Election Lens · Issue
Policing
14 divided (non-unanimous, non-procedural) council or committee votes on this issue since January 1, 2023: 6 carry a clear direction on a tracked axis (counted in the patterns on each councillor’s stance profile); 8 carry a descriptive label but no directional axis (listed below, not counted in any pattern); 0 are genuinely unclear from the motion text.
This is a descriptive record, not an endorsement. Every row below is a real recorded council or committee vote since 2023. It says nothing about a councillor’s reasons, character, or fitness for office — only what was voted on and what a yea did. See What Council Actually Controls for how much of this any councillor actually controls.
For how each current councillor voted on these, see their stance profile.
| Date | Item | What a yea did | Motion (excerpt) | Tally | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-07-21 | (4.4) City of London Special Constable Program | Approved part e) of the amended motion, directing that the feasibility report also address impacts on existing service-delivery models with a specific focus on a mixed CIR/Special Constable staffing model. | That the following part of the main motion, as amended, BE APPROVED: e) potential impac… | 13-2 | Motion Passed (13 to 2) |
| 2026-07-21 | (4.4) City of London Special Constable Program | Approved parts a), b), c), d), and f) of the amended motion directing the Civic Administration to report back to the Community and Protective Services Committee on the feasibility of implementing a permanent City of London Special Constable Program. | That the following parts of the main motion, as amended, BE APPROVED: That the Civic Ad… | 10-5 | Motion Passed (10 to 5) |
| 2026-07-21 | (4.4) City of London Special Constable Program | Approved part d) of the amended report-back request, directing that the feasibility study include estimated costs, funding options including Automated Speed Enforcement Program revenue, and the financial feasibility of a permanent program. | That the following part BE APPROVED: d) estimated capital and operating costs, funding … | 10-5 | Motion Passed (10 to 5) |
| 2026-07-21 | (4.4) City of London Special Constable Program | Amended the wording of the feasibility report-back request to reframe it around a ‘permanent’ Special Constable Program and to add legislative authority over traffic and school-zone enforcement to what the report on legislative/regulatory requirements must cover. | That the following part BE APPROVED: That the motion BE AMENDED by replacing the words … | 10-5 | Motion Passed (10 to 5) |
| 2026-07-21 | (4.4) City of London Special Constable Program | Amended the wording of part e) of the requested Special Constable Program feasibility report to add a specific focus on a mixed CIR/Special Constable staffing model. | That part e) of the motion be amended to read as follows: e) potential impacts on exist… | 13-2 | Motion Passed (13 to 2) |
| 2026-07-21 | (4.4) City of London Special Constable Program | Would have referred the Special Constable Program feasibility item to the August 25, 2026 Council meeting, to give the public more time to review and comment before Council acted on it; this failed. | That the matter relating to a City of London Special Constable Program BE REFERRED to t… | 5-10 | Motion Failed (5 to 10) |
| 2026-07-13 | City of London Special Constable Program | Would have amended the requested feasibility report to reframe it around a ‘permanent’ Special Constable Program and add legislative authority over traffic and school-zone enforcement to the report’s scope; this failed on a tie vote. (committee stage) | That the motion BE AMENDED by replacing the words “establishing a City of London Specia… | 3-3 | Motion Failed (3 to 3) |
| 2026-07-13 | City of London Special Constable Program | Directed Civic Administration to report back to the Community and Protective Services Committee on the feasibility of establishing a City of London Special Constable Program, covering implementation models, costs, legislative requirements, and service-delivery impacts. (committee stage) | That the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to report back to the Community and Protectiv… | 4-2 | Motion Passed (4 to 2) |
| 2024-11-21 | (ADDED) Amendment - London Police Services Operating Budget - Councillor S. Franke | Would have reduced the London Police Service operating budget by $1,616,600/year for 2025-2027, cutting the tax levy by the same amount each year. (committee stage) | That the Mayor’s 2025 Annual Budget Update BE AMENDED by reducing the London Police Ser… | 4-11 | Motion Failed (4 to 11) |
| 2024-02-29 | (3.8) Business Case No. P-29 | Would have reduced Business Case No. P-29 – Police Vehicle and Equipment Requirements funding by a specified dollar amount each year (2024-2027). | That the Mayor’s 2024-2027 Multi-Year Budget BE AMENDED by reducing Business Case No. P-29… | 7-8 | Motion Failed (7 to 8) |
