LESS THAN HALF OF LONDONERS ARE SATISFIED WITH NEIGHBOURHOOD POLICE

12.01.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Fri 14th Jan 2005

Ahead of today's Making a Positive Difference to Londoners conference, sponsored by the Mayor and attended by Home Office Minister Hazel Blears MP, the London Assembly Lib Dems released new figures that show just 45% of Londoners are satisfied with their neighbourhood policing.

Liberal Democrat Member of the Metropolitan Police Authority, Lynne Featherstone, said:-

"It is deeply worrying that so few Londoners have confidence in their local neighbourhood police service.

"The public's low levels of satisfaction are a symptom of the fact that the Met is underperforming in key areas. With worsening emergency response times, poor detection rates and a lack of visible police patrols, it comes as little surprise that many Londoners have so little confidence in their local force.

"The introduction of dedicated neighbourhood policing teams is welcome and should increase public confidence, but in reality it could be years before every neighbourhood in London has its own dedicated team.

"The Met must now buck up, speed up reform and create a citizen-focused service that catches criminals, lowers crime and reduces the fear of crime. Londoners rightly expect to see officers patrolling their local streets, their calls for help responded to quickly and offenders caught and brought to justice."

ENDS

Notes to Editors

1. The figures show that only 45% of Londoners are satisfied with the way their local neighbourhood is policed, based on MPS surveys of Londoners. They are contained in a performance report which will be considered at an MPA Committee on Wednesday 19 January 2004: http://www.mpa.gov.uk/committees/ppr/default.htm

2. The same report shows that the Met is on course to miss 11 out of 37) targets set for it by the MPA for this financial year. These include targets on detection rates for total offences and rape offences in particular, the number of robberies, the satisfaction of victims of racist crimes and the number of hours spent on visible patrols.

3.London Assembly Liberal Democrats previously highlighted worsening Met police emergency response times: http://www.glalibdems.org.uk/news/212.html

4. According to Home Office figures the Met has one of the country's lowest success rates of detecting crime. The national average in 2003/4 was 23% while that of the MPS over the same period was 15% (source: Crime in England & Wales 2003/4, table 7.02; Home Office).