Criticism from Local Assembly Member Dr Onkar Sahota
Police officers from Ealing are being used to 'plug gaps' in other public order operations throughout London according to new figures.
Data shows that 353 officer shifts are being lost from Ealing’s police force every month.The Metropolitan Police statistics were provided to Labour’s London Assembly policing spokesperson Joanne McCartney.
In 2014, Ealing officers were removed from their local beat for a total of 4238 shifts. In the first nine months of 2015, 3088 neighbourhood policing shifts were lost to so called 'abstractions'. Across the capital 111,684 shifts were lost in 2014, more than 2,000 a week.
The Metropolitan police said that the officer shifts were provided by boroughs to “support London wide Public Order operations.” These kind of operations generally include large scale events in other parts of the capital.
However Labour London Assembly Member for Ealing, Dr Onkar Sahota has criticised the move. He said: ''When officers are being removed from Ealing’s streets 353 times a month it’s incredibly misleading of the Mayor to claim they are local bobbies.
''Londoners want neighbourhood police to be visible in their communities not pulled off the beat to plug gaps in other parts of London.
''The Mayor’s cuts have meant neighbourhood police teams in Ealing have already lost 202 uniformed officers since 2010. To then further reduce local teams by over 353 officer shifts a month damages the capacity of local policing teams to police their neighbourhoods.
''At the heart of concerns set out in the latest HMIC report is a shortage of both police officers and funding with HMIC finding that the lack of trained detectives and basic equipment is undermining their ability to reduce crime and keep people safe. This won’t be helped by regularly removing officers from boroughs.''
February 23rd 2016