Sadiq Khan has suffered the second significant departure in a week after his deputy mayor for policing and crime decided to quit City Hall.
Sophie Linden, who held the £141,386-a-year post since Mr Khan was first elected in 2016, is leaving to become a senior adviser to the Justice Secretary, Shabana Mahmood.
She will leave City Hall on October 18 – only five months after being reappointed when Mr Khan won a third term as mayor. A successor will be announced in due course.
Sources said the decision to stand down was hers and she was not forced out by Mr Khan.
It follows the departure of night tsar Amy Lame, who had been heavily criticised for the state of the capital’s night-time economy.
Ms Linden is the third of Mr Khan’s deputy mayors to leave in recent months. Shirley Rodrigues, who oversaw the environment brief, and Baroness Twycross, who was the deputy mayor for fire and resilience, stood down ahead of the May election.
Mr Khan said Ms Linden had given “exceptional service” to London. “In the context of huge challenges facing the Met, particularly around funding, Sophie has worked hard to ensure that in London we’re both tough on crime but also tackling its complex causes head on, while putting the Met on a path to fundamental reform,” he said.
“It has been an honour to work alongside Sophie as we continue to invest record amounts in the police and address the deep-rooted cultural problems that the force faces so it can regain the trust of Londoners and help us build a safer London for everyone.”
But only last month Mr Khan had to defend her from criticism from London Assembly members during mayor’s question time.
Her time in office saw the Met placed into special measures in June 2022, over systemic problems, including a failure to log 69,000 crimes, and hit by a series of scandals, including the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving officer.
In August, the PEEL report by the policing inspectorate graded the Met “inadequate” or “requires improvement” in seven out of eight key areas.
At the time, Ms Linden’s City Hall colleague Claire Waxman, London’s Victims’ Commissioner, said the Met’s failure was “deeply disappointing” and said urgent reforms remained “unacceptably slow”.
Gareth Roberts, a Lib-Dem assembly member and the leader of Richmond council, asked Mr Khan: “We have had the Deputy Mayor for Policing [and Crime] in position for eight years and has recently been reappointed for possibly another four.
“We have had scandal after scandal after scandal. We have had failure after failure after failure. We have had devastating report after devastating report after devastating report. What is it going to take for you to lose confidence in your Deputy Mayor for Policing [and Crime]?”
Mr Khan said it was because of the “hard work” of Ms Linden that investigations into the policing of rape and stalking had been conducted. He said she had referred the Stephen Port investigation to His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and also asked for an independent investigation into the policing of Clapham Common vigil in the wake of Sarah Everard’s murder.
There have been 83 homicides to date in the 2024 calendar year, including 10 teenagers. In the 12 months to July this year, there were 117 homicides – 6.1 per cent down on the previous year.
But according to the Met’s most recent statistics, gun crime is up 8.6 per cent year on year, robbery is up 11.4 per cent and shoplifting is up 45 per cent.
City Hall said that, over Ms Linden’s eight years in office, there had been a “reduction in homicides, gun crime, burglary and the number of young people being injured with knives”.
It said the mayor had invested £1.1bn in policing, delivering 1,300 additional police officers.
Ms Linden would sit in on the mayor’s meetings with Met commissioner Sir Mark Rowley and would also meet the deputy commissioner and assistant commissioners on a regular basis. She was deputy chair of the London Policing Board.
Ms Linden said: “It has been a huge privilege to serve the capital as Deputy Mayor for the last eight years. I'm proud of the progress we have made by being tough on crime and its complex causes, working with communities, key partners and the police, to build a safer London for all.
“Policing in London is far more diverse, transparent and accountable than when I started. Of course, there is still a lot more to do but I am pleased to have helped chart a new course – which will work to deliver better performance, accountability and crucially work to rebuild the confidence and trust all London’s communities have in the Met.”
Prior to becoming deputy mayor, Ms Linden was a special adviser at the Home Office from 2001 to 2004. From 1997 to 2001 she was a special adviser to David Blunkett in the Department for Education and Employment.
