CLAIMS by the Mayor of London Bexley will gain police officers in the next two years have been challenged.

Figures used in the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC’s) draft Police and Crime Plan (PCP) on the future of policing in the capital suggest the borough will have 360 officers by 2015: up by 16 from 344 in 2011.

But according to alternative figures, Bexley had 387 officers in 2011 meaning the force will lose 27 bobbies by 2015 if the projection of 360 is correct.

These competing statistics are available on the Mayor of London’s online data store.

In correspondence with London Assembly Member Joanne McCartney, MOPAC argues the PCP figures are adjusted to reflect "like-for-like" rises in the number of officers performing specific functions under the new policing model.

But Lewisham and Greenwich AM Len Duvall has backed calls for the UK Statistics Authority to issue an opinion on the two differing sets of figures.

He said: "It is vitally important that the information given to people is absolutely watertight and there is no confusion.

"We need to get to the bottom of what is going on as transparency is vital to building public trust in this whole process."