Jenny Jones has called on London’s Mayor to target police overtime in
his efforts to find efficiencies in City Hall spending. Jenny will
question the Mayor, who also chairs the Metropolitan Police Authority,
as he makes plans for his first City Hall budget.
Figures recently obtained by Jenny show that overtime for police
officers, police staff, and PCSOs cost almost £180m in 2007/08. This
was an increase of over £10m from 2006/07 overtime spending and
continues a rising trend in Met overtime costs.
"Despite the significant recent rise in police numbers, the Met has
failed to get a culture of overtime spending under control. These
unnecessary costs could pay for over 80% of the safer neighbourhood
teams in the capital. The Mayor must make the Met find more efficient
ways of policing London. Relying on overtime to police London puts
community safety at risk and increases costs."
ENDS
Notes to editors
Jenny Jones is available for comment
Jenny asked the following question to the Mayor and received the response below.
Police budget (2)
Question No: 1603 / 2008
Jenny Jones
Can you give figures for Met police overtime for the last two years?
The Metropolitan Police Service has provided the following overtime figures for the last two years:
2006/07 2007/08
Outturn Outturn
£k £k
Police Officers 135,923 143,411
Police Staff 32,015 34,809
PCSOs 978 1,546
Traffic Wardens 888 566
These figures are consistent with the published MPA statement of accounts of 2006/07 and draft of 2007/08.