The Mayor of London's Annual Report 2022-2023

This is the Mayor’s Annual Report for 2022-23. It covers the period between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023.

In 2022-23, the Mayor continued to work with our partners to deliver an ambitious blueprint for London’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. This is explained in the next section, but you can read more about our response and recovery work in specific areas throughout this report.

This report constitutes the statutory update on progress against the Mayor’s seven statutory strategies required under section 46 of the GLA Act 1999, namely Economic Development; Transport; Culture; Housing; Environment; Health Inequalities; and Spatial Development (the London Plan) It is designed as a short report that provides an overview of the Mayor’s major achievements over the year, including, but not limited to, these areas. You can find a more detailed update on the Mayor’s strategies on our strategies and plans pages.

Where to find out more

You can find out more about the Mayor's activity online on our:

• Website: www.london.gov.uk
• Facebook: @MayorofLondon
• Twitter: @MayorofLondon

London began the process of recovery by convening the London Recovery Board, and developing the London Recovery Programme, in summer 2020. Chaired jointly by the Mayor of London and the Chair of London Councils, the Recovery Board steered the city’s recovery.

Between June 2020 and June 2023 the Board met on 14 occasions, providing a vital space for the city’s leaders to come together and drive forward London’s recovery – helping to create a greener, cleaner, safer and fairer city for all. The Board agreed to develop nine missions – unique partnerships across London’s government, businesses and civil society to deliver real change for the city. In that time, the Board and Programme have had some significant achievements, including the following:

• Through the Recovery programme, 17 of London’s leading organisations, led by the NHS, have come together to use their size and connections to help drive the city’s recovery through the London Anchor Institutions’ Network. These leading institutions pledged to work together on procurement, jobs, skills and sustainability – spending and hiring to support local economies. Their annual conference in January 2023 showed the incredible breadth and depth of work that partners are doing to deliver on their commitments – including pledging £1.3bn of contracts for small and diverse businesses, and supporting over 4,000 apprentices.
• The Good Work for All Mission launched the £44m Mayor’s Academies Programme, delivering 22 hubs that support the delivery of high-quality, sector-specific training provision that meets the needs of London’s employers and supports Londoners in accessing good jobs.
• The Propel initiative, a collaborative fund led by London Funders and supported by partners such as Bloomberg, City Bridge Trust and the National Lottery Community Fund, supports three missions: New Deal for Young People, Building Strong Communities and A Robust Safety Net. It is giving the capital’s civil society and communities the flexibility and capacity to explore, develop and lead collaborative ways of tackling some of London’s biggest challenges. To date, over £21m has been invested, supporting almost 30,000 young people.

• The High Streets for All mission has taken a big step forward in developing a shared understanding of recovery through the High Streets Data Partnership, pointing the way to greater collaboration across the city on data and insight to support decision making. There are currently 22 boroughs signed up, accessing data over 100 times per month to support developing local strategies.
• The Green New Deal mission supported development of the Domestic Retrofit Programme, led by Enfield and Waltham Forest with London Councils, to drive the retrofitting of London’s homes to reduce carbon emissions – aiming for London’s homes to reach an average of EPC B by 2030.
• The programme launched the Economic Recovery Framework, developed by boroughs and London Councils with GLA support, presenting a shared strategy for economic recovery across the Mayor and boroughs – which ensures co-ordination of work across the city to deliver change. Development of the framework guided the focus of the investment plan for the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, with over 50 per cent being allocated directly to boroughs.

• The Board developed the Building a Fairer City Action Plan, highlighting the actions that partners can take to address the structural inequalities facing Londoners. It identified 14 priority areas that partners can take action on, and has already led to some significant interventions – including adoption, by health and local government partners, of a new strategic framework to tackle race inequality in health and social care.

At the Board’s March meeting, it agreed to become the London Partnership Board, using the experience and learning from the pandemic to help address London’s complex and cross-cutting challenges. The nine recovery missions will continue, but the Board will broaden its focus away from pandemic recovery.

• London & Partners, the Mayor’s business growth and destination agency for London, has delivered £211m in gross value added to the economy through: increased trade, investment and business tourism; and its work to attract major events to the capital, and to support London-based businesses to grow.

• London’s £144m UK Shared Prosperity Fund was launched following significant government delays, in December 2022. Over £40m is allocated to communities and place activity, £62m to supporting local business and £38m to supporting skills opportunities; the cut off for spending the funding is March 2025.

