Plans set out by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan to invest an additional £234m in policing and tackling violent crime in the capital have been confirmed following a meeting of the London Assembly. This funding includes an additional £119 million from London’s business rates to support policing numbers in future years. This will help to protect existing officer numbers from proposed technical future Government changes to the business rates system.
Sadiq’s Budget also commits £20.4 million to take further measures to tackle violence. This will support additional moves against serious violence, including tackling gangs and enhanced provision youth workers at hospital Accident and Emergency units.
Keeping Londoners safe is the Mayor’s top priority and he is investing record amounts in the Metropolitan Police in the face of huge Government cuts to policing. Ministers have already forced the Met to make savings of £850m, and the force still has to make further savings of £263m by 2022-23.
The Mayor has confirmed that he is to increase his share of council tax by an average of 50p a week from April, just below nine per cent overall. This is the maximum allowed by the Government and most of the proceeds will directly fund the Metropolitan Police.