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Official report rates London's Met Police as requiring improvement

Xinhua, March 3, 2017 Adjust font size:

London's Metropolitan Police, also known as the Met Police, was among British police forces rated as requiring improvement in an official report Thursday.

The HMIC report said most of the 43 forces in England and Wales are providing a good service.

But only one police force, Durham, was rated as outstanding, while the Metropolitan Police and 12 other forces were rated as requiring improvement.

The police standards agency, the HM Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC), warned some police forces are putting the public at risk as they struggle with spending cutbacks.

They warned there was now a national crisis caused by a shortage of police detectives, with the Metropolitan Police alone short by 700.

The inspectorate also said some forces are downgrading emergency 999 calls to justify responding to them more slowly.

Zoe Billingham, lead inspector for the HMIC report said "We are leading to a very serious conclusion regarding the potentially perilous state of British policing."

Steve White, chair of the Police Federation of England and Wales which represents rank-and-file officers, noted the impact of police budget cuts, saying "The federation has been pointing out the pitfalls of continually taking the axe to police budgets over successive years and warning that it will actually hurt the very people we have pledged to protect, members of the public.

"This is of major concern. This report has got to be a wake-up call," White warned.

Also on Thursday, a full register of every occasion a British police officer users force, or fires a taser device, was introduced for the first time.

The data will allow meaningful comparison of the effectiveness of different restraint techniques.

In January, 82 percent of police officers who responded to a national survey by the Police Federation said Tasers should be issued to more frontline officers.

And a poll by the Metropolitan Police Federation revealed that 75 percent percent of its officers surveyed felt they should be issued with Taser while on duty.

Rudd said police officers will have to record the location and outcome of all Taser usage, along with the ethnicity and age of those involved, with the first set of data being published by forces this summer. Endit