• The Mayor’s London Business Hub provided over 1,400 businesses with advice and support to help them start, sustain, and grow while dealing with the cost-of-living crisis and current economic challenges. All the business support projects have a strong focus on supporting diverse-led businesses. By way of example, the Hub and Spoke business-support project has provided free advice and guidance to over 4,000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) of which 58 per cent are owned by an ethnic minority individual (or individuals), 47 per cent are female-owned and 5 per cent disabled-owned.
• The Wayfinder pilot expanded to Newham, Tower Hamlets, and Barking and Dagenham, having already successfully launched in Lambeth, Southwark and Wandsworth. The Wayfinder matches local businesses in these boroughs with expert support on all aspects of running a business. This programme has supported over 400 businesses in the last year.

• In February 2023, MedCity (London’s life sciences cluster organisation) and London & Partners decided to integrate their organisations. This will allow London to more effectively drive investment into life sciences and innovation in our city as we promote these strengths across the globe.

• Over 250,000 people work for one of the 125 employers accredited with the Mayor’s Good Work Standard who all pay the London Living Wage. These employers have committed to the best standards in equality, diversity and inclusion.
   
• More than 3,000 employers headquartered in London are accredited with the Living Wage Foundation, a fivefold increase since 2016; and the Mayor co-chairs the Making London a Living Wage City campaign’s steering group. Despite the challenges of pandemic recovery and the cost-of-living crisis, over 1,150 new Living Wage employers have been accredited since September 2021, resulting in over 55,000 people getting a pay rise. Research into the London low-pay landscape highlights that certain groups are more likely to be low-paid, including Pakistani and Bangladeshi workers; Black workers; young workers; and those living in areas of outer London such as Haringey, Bexley, Redbridge, Waltham Forest and Harrow.

• Through the London Anchor Institutions’ Network, spearheaded by the Mayor, some of London’s biggest organisations are using their procurement, recruitment and estate-management capacity to: get more Londoners from underrepresented backgrounds into good work; help small and diverse-owned businesses to grow by entering their supply chains; and take action to tackle the climate emergency by decarbonising their estates. In 2022-23, members of the network spent more than £750m with SMEs and diverse-owned businesses, and supported more than 100 small businesses through supplier-readiness programmes and events. They also supported more than 4,000 apprentices, and uplifted the pay of more than 7,000 Londoners through new London Living Wage accreditations.

Adult Education Budget (AEB)

• Through the AEB (including Free Courses for Jobs funding), which amounts to circa £340m per academic year, the Mayor funds the delivery of education and training for learners aged 19 and over.

• Over 221,000 Londoners were supported to gain skills in the 2021-22 academic year (August 2021-July 2022). The 2021-22 data suggest that the post-pandemic recovery has been stronger in London than the rest of England, with an 11 per cent increase in learner participation compared to the previous year.

• The AEB supported over 156,000 learners between August 2022 and January 2023, meaning participation has increased by 9 per cent in the first half of the 2022-23 academic year compared to the same period in the previous year (better than the devolved-area average of 8 per cent). This takes the total to 890,000 learners since 2019-20.

• Of those supported in 2021-22, 23,590 (an 18 per cent increase from same period last year) were in receipt of a low wage and able to access free training. This was due to the Mayor’s introduction of a free-training entitlement for Londoners earning below the London Living Wage.

• Of those supported in 2021-22, 2,290 adults gained skills through Level 3 qualifications introduced by the Mayor to help people impacted by the pandemic, compared with 930 in the previous academic year.

• 69 per cent of the 221,000 learners in 2021-22 were female; 60 per cent were from a Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic background; the majority (64 per cent) were aged 24-49; and 13 per cent considered themselves to have a learning difficulty, disability and/or health problem.
• By 31 July 2022, the COVID-19 Skills Recovery Package introduced by the Mayor supported 9,760 learners, who enrolled in 15,790 qualifications.

• The 2022-23 academic year commenced with continued focus on supporting disadvantaged Londoners to access adult education. This included new flexibilities such as removing the 12-month cap on course duration for fully funded Level 3 qualifications for unemployed learners, or those earning below the London Living Wage; delivering a grants programme for community organisations to provide targeted outreach and support; and funding an increase in AEB allocation to raise the weighted funding rate for courses at Level 2 and below by up to 3.5 per cent, at a cost of £10m, to support the further education (FE) workforce in the delivery of provision in light of the rising cost of living to mitigate the negative impact of the rising costs of living in the sector.

Other Skills and Employment programmes

• The £41m Multiply programme to improve numeracy for adults in London commenced in August 2022 and supported 14,000 Londoners. The number of Multiply programme enrolments in London represented around 47 per cent of England’s total.

• Delivery of the government-funded £18.9m Skills Bootcamps programme commenced in 2022-23. The programme is designed to deliver flexible training programmes based on employer/sector ‘in demand’ skills needs. The GLA secured a grant of £18.9m and supported over 3,000 Londoners. The GLA was awarded £19m to deliver a second round, which will support over 5,000 Londoners in 2023-24.

