Mayor earmarks additional £151m to support the Metropolitan Police and keep Londoners safe

Additional funding means the Mayor has now more than doubled - an increase of 103 per cent – the investment in policing and crime prevention from City Hall since he came to office

Sadiq continues to step in to fund policing in the capital to fill the massive gaps left by cuts and inadequate national investment from the Government

Analysis shows that Government funding for the Met will have fallen in real terms by a third, over £1billion, since 2010-11, while the previous Mayor cut the Met funding in real terms by 28 per cent

Mayor’s final draft budget proposes a record £1.148bn of funding for the Met in total for 2024-25

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has today announced his intention to invest an additional £151m in policing and crime prevention as he confirms his final draft budget for 2024-25. This means the Mayor has now more than doubled the annual support for policing and crime prevention since he came to office in 2016. By comparison, the previous Mayor cut the police budget in real terms by 28 per cent in the previous eight years, and over the last 14 years the Government has reduced the Met police budget in real terms by 32 per cent.

Keeping Londoners safe is the Mayor’s top priority. He has had to repeatedly step in with additional funding for the police to fill the gaps left by massive Government cuts and an ongoing lack of national investment in policing and crime prevention.

Sadiq initially announced in January that he would provide an extra £88m to fund the Met in this year’s budget. But he’s now able to propose even more funding for the police from City Hall due to prudent financial planning and higher income from local authority business rates. 

The Mayor has earmarked:

• An additional £48.9m, in addition to the £88.4 million he announced last month, plus £7.2m following the end of COVID-19 funding repayments, to support the Met police in 2024-25.
• An additional £6.5m to support the Mayor’s Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) across the next two years.  

The extra investment in the VRU will help to boost community-led projects to tackle violence in neighbourhoods and estates and to fund a programme of street-based youth workers to divert young Londoners away from robbery and violence after school.   

Publishing his final draft budget for the GLA Group today, the Mayor is proposing to invest £1.148bn in total in the Met for 2024-25 – a 103 per cent increase compared to the previous Mayor.

The proportion of the Met police budget provided by City Hall has now increased from 19 per cent in 2016 to 27 per cent in the proposed budget for 2024-25, showing the extent to which the Government has refused to properly fund the police in London, and the increased investment from City Hall.

Analysis shows that compared to 2010-11, Government funding for the Met has only increased by 2 per cent in cash terms. In real terms, that's a funding cut of over £1 billion, or a 32.4 per cent real terms reduction using December 2023 inflation figures. Continuing inflation means that the real-terms reduction will be a third in 2024-25.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “Bearing down on crime and keeping Londoners safe is my top priority as Mayor. That’s why I’m proud to be announcing that we’ll be investing a record £1.148bn in policing this year from City Hall. This means we will be providing more than double the amount of funding for the police and crime prevention compared to when I first become Mayor. 

“The reality is the Government continues to chronically underfund policing in London so I’m having to step in and use all the levers at my disposal to provide the urgent additional funding needed.

“As well as more money for the police, I’m also announcing an additional £6.5m for London’s Violence Reduction Unit so we can take more action to help divert young Londoners away from gangs and crime. This is part of my approach of being both tough on crime and tough on the complex cause of crime as we work to build a safer London for everyone.”

ENDS

Notes to editors:

In 2016-17, the then Mayor provided council tax funding of £566.7m for policing and no business rates income. In 2024-25 the Mayor is providing council tax, business rates and general grant funding of £1.148bn a 103 per cent increase. 

In the latest Government funding round, the Met police has been given proportionally less money than the rest of the country, receiving only a 3.5 per cent increase next year compared to 6 per cent across the rest of England. This is despite the Met having to bear even more pressure than usual for its unique national policing activities. This 3.5 per cent Government figure assumes the Mayor increases council tax by the maximum allowed, and includes £60m for additional pension costs caused by previous government decisions. After these, the actual funding increase is just £9.1m (0.4 per cent). The Home Office commissioned an independent panel to review the National and International Capital Cities (NICC) grant which reported in 2015-16 found that the Met receives a shortfall in funding of £159m a year. New Met analysis, and independent review commissioned by the Home Office, showed the shortfall from the NICC alone is now around £240m.

The Met has been dealing with the greatest period of sustained pressure on its resources since the London Olympic Games in 2012, with a large increase in the number of marches, protests and national events taking place in the capital. But the Government has refused to provide the additional funding needed, instead confirming that it will be maintaining the National and International Capital Cities (NICC) grant for 2024-25 at £185m – a real-terms cut. This is adding huge financial pressure to an already stretched police service that has faced over a decade of cuts by the Government.

Since the VRU was set up in 2019, there has been a 22 per cent reduction in homicides, 20 per cent fall in knife crime with injury for those aged under-25, and a 16 per cent reduction in robbery. Over the last two years, London’s Violence Reduction Unit has invested in more than 150,000 positive opportunities for young people. This includes measures to support families, funding to keep young people in education and tackle school exclusions, investment in the vital role played by youth workers and mentors, and support and resources for communities to tackle the issues affecting their neighbourhoods.

The Mayor’s final draft budget for the Greater London Authority (GLA) Group will be published atwww.london.gov.uk/budget

The GLA Group final draft budget covers the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (Metropolitan Police), TfL, the London Fire Brigade, the London Legacy Development Corporation (Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park), the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation, and the core Greater London Authority, including the London Assembly.