sufficiently aware of the straitened circumstances to have taken a salary £40,000 below that of her predecessor. She is about to earn every penny of it.