• Over 6,000 Londoners were supported into work (including apprenticeships and work placements) as a result of programmes under the Mayor’s Helping Londoners into Good Work mission. Of these, 63 per cent were from a Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic background; 34 per cent were female; and 22 per cent were aged 16-24. Contributing programmes include the European Social Fund (ESF), the Mayor’s Construction Academy and Mayor’s Skills Academies (MSA).

• The No Wrong Door (NWD) programme aims to improve access and the quality of employment support Londoners receive mainly with the establishment of the Integration Hubs. The Integration hubs engaged over 800 partners (employers/providers) and over 900 residents through activities. A further £440,000 was allocated to the Skills and Employment NWD programme (taking the total programme value to £2.5m) to support sub-regional Integration hubs to continue delivering to the end of 2024-25.

• The MSA is a £14m programme  established to support sector-specific academies in growth sectors to give Londoners an advantage in securing good jobs. These are digital, green, creative, hospitality, health and social care. Since launching in 2022-23, the programme has supported over 2,000 Londoners to enter employment, apprenticeships or paid work placements; and engaged over 700 new employers. The programme has also supported over 20,000 Londoners to participate in training and education relating to identified key recovery sectors. The MSA received an additional £500,000 from NHS England and Improvement, and Health Education England, to fund a further two health hubs.

• The Skills Capital programme is a £214.1m London Economic Action Partnership-funded programme providing capital grants to FE institutions to support with creating suitable buildings and facilities. As a result of the programme, 8,731 additional learners were assisted via capital investments in FE facilities – taking the total number of supported learners to nearly 62,000.

• 107 schools and colleges signed up to be part of the London Careers Hubs this year taking the total number of schools and colleges participating in the programme to 699. London Careers Hubs are groups of secondary schools, FE colleges, Alternative Provision and Special Schools that work together to deliver high quality careers education.

• London’s allocation of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund included £39m for People and Skills, which will be used for bespoke intervention and employment support for economically inactive Londoners. Programme spend is expected to commence in 2023-24.

Culture and creative industries

• Between April 2022 and March 2023, the Mayor’s funding for the Creative Economy Growth Programme, Film London, the London Design Festival, the British Fashion Council and the London Games Festival delivered in excess of £968m in sales and inward investment for businesses in the creative industries. Funding helped to create over 9,000 employment opportunities in the film industry.

• The Mayor also supported film and TV studios in the capital with a £3m contribution to the renovation and modernisation of 3 Mills Studios, which completed in spring 2023; and £5m to Eastbrook Studios in Dagenham, due for completion in 2023-24.

• The Culture and Community Spaces at Risk programme continued its equity focus. Nearly 80 per cent of its in-depth casework was for at-risk spaces led by and serving underrepresented groups. In partnership with design practice Objectif, the programme delivered We Design for the Community, a pilot pairing grassroots organisations requiring marketing support with design students. Twelve organisations and 16 students took part. Projects included branding improvements, new communication strategies, and photography. All participants were from underrepresented groups, with 58 per cent of organisations operating in highly deprived areas.
   
• The Mayor supported the development of a business case that explored potential models for a theatre set, and a prop reuse and recycling centre, to reduce the carbon footprint of London theatres. Findings show that there are two viable models that will reduce both carbon footprints and storage costs for theatres. A meeting will be held with industry stakeholders in summer to explore these options further.
   
• The Mayor’s Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm announced plans for a new memorial to victims of the transatlantic slave trade at West India Quay and other sites across London. The Commission’s Untold Stories programme awarded funding totalling just over £1m to 70 community-led projects in 24 London boroughs. The projects will increase diversity of or highlight existing heritage in the public realm. From July to December 2022, London Unseen delivered over 40 events free of charge to the public including trails, tours and events that celebrated local histories, led by 20 community-heritage practitioners, artists and activists.

• In July 2022, a final public artwork in the LDN WMN series for #BehindEveryGreatCity was produced. The 15-metre mural on the gates of West Hampstead Primary School honours the life of Dr Beryl Gilroy, the first Black headteacher in the borough of Camden.

• Lewisham, the 2022 London Borough of Culture, saw 696 events delivered with over 200 partner organisations and 520 local businesses, and involving 92 per cent of the borough’s schools. More than 1,800 volunteers gave over 10,000 hours of their time, and over 8,800 young people participated. The Mayor’s award enabled the borough to achieve over £4m of inward investment, and the programme reached more than 910,000 people as audiences and participants. Their focus on cultural activism gave voice to the borough’s diverse communities on issues including air quality and social equity. Lewisham Council will launch a new cultural strategy for the borough in summer 2023 as part of its legacy as London Borough of Culture. Since 2017, the programme has involved 12 boroughs, 315 schools, 3,370 volunteers and over 2,200 artistic partners; and supported more than 8,600 young people with development and employment opportunities in person and online. A total of £19m has been leveraged from over 20 programme funders using the Mayor’s investment.

