£330m Met cuts ‘are dangerous and reckless gamble with safety’

12 April 2012

Ministers were today accused of taking a "reckless gamble" with public safety at the London Olympics after it was revealed that the Met will suffer a £330 million cut in government funding over the next two years.

Figures obtained from the House of Commons library show that the Met will lose £159.2 million next year — equivalent to 7.5 per cent of what it currently receives — followed by an 8.7 per cent cut in support the following year.

The cuts follow the announcement that the separate Olympic security budget is to be slashed by nearly a quarter, with £125 million less now due to be spent than was previously planned. The number of police on duty is expected to be cut.

Ministers say that lower than anticipated security costs at the 2012 Games lie behind the drop in funding and that there will be no increase in the risk to the public and participants. They also argue that efficiency savings can ensure that the Met and other forces are able to cope with the similarly large cuts in budgets for mainstream policing.

Shadow home secretary Ed Balls warned today that the Metropolitan Police faced a "real terms cut" of more than £330 million in two years.

"To ram through these cuts to policing in the capital at a time of rising public protest on our streets, an ongoing terror threat and the security challenge of the 2012 Olympics is a reckless and dangerous gamble," he said.

Mr Balls added: "Police resources will already be over-stretched in 2012, but trying to cut the security budget by 21 per cent and cutting funding to police forces by 8.5 per cent in the year of the Olympics is a risky move.

Protecting visiting VIPs, including heads of state and royal families from around the world, and securing dozens of Olympic venues cannot be done by cutting corners."

Labour's shadow Olympics minister Tessa Jowell has also written to Home Secretary Theresa May asking for an explanation as to why it is now deemed to be "safe and realistic" to cut the Games security budget so sharply.

Mrs May has told MPs that although she now expects spending on Olympic security to fall to £475 million, £125 million less than the original budget, the money saved will be kept available in case costs rise.

A Home Office spokesman today said that no risks were being taken with public safety and that the lower budget was the result of efficiencies and an improved estimation of the likely costs of providing security at the Games.

The spokesman said that ministers also believed that the separate cuts to mainstream police funding faced by the Met could be absorbed without harming frontline policing.

Town halls

Spending cuts of 11 per cent across London will see swathes of council-run services either disappear or be vastly reduced.

In a bid to save more than £350 million, the Government announced that the 32 boroughs and the City will this year receive 11.3 per cent less from Whitehall.

The Department for Communities said it has tried to "insulate the poorest and most vulnerable areas".

Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Newham will each receive grants of up to £5.8 million to ease the pain. This year's £354 million grant cut in London represents 30 per cent of the national total. In London, bin collections and street cleaning could be the first to suffer from the cutbacks.

Schools

Hundreds of London teachers dealing with disadvantaged children face the axe, unions claimed today.

Inner-city boroughs are having to lay off directly employed teachers, including those who help children who do not speak English, have severe behavioural problems or cannot attend school.

New funding settlements mean Camden, Haringey and Tower Hamlets are among boroughs likely to axe more than 10 outreach teaching posts each, said the National Union of Teachers. Education Secretary Michael Gove said schools will get a "good deal".

Defence

MPs and military chiefs clashed today over who was to blame for a £36 billion black hole in the Ministry of Defence's spending plans.

The Commons public accounts committee accused the civil servants of having a "dangerous culture of optimism" which meant budgets were allowed to get out of control.

Chairwoman Labour MP Margaret Hodge said: "It is astonishing that the department has hitherto failed to develop a proper long-term financial strategy linking its funding to its core priorities and providing a clear basis for making cuts."

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