Brixton police numbers cut

[Stobart Stopper]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4969120.stm
I find this really silly, just seen it on the tv news.

[Termite Man]

12 officers in brixton town centre :mad:

[ChrisFilter]

Fucking idiots.. :(

[Donna Ferentes]

12 officers in brixton town centre :mad:Up from none, according to Michael Howard.

[citydreams]

There were 20 constables assigned to brixton town centre??????

[dervish]

They've all moved to Soho. :(

In the last few days there have been hundreds around here, I've seen at least 4 people being busted for spliff this week.

Pointless waste of time. Watched two of them doing circuits of Soho square yesterday, they went round four times then met up with their mates and went off in a group of about 8 coppers. Didn't seem to achieve very much though.

[detective-boy]

There were 20 constables assigned to brixton town centre??????
For many years they have had a dediicated team assigned to the Town Centre area. This has not been the case with most other areas, with them having one or two local community officers assigned to each beat.

I suspect this apparent reduction in numbers has been because of the introduction of dedicated ward teams on each and every ward (one of Kens initiatives, funded to a large extent by the GLA, at least for the first year or two). This means that there is something like a Sgt, two constables and two CSOs assigned to each ward area (not much bigger than the police beats). As the "town centre" is partially in (to my recollection) at least two wards these officers will be available as well as the dedicated town centre team superimposed over the top.

I would doubt that it will make any major change to the numbers of officers available in the town centre area and the restrictions on taking the ward teams away to other duties (which did not apply so much to the town centre team) may even mean that more are seen about.

I am certainly not aware of Lambeth division losing any numbers to other divisions such as the City of Westminster (the Soho think sounds like a short term initiative, either focussing local resources or temporarily using the TSG to deal with a particular issue in a particular area.)

[agricola]

One hardly thinks this is the Lambeth SMT's fault.

There is an awful lot of pressure on Police numbers on individual boroughs now, not only with the "Safer Neighbourhoods" rollout (as DB mentions this will need 1 sgt 2 pcs and 2 pcso per ward) but (as mentioned at the bottom of the article) Lambeth is just starting its transition to the Metcall/IBO communications system. This has meant that Pc's and Sergeants across Lambeth are being taken off response teams and replacing the CAD operators from Brixton and Kennington, who are all off to Metcall.

In effect this has reduced team strengths by (on average) a sergeant and three Pc's from every relief at each site from Lambeth (Streatham, Kennington and Brixton), so its not surprising that they cant fill posts on the Town Centre team, because there arent enough people to do that, staff the IBOs and rollout Safer Neighbourhoods at the same time - as well as maintaining a safe amount of officers on the response teams.

Ironically the fact that Lambeth is the number one performing borough in the whole of London (in terms of crime reduction Lambeth hit or exceeded every one of its targets and was second in terms of overall reductions only to the freakshow that is Westminster) could concievably mean that the resource allocation for Lambeth actually goes down over the next couple of years.

[RushcroftRoader]

If this does amount to less bobbies on the street, it is a bloody disgrace.
Lets hope that it doesn't mean that.

[phildwyer]

bobbies

?

[gaijingirl]

?

29 September 1829: The Metropolitan Police was founded. The new constables were nicknamed 'peelers' or 'bobbies' after the Home Secretary. (Robert Peel). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobbies)

[detective-boy]

Ironically the fact that Lambeth is the number one performing borough in the whole of London (in terms of crime reduction Lambeth hit or exceeded every one of its targets and was second in terms of overall reductions only to the freakshow that is Westminster) could concievably mean that the resource allocation for Lambeth actually goes down over the next couple of years.
Sadly this is all too frequent. The MPS is notoriously bad at building in permanent success - it focuses attention on a problem, usually solves it, and then, because the graphs show there is no problem any more, they move their attention (and resources) somewhere else and the problem comes back.

I recently saw that armed robbery is making a comeback. It was huge in the 80s. The Flying Squad concentrated attention on it and in the 90s it plummetted. So they gave the Flying Squad some other things to do as well, diluting their attention and resources ... and, oh look!, armed robbery is back again.

Somehow they seem to be surprised every time ... :rolleyes:

[CPCG]

This issue was raised at the March CPCG public meeting (minute 68 on (http://www.downloads.lambethcpcg.org.uk/Minutes%200603.pdf)). Basically, the police are saying that whilst they are reducing the size of the Town Centre Team, other resources will be redirected to make up the difference (from the Brixton Safer Neighbourhood Teams and also the task force which works across central Lambeth - the latter are uniformed officers who will report to the Brixton Inspector and get out of the cars to patrol the Town Centre). Plus, the Town Centre Team will no longer have responsibility for policing Academy events, which are very disruptive of rota's etc.

At the same time, Brixton Town Centre will benefit from the new techy coordinating centre which has been set up in Brixton nick, as will the rest of wider 'Brixton'.

Of course, with a more flexible way of delivery there is more room for smoke and mirrors but the assurance has been given that there will be no diminution in the capacity delivered into the Town Centre. Something we'll all be watching closely - there has been progress over the last 6 months and it would be a shame to lose it.

[RushcroftRoader]

I got the following email from Inspector Low regarding the BBC article:

"They are misinterpreting the issue, despite my explainations. In reality what has happened is that staff have been realigned but we maintain the focus within the Town Centre. This is being monitored closely and if we need to make changes then we will."

:cool:

[pooka]

It would be interesting to know why this story surfaced on polling day and who planted it. There must be a variety of suspects!