• In March 2023, Croydon launched its London Borough of Culture programme. The programme is headlined with new events and commissions from leading international artists and emerging home-grown talent. It includes year-long schemes to enable sector development; over 25 substantial projects supported via a ‘This is Croydon’ fund; and community join-in programmes that enable hundreds of grassroots activities led by organisations in every corner of the borough. Events and activities for Croydon’s year will run until March 2024.

• The Sounds Like Hammersmith and Fulham Cultural Impact Award delivered training to young people in music-making and event-producing, supported by leading music industry professionals. The first phase focused on those aged 14-18, and reached every single educational setting in the borough. More than 350 pupils took part in over 120 workshops. The second phase focused on those aged 18-25, with 323 people attending seven public events. A cohort of 12 young artists started an intensive eight-month career-development programme. The Sutton STEAMS Ahead Cultural Impact Award celebrates the borough’s growing reputation for scientific excellence. They created a dance film celebrating the science pioneered at the London Cancer Hub, led by four local artists, involving 229 local volunteers and seen by 3,000 people. Free digital lesson packs giving students locally inspired STEAM lessons have been distributed to 30 schools in the borough.

• Liberty Festival, the Mayor’s free festival celebrating D/deaf, disabled and neurodiverse artists, took place in July 2022 as part of Lewisham’s year as London Borough of Culture. Over three days, 133 artists (including visual artists, theatre makers, dancers and performers) took part in 56 events.

• The Thames Estuary Production Corridor (TEPC) is the strategic partnership that unites east London, the North Kent Coast and South Essex to create a world-class centre for creative and cultural production. The TEPC programme has been developing three accelerator projects across the Thames Estuary, which is bringing forward a circular-economy fashion hub in Tower Hamlets; a film hub in Margate; and an innovative co-working space in Basildon, Essex, that focuses on digital start-ups. This project was recently awarded £4m of funding by HM Government. In addition, a map of pipeline projects is being developed with the TEPC local authorities to support investment in the creative industries.
   
• In June 2022, as part of the ‘Let’s Do London’ campaign, a partnership with Art Fund helped to position London as a place for art and artists. This included distribution of 140,000 London editions of Art Fund’s popular exhibitions guide, and over 200 sign-ups to a Taster art pass. A ‘Love London Summer Art Guide’ showcased contemporary public art and sculpture with Heart of London Business Alliance, the Northbank BID, the Royal Academy, the Serpentine Gallery, Somerset House and TfL. Over 50,000 guides were distributed through Team London ambassador pods and at TfL stations in central London.

• The 14th Fourth Plinth Commission ‘Antelope’, by Samson Kambalu, was installed in September 2022. The sculpture restages a 1914 photograph of Baptist preacher and pan-Africanist John Chilembwe and European missionary John Chorley, in Nyasaland (now Malawi). Chilembwe is wearing a hat, defying the colonial rule that forbade Africans from wearing hats in front of White people. Kambalu has also made Chilembwe almost twice the size of Chorley, elevating him and his story. This work reveals a hidden narrative of underrepresented peoples in the history of the British Empire. The Fourth Plinth Schools Awards 2023 received entries from more than 2,000 students, from 31 London boroughs. The awards have now exceeded over 30,000 entries since they began in 2008.

• The Museum of London moved ahead with development of the Smithfield Market site for a new museum, due to open in 2026. The London Wall site closed in December 2022; the Museum of London Docklands continues to hold major exhibitions such as Executions, charting the history of capital punishment in London. A total of 588,572 visitors walked through the doors of the London Wall and Docklands sites in 2022, including 78,117 schoolchildren from all 32 London boroughs and the City of London. Visiting school groups in fact represented the breadth of the UK and Europe, from Cornwall to Poland.

• In June 2022, the Mayor launched new Creative Enterprise Zones. The first covering Earl’s Court, White City and Shepherd’s Bush in partnership with Hammersmith and Fulham Council, and the second across the North Acton and Park Royal area, in partnership with Ealing Council and the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation. Together with the other seven zones, they will collectively deliver 65,000sqm of affordable workspace; support 5,000 young Londoners considering a creative career; and provide 1,000 training opportunities.

• The Mayor’s first-ever London Made Me retail training programme and pop-up shop took place over autumn. Fourteen creatives from across Creative Enterprise Zones took part in a pilot training programme that culminated in a pop-up shop in Regent Street in the lead-up to Christmas. The project exceeded its sales target by 338 per cent; creatives secured new concessions; products were featured on red carpets; and overseas sales were achieved.

• In September 2022, the Mayor launched a £1.2m Sustainability Capital Grant programme to support creative workspaces and cultural infrastructure in the Creative Enterprise Zones, to help them to become more sustainable.

