"It is simply not true for Murad Qureshi, a Labour Party List Assembly Member, to talk about the ‘demise’ of Safer Neighbourhood teams (SNTs) in the policing of London. Quite the opposite – SNTs are being enhanced.

The Met Commissioner is introducing 2000 more officers in local safer neighbourhood teams across London. That means there will be 79 more officers in local SNTs in Wandsworth by 2015 and 49 more officers in Merton.

We will also now have a local SNT ‘sheriff’ – a clear figurehead to go to if we have concerns about local policing in our boroughs

It is also disingenuous to claim we previously had two ‘dedicated’ PCs and three PCSOs and now have one ‘dedicated’ PC and PCSO. This is not comparing like for like. There will be far more than two officers in each SNT team. And we will indeed now have one ‘dedicated’ PC and one dedicated PCSO. But there were no such ‘dedicated’ officers before. In the past all SNT officers could be abstracted to other boroughs. That meant some of our SNTs could sometimes be empty! Now two posts cannot be abstracted. It is therefore simply a more transparent and reliable system for Londoners."

Richard Tracey AM
London Assembly Member for Wandsworth and Merton

 

May 3, 2013