This week, the think tank Policy Exchange delivered a mid-term report on the performance of Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley, who was enticed out of an apparently lucrative retirement to take command of the capital’s beleaguered police service. He will not find it agreeable reading, but then little that crosses his desk these days is.
The report was written by a former colleague of Rowley’s, David Spencer, who served as a Detective Chief Inspector in the force. It is unsparing in its use of data to paint a picture of a force that has only gone downhill since Rowley’s appointment. But is this a fair characterisation of his time at the helm?
The Commissioner was appointed after a competitive process when the Met was at its lowest. It’s hard to imagine why anyone would want to take over an organisation reeling after the conviction of one of its officers for the rape and murder of Sarah Everard, and mired in accusations of rampant misbehaviour in the ranks which caused his predecessor to resign. The Met was in the middle of multiple external reviews of its culture and performance, including the Casey review, which labelled it after his appointment as ‘institutionally racist’, as well as institutionally misogynistic and homophobic. Rowley was given three mandates for his tenure by the two politicians in charge of his appointment, the Mayor of London and the Home Secretary – to rebuild trust, restore basic policing standards and drive down crime in London.
In terms of trust, as Spencer points out there has been no progress, only reversal. Polling of confidence in the Metropolitan Police records record lows. Less than half of Londoners asked think his organisation is doing a good job. Rowley framed his mission in terms of the ‘renewal of policing by consent’, promising ‘more trust, less crime and high standards’. On trust at least, he has failed to move the needle. The perception of policing caving in to the mob as central London was paralysed by huge and relentless pro-Palestinian protests with antisemitic mobs within them flouting the law in front of helpless or indifferent officers has been one hugely damaging factor in this descent. Rowley would argue with some validity that he does not have the legal powers to ban contentious parades. But shocking scenes such as the Met appearing to facilitate or at least fail to stop an antisemitic protest outside a North London synagogue just a few weeks ago provide powerful evidence that the Met does not have the will to enforce existing powers, undermining the case for new ones.
The verdict is more mixed on his promise to restore standards in policing. Here he can point to progress from a very low base. Since his appointment in September 2022, he has focused on stricter vetting, fast track misconduct procedures, and dismissals to address those institutional harms highlighted by the Casey review. In the 2024/25 financial year alone, 123 officers were dismissed for gross misconduct (a threefold increase from pre-2022 levels). But getting rid of bad cops only has an impact if they can be replaced by good ones. Policing at the front line of London and elsewhere is becoming an increasingly unattractive career choice. Significantly more police officers left the Met, the majority through resignation, than joined in the last reporting year. An 8% decline in police constable numbers in the Met’s Basic Command Units has been matched by a 15% increase in back office staff. This is not progress.
On driving down crime, there are more green shoots. In the 12 months to August 2025, violent crimes resulting in injury fell by nearly 12% across all boroughs, with Londoners less likely to be victims than in the rest of England and Wales. Homicides are at a 10-year low. While it is difficult to ascribe success to the Commissioner’s efforts, his supporters point to this being the direct product of more intelligence-led and targeted interventions which have sharply increased arrest rates.
But as certain key crime types fall, crime by volume is increasing, with worrying trends in rising knife crime and sexual violence. Notifiable offences for theft and robbery are surging, while detection rates are still far too low.
All these challenges take place against a backdrop of a real terms decrease in funding for the capital’s police. The job is one of the most complex in public service, and it ought to be remembered that Rowley volunteered to take up this poisoned chalice after a career guiding London through some of its darkest days as the national head of counter terrorism policing in 2017. He has done the state some service. The question is whether he has the capacity, or even the appetite, to be the answer to the Met’s many deeply entrenched problems. As the Policy Exchange report says in its title, there is still a long, long way to go to have that answer.
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