Cressida Dick says officers are unable to dedicate as much resource to gathering intelligence to prevent future attacks

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Counter-terrorism resources are stretched and investigations into other crimes are being shelved in order to support the pursuit of extremists, the country’s top police officer has said.

Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan police commissioner, said the terrorism attacks in the capital meant officers had to spend more time investigating retrospectively and were unable to dedicate as much resource to gathering intelligence to prevent future attacks.

I was a police officer for 30 years. Tory cuts have left the service in crisis | Paul Herdman Read more

The counter-terrorism units had been supplemented by officers and resources from other departments, meaning some inquiries had been paused, Dick told City Hall.

“The counter-terrorism network is certainly stretched,” she told the London assembly police and crime committee.

“Before 12 weeks ago they had a set of people and they still have that set of people in essence and they’ve now had four major attacks to deal with and disrupted five other plots.

“Those all take a great deal of backward-looking investigative resource and it takes potentially away from the proactive and forward-looking intelligence work.

“We have supplemented the national counter-terrorism network from some of our crime resources nationally and in London, and we need to do that, and we’re shifting resources and people across the Met.

“This does have an impact on other investigations. We’ve had to pause some and slow down on some and that’s just a necessity.”

London’s emergency services have come under pressure due to a series of major incidents, including three terrorist attacks and the Grenfell Tower blaze. Nationally, the counter-terrorism network also had to contend with the Manchester Arena bombing.

The commissioner’s warning follows an intervention by the country’s leading counter-terror officer about the risk of directing resources from other policing priorities.

Assistant commissioner Mark Rowley said in a letter to the home secretary that the fight against terrorism could have a “significant impact” on combating other crime in England and Wales.

He said counter-terror efforts could not operate at full strength as detectives were also working in greater numbers on areas such as child abuse.

The Home Office claimed “detailed engagement” was under way with police over potential funding changes, after Dick told it the Met could not cope with further cuts.

The government took £2.3bn out of the policing budget between 2010 and 2015. The number of police officers in England and Wales has fallen from a peak of 144,353 in 2009 to 122,859 in 2016.

Meanwhile, the number of specialist armed police officers has dipped from a peak of 6,796 in 2010 to 5,639 in 2016.