Police may be forced to close units as ‘real-term’ cuts bite

POLICE could be forced to scrap specialist units unless they get more money from the Government in next month’s Budget, one of Scotland Yard’s most senior officers has warned.

Craig Mackey, deputy commissioner, said the Metropolitan Police would become “less proactive” and would have to scale back their response to less serious crime to balance the books.

He said there would be “severe consequences” for London if the realterms reductions continued.

His comments came as Sadiq Khan, the London mayor, warned that police numbers in the capital could fall to fewer than 28,000 by 2021, the lowest figure for 19 years.

Mr Mackey said: “It will always be our duty to do the best we can with whatever money politicians allocate. We will always make the case when our professional judgment is that budgets will have a dramatic effect on services.”

He added: “If we do face a scenario of 27,500 officers by 2021, we will have to reduce or stop things. We will have to concentrate on crimes which cause the most harm. We could become less proactive, with prevention work in schools and neighbourhoods suffering, as the resources we have focus on meeting response demand.

“We may have to scale back our response to concentrate on the biggest emergencies. And we will have to look again at some of our specialisms – can we afford them if we can’t afford what many rightly see as basic policing?”

Mr Khan warned that the “alarming scale” of the police funding crisis meant that the public’s safety was being put at risk.

The mayor’s warning comes after official figures revealed a 13 per cent increase in the number of offences recorded by police in the year to June.

More than £600 million of savings have already been made across the force since 2010, with a further £400million of savings needed by 2021.