Talk:City of London Police

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Does anyone have any definite evidence about the rank badge of a City of London Assistant Commissioner? I changed it to a crown above the crossed tipstaves, but someone's changed it back to a pip. However, this webpage clearly shows it as a crown. Is this an old badge or is it still a crown? Anyone? -- Necrothesp 13:18, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Since nobody responded, I have changed back to version shown on website. -- Necrothesp 17:05, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

66.108.103.59, please give an explanation of your change to the AC's rank badge. -- Necrothesp 18:59, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Assistant Commissioner mike bowronnotice he has a pip over the crossed tipstaves thats why i changed it.

Fair enough. They must have changed the insignia since then. -- Necrothesp 00:18, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Unique?

Spyfly has added a line on 13/2/06 stating that the City force is partly funded by the Corporation of London making it unique. As i understand it this just the same as every other Home Office force which receives part of its funding from the local governement of its particular area. In the City's case this is the Corporation. Therefore this is not a particularily unique feature. I tempted to delete this. Any thoughts? Dibble999 17:39, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't know how it works elsewhere, but I get charged a precept directly by Leicestershire Constabulary that appears on my Council Tax bill, but doesn't go into Leicester City Council's budget. Whereas this seems to be talking about a 'giving the police force' money item in the Corporation's budget. I don't know how this works for non-joint police authorities, though. Morwen - Talk 19:08, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

The whole point of British police independence is surely that they are separate from the local authority. As Morwen says, we pay for them through the Council Tax, but that has nothing to do with the local authority apart from as a collector. -- Necrothesp 23:49, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you but I think your missing the point of my query. Spyfly added (which I deleted) that the City force is unique because it gets part funding from the Corporation of London. As I understand it the Corporation is the local government of the City so its just like Leicester City Council or Warwickshire County Council gathering and part funding Leicestershire Constabulary and Warwickshire Police. So I imagine a resident of the City has a precept on his/her council tax bill for the City of London Police. The City force is unique for other reasons (red markings, tiny area etc) but not for the this reason...I think. I will be gladly be corrected if someone can suggest otherwise! Regards. Dibble999 11:06, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

But the resident population of the Square Mile is only about 5,000, I believe. You wouldn't get much in the way of precepts from that, so I would suspect the Corporation has to fund the force. -- Necrothesp 19:11, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Business, commercial property and industry must also pay 'council tax' with police precepts which would also fund the force, not just the (granted) small population. Plenty of them in the square mile (rich too). I would also imagine the non-residential 'council tax' will be very high. Its worth keeping in mind that most of the Home Office police force funding comes through central government via the Home Office. I'm still not convinced it is any different from other Home Office force. Dibble999 23:24, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

They don't pay council tax, but uniform non-domestic rates, with a special City weighting, which then goes into the coffers of the City. There's no evidence either way whether the City of London Police precepts or just bills the Corporation - so I'm just explaining how it would be possible for the factlet to be true - not trying to argue that it is. I shall look into how city rates work more - also will find the Corporation's budget. Morwen - Talk 19:02, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Morwen. I would be very interested to find out what the situation is with the funding. On another point, although London forces are not in the current proposed mergers across the country, you'd have thought this forces days are numbered too. Especially taking into consideration the reasons for the proposed mergers. Dibble999 10:12, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Logic and constitency would indicate that, but the City and Corporation of London has never been bound by those. It has indeed been openly discussed Ken suggesting it back in 2004, and even Ian Blair saying it is under review in 2005. This is probably worth putting it in the article - if we can find more recent stuff that would be good. Morwen - Talk 22:31, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok. The Corporation of London includes in its accounts for FY 2004/2005, a sum of £82 million for police. It also includes in its accounts a credit for the Police Support Grant from central government, of £32 million. The non-domestic business rate for the city is 45.9p, which is 0.3p above the rate elsewhere, and raise about half a billion from that. They raise about £5 million from Council Tax. There doesn't seem to be a separate police rate any more. Morwen - Talk 10:14, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Good resarch Morwen. I suppose that does make the CoLP a bit different, in terms of funding, compared with every other Home Office force? Its a bit of a historical, political throughback that one square mile has its own force, but money talks I suppose! They have an excellent fraud squad though. Further to my last point above, a colleague in BTP has told me that the Metropolitan Police is pushing to have BTP functions within the M25 merged into its own force. In effect BTP would not exist in London with rail and underground policing falling to the Met. The governement is allegedly looking into this especially with 2012 coming up. Its worth noting that if BTP lose London, BTP would struggle to justify its existence in the rest of the country. (Thats from an operational viewpoint). These possible changes may also play a huge part in the future of the CoLP. So, a knock on from all these changes may be that the CoLP and BTP may be looking at moves to abolish. I would need to find some basis for all the above before adding to any article. Its all been passed to me by colleagues and it may just be a faulty grape vine! Regards Dibble999 13:18, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Are there police 'trade' newspapers/magazines that would cover this sort of thing? Morwen - Talk 18:00, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

From what I've heard, the Met's pushing for mergers/acquisitions has been rejected, both by the Government and by CoLP and BTP. It was essentially just Sir Ian Blair demanding more power and being told he couldn't have it (I hardly think the Government's in much of a mood to give him any more power — he hasn't exactly done much to show he deserves it). Also, the Corporation of London has always strongly resisted any suggestion of the CoLP being merged with the Met, and seems likely to continue to do so. Proteus (Talk) 18:12, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Population

We say the City's resident population is 8,043 (which seems far too precise, but never mind), but the City Police's website claims it's "about 6,000". That's a pretty big difference. The City of London article itself makes an even higher claim — 8,600. The only figure I can find on the Corporation's website is 7,185, but that was in 2001. Is there a definitive source anywhere? Proteus (Talk) 12:21, 18 June 2006 (UTC)