• In December 2022, the Mayor, in partnership with Arts Council England, commissioned a new Arts Green Book from sustainability specialists Buro Happold and Renew Culture. It provides guidance and standards to move the UK’s cultural spaces towards zero carbon and includes a tool to support the production of sustainability plans for cultural organisations. The guidance also supported Creative Enterprise Zone managers with their applications to the Creative Enterprise Zone sustainability capital grants.
• The Mayor supported the World Cities Culture Forum, established in 2012 by the Deputy Mayor for Culture and Creative Industries, Justine Simons OBE, to be set up as an independent not-for-profit organisation. The Forum successfully delivered its first post-COVID in-person summit in Helsinki, attended by over 30 cities. The Mayor is now Patron of the new organisation.

• The Dementia Friendly Venues Charter, delivered in partnership with the Alzheimer’s Society, completed its second year. Since the Charter’s launch, 61 venues have become accredited, with over 150 currently on their accreditation journey. Two networking events were held, at Museum of London Docklands and V&A Museum respectively. The events were attended by 60 organisations in total and by people with lived experience of dementia. A digital portal was set up to support organisations with their accreditation.

• This was the second year of Thriving Through Culture, which delivered a World Mental Health Day festival with Thrive LDN. This saw 34 young people participating in a pilot 2.8 Million Minds studio, and the creation of a new network for health and culture professionals to come together, facilitated by young people, for peer support and systems change.

• A funding partnership – including the Mayor of London, six south east boroughs (Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark) and the South East London Integrated Care Board – established the first Creative Health role embedded at the South East London Integrated Care Board. The role was created to build a connection between the health and culture sectors, and works closely with the National Centre for Creative Health role in north east London.

• In July 2022, the Mayor hosted Black Futures: London, which brought together community activists, entrepreneurs, artists and other creatives from London’s Black communities to talk about the Mayor’s support for Black creativity. As a result of discussions at the event, a Community Advisory Group was recruited to shape the vision for a new annual event in Trafalgar Square, which will take place this autumn.

24 Hour London

• Following the tragic events at the 02 Academy Brixton on 15 December 2022, the Mayor and the Night Czar remain committed to ensuring that London's reputation as one of the safest cities in the world to enjoy live events is maintained. The Metropolitan Police Service’s major investigations team is leading the large and complex police investigation, which involves hundreds of interviews and thousands of hours of video evidence, to ensure that lessons are learnt and a tragedy like this cannot happen again. Whilst this will take time to complete, all parties agree that learnings must be shared at the earliest opportunity to inform future safety planning. The Night Czar continues to meet with local authorities and the MPS, and to support the Safer Business Network which provides training and advice to licensed premises. The Night Czar is also convening a National Events Safety Roundtable with key stakeholders from the events and public safety sectors in June 2023. This will enable them to come together, review current approaches, and share best practice in risk assessment and events. 
• The Women’s Night Safety Charter received £108,000 funding from the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime. As a result, the number of signatories to the charter has increased to over 1,600, including major retailers Co-op supermarkets and Boots. A new Steering Group has been created to oversee the delivery of the charter, including production of online training videos and a toolkit for signatories. Training in how to tackle vulnerability, and how to be an active Women’s Night Safety Champion, has been delivered to over 1,600 people, helping to ensure that businesses that sign up to the charter are putting their pledges into action.
• In November 2022, the Night Czar launched the Mayor’s Night Time Enterprise Zone programme. Bromley, Lambeth and Greenwich were each awarded £130,000 to develop a range of activities and programmes to make their streets more welcoming and inclusive for a broader range of people after 6pm. The Zones will support businesses; encourage more Londoners to use their local high streets at night; and increase the number of night workers benefiting from good work standards.
• Between April 2022 and March 2023, the Night Czar hosted five virtual and eight in-person night surgeries (in Westminster, Richmond upon Thames, Camden, Lambeth, Merton, Hackney and Islington), plus two hospitality industry roundtables. These events help businesses to speak directly to the GLA and boroughs. They also help boroughs to implement their own night-time strategies.
• The Night Czar held four Night Time Policy Forums, and two Night Time Borough Champions Network meetings. These brought together local authority officers and appointed council representatives to progress local challenges and opportunities that arise between 6pm and 6am.In January 2023, the Night Czar held the first ever London at Night Conference, attended by over 120 people – including decision makers, influencers and grassroots change-makers – to discuss how to make London a fair, diverse and sustainable 24-Hour city.
• The Night Czar launched the Business Friendly Licensing Fund to help make licensing more supportive of businesses across the capital. The £125,000 fund has been granted to five boroughs (Camden, Islington, Hackney, Enfield and Harrow) to make licensing less time-consuming and costly for businesses, and to help them recover from the pandemic.

