A total of 68 extra police officers will be patrolling the streets after an astonishing revision of the method used for calculating force requirements.

Hillingdon now has a target of 463 officers up from its previous force of 395. Currently, there are only 370 officers.

Richard Barnes, the deputy chairman of the Metropolitan Police Authority met colleagues on Monday (Dec 10) to agree on a new formula used to decide the number of coppers needed to safely police each borough in the capital.

The new Resource Allocation Formula (RAF) includes factors which are related to crime such as social deprivation and the number of bars, pubs and nightclubs in each area. The previous method only calculated demand by overall crime figures.

Mr Barnes, who is also the GLA member for Hillingdon and Ealing, said: "This shows how badly Hillingdon has been treated. The police force has been punished by an outdated formula for being so good at fighting crime. We have lost officers in the past and now we are 93 under-strength."

The GLA is on target to recruit 1,050 new officers across London from April 2002 and the new formula will determine how those officers should be divided amongst the boroughs.

Mr Barnes said: "We have been calling for a replacement of the old, outdated formula and now it's time to redress the balance. It will take some time for Hillingdon to absorb as many as 93 new recruits as they'll probably come in batches of 10 at a time.

"The RAF showed that many boroughs such as Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster had more officers than they need. They will not be considered when the new recruits are handed out next year whereas Hillingdon will be near the front of the queue. The new RAF will help to resource the boroughs better by sending recruits to places where they will be better utilised."

December 19, 2001 18:00