| 2024-02-29 | (3.8) Business Case No. P-29 | Would have reduced Business Case No. P-29 (Police Vehicle and Equipment Requirements) funding by 5%. | That the Mayor’s 2024-2027 Multi-Year Budget BE AMENDED by reducing Business Case No. P-29… | 7-8 | Motion Failed (7 to 8) |
| 2024-02-15 | Amendment - Business Case No. P-15, No. P-16, No. P-17, No. P-18 | Would have added funding for four housing/homelessness-support business cases (Hoarding/Extreme Clean, Housing Stability Bank, Housing Stability Table, Housing Support Case Management), fully offset by an equal, explicit reduction to the London Police Service operating budget (roughly $1.7-2.25 million per year). (committee stage) | That the Mayor’s 2024-2027 Multi-Year Budget BE AMENDED to include Business Case No. P-15 … | 3-12 | Motion Failed (3 to 12) |
| 2024-02-08 | Amendment - Business Case No. P-53 | Would have added $300,000/year in funding for winter maintenance (sweeping and plowing) of boulevard bike lanes, funded entirely by an equal, offsetting reduction to the London Police Service operating budget (net zero tax levy impact). (committee stage) | That the Mayor’s 2024-2027 Multi-Year Budget BE AMENDED to include Road Safety Initiati… | 4-11 | Motion Failed (4 to 11) |
| 2024-02-02 | Amendment - Business Case No. P-29 | Would have reduced Business Case No. P-29 (Police Vehicle and Equipment Requirements) funding by $90,000 per year. (committee stage) | That the Mayor’s 2024-2027 Multi-Year Budget BE AMENDED to reduce Business Case No. P-29 –… | 6-9 | Motion Failed (6 to 9) |
Methodology: A “divided” vote is any council or committee motion since January 1, 2023 that wasn’t approved unanimously and wasn’t a routine procedural step, and it doesn’t include a vote decided by secret ballot to fill an appointment, since those don’t produce a recorded yea or nay by councillor. For each councillor, on each issue, on each axis: a vote counts as “for” when it matched that axis’s more permissive outcome, and “against” when it matched the more restrictive one — but a nay is never described as if it enacted the restrictive outcome; it’s described as opposing the motion it was cast on, and the same care is taken in the other direction. When every recorded vote on an axis since January 1, 2023 happens to fall on one side, the pattern sentence says so plainly instead of silently reporting a zero on the other side. Every motion’s issue, axis, and direction (“what a yea did”) come from an independent, motion-by-motion review, checked against that motion’s own complete text in the official meeting record rather than a keyword search, with a small, separately published list of after-the-fact corrections applied on top — never a silent edit to the reviewed record. This is a genuine reading of what each clause did, not a raw yea/nay count, including for the generic “approved or denied the item” description used when no issue-specific axis applies. Recusals and absences are always counted on their own, never folded into “against” and never treated as a hidden position. A pattern sentence is only stated once a councillor has at least 5 separate underlying decisions on an axis — a committee vote followed later by a council vote on the same policy question counts as one decision, not two, so a motion with several stages can’t inflate the count; below that threshold the individual votes are still shown, just without a summary sentence. Some motions were reviewed and confirmed to have no clear direction at all — a referral, a request for more information, or a genuinely ambiguous clause — and these are listed, on every relevant issue, as motions with no clear direction: never counted in any pattern or sample size, but never hidden either. This project has no source recording which committee a councillor belongs to — that list isn’t published or collected anywhere; a meeting’s own attendance record shows who was there that day, not who belongs to it. So when a councillor has no recorded vote on a motion, nothing is claimed about why, in either direction: only whether that meeting’s own record separately listed this councillor as present without a recorded vote, or whether nothing else can be said at all. Before any of the above, motions were also dropped in 2 ways, none of them guessed at or repaired: 32 where the same person was recorded as voting more than one way on the same motion (a roster conflict in the source data); and 12 more that turned out, on review, not to be a genuine division at all — a lopsided result the source data’s own “unanimous” marker missed, or the same motion recorded twice under two item numbers. Each motion is filed under exactly one issue, so a motion that touches two topics — a housing decision with a budget line, say — appears on one issue page only, never both. Where the source text has a hash symbol immediately followed by a case or item number — as in a title reading “Business Case”, then a hash, then “P-5” — this hub shows it instead as “Business Case No. P-5”, so the character can’t be misread as a link; the underlying wording is not otherwise changed.