• Trust and confidence in policing – a key Police and Crime Plan priority, and the focus of the Mayor’s 2020 Action Plan for Transparency, Accountability and Trust – remained a dominant issue in London during 2022-23, following a series of appalling scandals, declines in public confidence and the resignation of the Commissioner. In June 2022, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) announced that it would be moving the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) into the Engage process of monitoring, following substantial and persistent concerns about the MPS’s performance in key areas of its work, including investigating crime, responding to the public and protecting people from harm.
• In July 2022, the Mayor and the Home Secretary announced the appointment of Sir Mark Rowley QPM as the new Commissioner of the MPS. Since coming to office in September 2022, he has begun an extensive programme of reform of the capital’s police service. The Commissioner’s draft Turnaround Plan, published in January 2023, focuses on addressing the concerns raised by HMICFRS. The Plan will be revised and a final version published in 2023-24.
• The importance of these reforms has been underlined by the findings of Baroness Casey’s Review – that the Mayor requested be commissioned by the MPS – into the standards of behaviour and internal culture of the service. Baroness Casey found institutional racism, misogyny and homophobia at the MPS, findings that the Mayor accepted. She has described the MPS as defensive, resistant to change and unwilling to engage with communities.
• The Mayor announced new £12m investment for a new Leadership Academy for all MPS leaders to raise standards; £2.5m to improve the service Londoners receive when they first call police; and a new annual investment of £3m to make it easier for victims to access key information about their case, increase the number of MPS staff responsible for victim care and signpost victims to specialist support services.
• The Mayor commissioned Black Thrive to deliver a pan-London consultation – focusing on London’s Black communities – to co-produce a blueprint for the future of police engagement with, and scrutiny by, communities. More than 2,500 people have been involved in the consultation, which will contribute to reform of local police engagement and community scrutiny in 2023-24.
• While crime overall increased in 2022-23 (by 5 per cent) compared to the previous 12 months, it remained 4 per cent lower than it was prior to the COVID-19 pandemic (12 months to March 2019). Londoners’ fear of crime reduced by nine percentage points in 2022-23.

• The MOPAC-convened Reducing Teenage Homicide Partnership continued to bring together the MPS and other partners to coordinate efforts to reduce and prevent serious violence. Homicides and teenage homicides in London all decreased in London in 2022-23. Comparing the 12-month period to March 2023 to that prior to the Mayor taking office (i.e., to May 2016), knife crime with injury was down 5 per cent; gun crime was down 15 per cent; and homicide was down 4 per cent. In the calendar year 2022, the number of murders in London fell to its lowest since 2014, and teenage murders also reduced by more than 50 per cent compared to the previous year.

• MOPAC’s Evidence and Insight Unit published a new Serious Youth Violence Problem Profile – one of the largest products of its type ever published – providing new data and insights into a wide range of topics including trends, drivers associated with violence, public perceptions, as well as the individual characteristics of victims and suspects. The Problem Profile – available to download on the MOPAC website, is a valuable resource to inform police and partners’ future investment and commissioning of interventions and activity to tackle exploitation and violence.
• The Mayor continued to prioritise tackling the causes of crime through the work of his Violence Reduction Unit (VRU). With the Mayor’s support and investment, the VRU has supported more than 150,000 young people over the last two years. This includes measures to support families; funding to keep young people in education; investment in the vital role played by youth workers and mentors; and support and resources for communities to tackle the issues affecting their neighbourhoods. 
• The Mayor announced £2m of new funding for the London Gang Exit Service, supporting children and young people at risk of being exploited by criminal gangs. The programme, led by Safer London, provides specialist one-to-one case work support and help for young Londoners aged 15 to 24. Between 2016 and April 2022, 430 young people received long-term support through the London Gang Exit programme. Of these, 83 per cent significantly reduced their involvement with criminal gangs or ended their involvement completely.
• A report by the London Borough of Brent into the City Hall-funded County Lines Rescue and Response Project – which supports young people being criminally exploited by drugs gangs to escape – revealed that, in the last year, nine out of 10 young Londoners supported by the project had either reduced or completely stopped their involvement in county lines.

• The Mayor continued investment into the use of GPS tagging to cut crime and keep Londoners safe. Since the City Hall pilot launched in February 2019, more than 500 tagged offenders across London who have breached their licence conditions have been recalled to prison (365 were knife-crime offenders and 142 were domestic-abuse offenders). This includes 145 cases where GPS data was used to evidence otherwise hidden behaviour and confirm that tagged offenders had breached their conditions, such as entering a monitored exclusion zone.

• MOPAC has continued to make record investment in policing from City Hall, and in 2022-23 officer numbers reached a record high in London. In 2022-23, the number of women officers in the MPS, and officers from Black, Asian and minoritised communities, also reached record highs.

