Police Oversight and Community Safety

(a) LEAP has a staff establishment of 1128 officials comprising of 127 permanent Law Enforcement officers fulfilling command and supervisory positions and a further 1001 contracted Learner Law Enforcement Officers deployed across the CoCT Metro.

(b)   On 4 June 2025 a rapid review of the of LEAP deployment in the priority areas was undertaken by the Department of Police Oversight and Community Safety.  The purpose was to determine the impact of the strategy introduced in September 2024 (quarter 3 of 2024/25) to reduce the number of areas where LEAP was deployed and to increase the deployment of officers in each of the 6 areas (referred to as the ‘double-up deployment strategy’). Using quarterly crime statistics for the 2024/25 year released by SAPS, the impact LEAP had on crime was noted as:

Murder stabilised in the 6 priority areas (Delft, Guguletu, Khayelitsha, Mitchells Plain, Nyanga, Philippi East) with no increase or decrease, compared with a 1.7% decrease in murder in the province. While murder increased in the first quarter of 2024/25 by 30% there was a decrease of 1% in the second quarter, a decrease of 13% in the third quarter and 10% in the last quarter within the LEAP priority areas. These last two quarters coincided with the double up deployment strategy.

Annual Murders decreased by 9% in 2024/25 compared with 2023/24 in the three areas where the reaction unit was deployed (Elsies River, Manenberg and Philippi).

• Attempted Murder decreased by 3% across the 6 priority LEAP areas.
• Illegal firearm possession arrests increased by 10% in the 6 LEAP areas and by 23% in the 3 areas where the reaction unit was deployed.

        (c)   The total budget allocation for LEAP in the 2025/26 financial year is R466,666,667.00 made up of R 350,000,000.00 contributed by WCG and R 116,666,667.00 by CoCT.

      (d)   (i)  LEAP has a direct and close partnership with the SAPS stations deployed into.  Deployments to the different police stations are represented in joint operational planning and are force multipliers to SAPS providing additional capacity for execution of operational plans.  LEAP activities within station precincts are directed and led by SAPS. The Cooperation Agreement further enhances the collaboration between LEAP and SAPS within the Operations Workstream.

              (ii)  CPFs are coordinated by SAPS at station level. LEAP attends CPF meetings on the invitation of SAPS. 

      (e)   The challenges the Department encountered in implementing LEAP are:

• Demands for and of LEAP far exceeds its capacity, mandate and capabilities.  Between July and September 2025, and in accordance with Operation Shanella 2, some of the LEAP officers were deployed to 11 of the priority gang areas to work closely with SAPS.  These deployments were drawn from the 6 priority LEAP priority precincts contingents, leaving them with reduced operational capacity in those areas.  The deployments to the 11 gang priority areas came to an end on 30 September 2025.
• Because the LEAP programme is a contractual arrangement between the WCG and City of Cape Town, LEAP officers are employed on a contract basis. These is a regular attrition of experienced LEAP officials who leave the programme to secure permanent employment leading to the requirement to recruit and train new officers.
• With the steady exiting of experienced LLEO’s newly trained, but inexperienced replacements, need mentoring and grooming in practical law enforcement procedures and practices to be effective and efficient in the field.   The synergy and “buddy-buddy” team working relationship developed amongst LLEO’s is constantly disrupted which impacts effectiveness.