News from Unmesh Desai: 40,000 missing person cases in less than a year places strain upon Met

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ASSEMBLY

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News release

27.12.2018

For immediate use

40,000 missing person cases in less than a year places strain upon Met

There were 39,790 missing person reports made to the Metropolitan Police in the first 11 months of this year, according to figures released by the Mayor of London. Labour’s London Assembly Spokesperson for Policing and Crime, Unmesh Desai AM, who requested this data through a written question to the Mayor, has called upon the Government to allocate the “level of funding and resources needed by the Met to effectively investigate and manage these cases”.

The Metropolitan Police’s latest ‘Force Management Statement’, published in June 2018, states that London has approximately 20% of the national demand in terms of missing person cases and has seen a 72% increase in reported cases over the last decade.

In October, a Home Affairs Select Committee report attributed the demand on policing, arising from cases involving missing people, to a combination of “funding reductions to other public services, the extensive use of out-of-area placements for looked after children, a lack of data and intelligence-sharing between the police and other public agencies, and an excessive dependence on the police as a service-of-last-resort for vulnerable individuals”.

Alongside the increased level of demand being placed upon officers, the burgeoning number of missing person cases is also presenting significant financial implications for the Met Police.

According to a report released by The Centre for Missing Persons, the realistic average cost to police forces when investigating a medium-risk missing person case is £2,415. In October, the BBC reported that the total cost to the Met of investigating cases is estimated to be between £70m and £130m each financial year.

The Met’s Business Plan 2018-2021 has pledged to “significantly improve” its “approach to the handling and response to missing persons”.

The Plan highlights specific measures to be carried out such as putting a framework in place to allow partner agencies to able to report missing persons online, rolling out enhanced awareness training for frontline officers and improving safeguarding processes for vulnerable children and adults.

The Home Office’s Serious Violence Strategy, published in April 2018, has identified missing children and adolescents as being particularly vulnerable to becoming caught up in exploitation by gangs and county lines drug trafficking.

Last week, the Government announced its Police Funding Settlement for 2019/2020 which pledged £172 million of extra funding per year for the Metropolitan Police.

However, this figure has been deemed insufficient in the face of the scale of Government cuts since 2010, which have forced the Met Police to make £850 million in savings since 2010 and find a further £335 million of budget reductions by 2022/23.

Labour’s London Assembly Spokesperson for Policing and Crime, Unmesh Desai AM, said:

“For families suffering the pain and uncertainty of a loved one going missing, Christmas can be a particularly challenging time. It is imperative that we should be able to offer reassurances to these families that the police have the capacity to do all they can to bring those missing, safely home.

“Whilst we are seeing the Met put in place measures to adapt to the rising number of missing person reports, the Government must allocate the level of funding and resources needed by police teams to effectively investigate and manage these cases.

“Sadly, with the recent and extremely disappointing Police Funding Settlement announcement, the Government are failing to recognise the extent to which the police are picking up the pieces of the decimation of our public services, after almost a decade of austerity.

“The stark and unavoidable reality is that unless the Government completely reconsider their approach to police funding, the number of missing persons reports will simply become unsustainable”.

ENDS