• In June 2022 the Mayor published his refreshed Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy for London, after extensive consultation with Londoners, victims of crime, partner agencies, and community and voluntary groups. The Strategy champions a public health approach, and encourages everyone in London to play their part in ending the epidemic of violence against women and girls.
• The Mayor’s #HaveAWord campaign, which asks men of all ages to reflect on how they can help tackle violence against women and girls, continued to make a strong impact in 2022-23. The campaign video has been viewed more than 15m times with 65 per cent of the social engagement by men. Since its launch, the campaign has generated global interest and won the Bronze Glass: Lion for Change award at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Polling has shown that 85 per cent of men who have heard of the campaign said they would call out bad behaviour if they saw it.
• In November 2022 the Mayor launched a new toolkit to encourage and empower young Londoners to take a stand against VAWG. Developed by arts and education charity Tender, MOPAC, teachers, youth workers and partner organisations, the toolkit includes lesson plans, activities and resources on building healthy relationships, calling out sexism and discussions on attitudes and behaviours towards women and girls. The toolkit also features the video from the Mayor’s highly successful #HaveAWord campaign.
• A further £4m investment from City Hall to tackle VAWG was announced in February 2023. This included a new £1m cost-of-living fund to immediately support vital VAWG services, in response to organisations tackling VAWG in London and across the country reporting that the cost-of-living crisis is disproportionately impacting women and girls, and preventing them from being able to safely leave abusive relationships and situations. A further £3m has been allocated to support for local grassroots and community organisations in the capital over the next two years. This funding will help minority Black organisations, those with disabilities, neuro-diverse people, LGBT+ people, older people and women who have no direct access to public funds, or for whom mainstream provision is not always appropriate or safely accessible.
• The Mayor launched the second phase of his #FGMStopsHere campaign, featuring a series of new videos from survivors of female genital mutilation and their family members; medical professionals; and campaigners from London’s East African and South Asian communities. These videos highlight the breadth and commitment of the movement within the community to end the practice, and demonstrate the devastating impact FGM has on the lives and wellbeing of survivors and their families.
• The Mayor announced a new record £725,000 investment via his Shared Endeavour Fund for grassroots community groups, to empower them to counter extremism, tackle the rise in hate crime offences and keep Londoners vulnerable to radicalisation safe. His continued investment in grassroots initiatives has already ensured that thousands of people in our city are actively engaged with projects and programmes working to strengthen our communities and encouraging everyone to reject extremist ideologies.
• In May 2022, the Mayor announced former Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary Lord Charlie Falconer QC as Chair of the first ever London Drugs Commission. The Commission – comprising independent experts and leading figures from the fields of criminal justice, public health, politics, community relations and academia – is examining the effectiveness of our drugs laws, with a particular focus on cannabis. The Commission will not consider Class A drugs. During 2022-23, the Commission began work gathering evidence from around the world on the approach taken to cannabis, the best methods of prevention, the most effective criminal justice responses, and the public health benefits of different approaches. Based on its findings, in 2023-24 the Commission will make a series of policy recommendations for City Hall, the government, the police, the criminal justice system and public health services.

• The Mayor is providing £445.8m of funding to London Fire Brigade (LFB) for 2023-24. The Mayor has ensured that firefighters have the resources necessary to keep Londoners safe, including investing in new training, vehicles, communications equipment and information technology upgrades.
• LFB has continued to respond effectively to emergency incidents. Fire-engine response times in 2022-23 exceeded LFB’s response standards, with first appliances arriving at incidents within 10 minutes at 96 per cent of callouts.
• LFB’s preventative work continued to help make London safer. The number of injuries from fires continued to fall, with LFB exceeding its target performance levels.
• LFB faced a very challenging year as an organisation. Supported by the Mayor, LFB commissioned an independent review of its culture, led by Nazir Afzal OBE, which was published in late 2022. This found evidence of bullying and harassment among LFB officers, and of both racism and misogyny being prevalent at LFB. LFB was placed into enhanced monitoring by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services.
• The Mayor and the London Fire Commissioner accepted the findings of the culture review and immediately set out plans to improve LFB’s culture, including an independent complaints service; new forms of monitoring; and training. The Commissioner made it clear that there would be zero tolerance of racism and misogyny in LFB.
• LFB has set new targets to increase the diversity of its workforce, aiming to achieve a composition, over 2023-24, that is 20 per cent female; 19 per cent Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic; and 10 per cent people with disabilities.
• LFB has continued to deliver on recommendations from Phase 1 of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry. As of May 2023, 26 out of 29 recommendations aimed at LFB have been implemented. This includes new procedures on fighting high-rise fires; new training on providing fire survival guidance; and enhanced ways of working with other emergency services during major incidents.
• Recommendations from Phase 2 of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry will be published in early 2024. If additional recommendations are made to LFB, further action will be taken to address these.
• The GLA Resilience team co-funded, and helped coordinate the establishment of, the London Communities Emergencies Partnership (LCEP) in January 2023. The LCEP is enabling collaboration between London’s formal emergency response structures, and charities and community groups with vital local knowledge. It provides dedicated resource to ensure that the diversity of London’s communities is represented in the efforts to prepare for, respond to and recover from emergencies.
• GLA Resilience, working with London Plus, also awarded grants to 11 voluntary and community sector organisations in 11 boroughs to support improved partnership working between London’s communities and Borough Resilience Forums. These projects will run until October 2023.
• For the third year in a row, the Cool Spaces map pointed Londoners to places where they can find respite from the heat while out and about during the summer. The project runs during the public health heatwave period from 1 June to 15 September each year. The Resilience team also supported the coordination of heatwave messaging, and the GLA’s contribution to the partnership response to the unprecedented heatwave in July 2022.

