London Assembly investigation into Mayor’s budget raises questions

A new report from the London Assembly Budget and Performance Committee published today has warned that there are serious questions about the Mayor’s budget plans for TfL, the Met Police and his other functional bodies for the year ahead.

The main findings of the report include: -

• The further delay of Crossrail has cost an extra £1.1 billion in the past 12 months. The GLA will borrow a further £825 million to complete the project, which leaves a £275 million black hole in Crossrail’s finances.
• The Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) continues to plan for the hopeful recruitment of an additional 6,000 officers from the Government’s officer growth programme. This is despite growing evidence that London’s share of the 20,000 additional officers will be less than this 6,000 with no funding agreed.
• The London Stadium, the home of West Ham United, is costing Londoners more than £8 million per year to run. If West Ham are relegated from the Premier League to the Championship, this cost could increase by £1.5 million per year.
• Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation has spent £42.7 million, even though five years on, little has been done on the ground to bring any new jobs or homes to the area.
• The GLA Core budget has undergone a questionable restructure and has failed to identify how £39 million of savings will be made.
• The London Fire Brigade is significantly relying on reserves to keep afloat. While COVID-19 has had a significant impact on the Greater London Authority’s finances and subsequently on the LFB’s finances, the Committee has been concerned about LFB’s finances for some time, long before COVID hit London.

The Budget and Performance Committee has spent the last six months shining a light on the current and future state of the finances of the Greater London Authority (GLA) and the functional bodies that the Mayor is responsible for. The Committee has looked in detail at the Mayor’s draft budget proposals and explored the issues in this material with the key players, including the Mayor himself.

Susan Hall AM, Chairman of the Budget & Performance Committee, said:

“Transport for London is in financial turmoil and has been making headlines since the start of the pandemic. Alongside the loss of fare income, COVID-19 has brought home the impact of the delays and cost overruns to major projects such as Crossrail. With major questions remaining over TfL’s long-term sustainability, we hope the Mayor will work constructively with the Government to help address these significant challenges.

“The Committee agrees that London needs more police officers, our concern is that MOPAC and the Met have started recruiting the 6,000 police officers they would like when the number London will receive and the funding behind them is yet to be agreed with the Government. This lack of budget planning is causing a serious and concerning black hole in the Met’s budget, on top of additional uncertainties around how the Mayor will fund kit for these officers or, indeed, where they would be housed.

“Even before the pandemic struck, many GLA organisations had financial questions marks hanging over them. And as with many things during these times, issues that may have taken years to come to light are now taking a matter of months. The Committee has made a number of recommendations on how the Mayor can address these financial problems, which we hope he will take on board.”