Sir Mark Rowley called for a ‘polluter pays approach’ for policing events like football matches, which leave forces rather than Premier League clubs on the hook for a massive bill
Football clubs should be forced to contribute to the £70million bill for policing football matches, the Metropolitan Police chief has said.
Sir Mark Rowley said there should be a “polluter pays approach” as he expressed alarm at the costs facing forces. It came as the top cop called for a radical overhaul in policing to make better use of “limited funding”.
Sir Mark told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: “Policing of football matches across the country, mainly Premier League, cost policing £70 million it doesn’t get back from football clubs. In London, it’s more than a third of that.
“We should have more of a polluter pays approach. If you’re running a profit making event that because of the nature of it, requires security, requires policing to support your security because of the criminality that is going to be experienced, why isn’t the organiser paying for that, rather than local communities who lose their resources to go to football matches?”
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His suggestion could also apply to organisers of other big events, like musical festivals and concerts.
The Met Police Commissioner also called for the creation of 12-15 mega forces as part of what he described as “the first serious reform of our policing model in over 60 years”. Writing in The Sunday Times, he said the current system of 43 county forces had not “been fit for purpose for at least two decades”.
“We need to reduce the number of forces by two-thirds, with the new bigger and fully capable regional forces supported by the best of modern technology and making better use of the limited funding available,” he said.
Sir Mark said Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s decision to increase police funding by 2.3% above inflation each year in the spending review was “disappointing” for already squeezed budgets.
“We’ve cut 1,600 [officers] over the last couple of years, another 1,700 officers and staff this year, that 3,300 over – out of an organisation just over 40,000 is a big hit,” he said. “We’re having to focus increasingly the spending settlement looking ahead, we haven’t got all the details yet, I’m nervous about whether we’ll be able to make ends meet with that.
“That’s why I’m calling today for a radical police reform, to help us make the best use of the money we’ve got.
The Met Police chief said he didn’t want frontline policing to suffer from strained resources but officers were increasingly diverted into safeguarding vulnerable people due to cuts to other public services, such as kids going missing from children’s homes.
Sir Mark said the police reforms are “essential”, adding: “If we look at the spending on policing and public safety from the 80s through to the noughties, it was a much higher level than it is today. Over the last decade or more, the proportion that governments are prepared to put to policing is much lower. I don’t see that changing dramatically.
“So we’ve got to make the best use of every pound that governments can give to us.”
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