The Mayor has continued taking ground-breaking action to tackle pollution, carbon emissions and congestion in London. Key interventions included the following:

• The 2021 expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) to inner London meant over 4m people were breathing cleaner air. Data published in February 2023 showed NO₂ in central London reduced by 46 per cent, while in inner London, it reduced by 21 per cent. This data also showed that 74,000 fewer polluting vehicles were seen driving in the ULEZ, a cut of 60 per cent since the expansion in October 2021. Air pollution contributed to more premature deaths in outer London boroughs, as a proportion of the population, mainly due to the higher proportion of older Londoners in these areas. Outer London deserves to see the same air quality and health benefits from the ULEZ as Inner London. To address this, and to build on the success of the existing ULEZ, on November 2022 the Mayor announced that he will be expanding the ULEZ London-wide on 29 August 2023, to tackle to triple threats of air pollution, the climate emergency and congestion, and ensure 5m more Londoners can breathe cleaner air.

• In 2021, the Mayor launched a network of air-quality monitoring via the Breathe London network, which has continued its roll-out over 2022 and 2023. These monitors are found at priority locations, such as schools and hospitals, where more vulnerable Londoners are likely to be. To date, there are almost 400 air-pollution monitors on the network, available for all Londoners to access on the Breathe London website.

• The Mayor also previously launched the Breathe London Community Programme, which to date has provided 40 free air-pollution monitors to vulnerable communities – including Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Londoners – and in areas with poor air quality, limited green space, or high levels of deprivation. Monitors will be delivered to an additional 20 community groups in the coming months.
• The Mayor’s Air Quality Fund (MAQF) works to help London’s boroughs trial local measures to cut pollution and exposure to pollution and share learnings and outcomes with each other, including through a series of workshops and events organised by the GLA and TfL. The fund is delivered jointly by the Mayor and TfL. To date, the MAQF has delivered three rounds of projects, including Low Emission Neighbourhoods; pan-London projects tackling issues such as construction machinery, idling and healthier streets; and localised borough projects and research.

Delivery against the Mayor’s declaration of a climate emergency included the following:

• The Accelerated Green pathway was adopted by the Mayor. It was used to engage stakeholders on London’s target to reach net zero carbon by 2030; and to set out the type and scale of activities that must be delivered by London’s public, private and third-sector organisations, as well as Londoners themselves, if we are to achieve this target. Various activities are set out below, as well as in the Energy section.
• The London Plan targets for improvements over Part L of Building Regulations was updated, to bring it in line with the new Part L of Building Regulations 2021. This means that new developments need to achieve an improvement of 35 per cent over Part L of Building Regulations 2021.
• The 2021 Energy Monitoring Report,  published in January 2023, highlighted that the Mayor’s planning policies were delivering on-site emissions reductions almost 50 per cent higher than those required by national building regulations. This equated to a saving of over 38,000 tCO2.
• The 2021 Off-Setting Report, also published in January 2023, highlighted that the net-zero and carbon off-setting policies have, since 2016, realised £145m across London to support activities that tackle the climate emergency. Of the £145m, over a third (£55m) has been collected or secured for collection since the 2020 survey was undertaken. Projects include energy efficiency in buildings, district heating and renewable energy generation.
• The Mayor launched his scaled-up Business Climate Challenge programme in summer 2022 to continue helping businesses tackle the climate emergency and achieve London’s net-zero target. The scaled-up programme was rolled out across nine Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) and is working with business engagement partners who have now signed up 225 businesses across those BIDs. The programme will help them to reduce their energy demand, carbon emissions and – increasingly important at this time –energy costs. As part of the £7.7m Future Neighbourhoods programme funded by the Mayor, Somers Town (Camden) and Notting Dale (Kensington and Chelsea) launched their Phase 1 projects in March 2022. The two neighbourhood teams engaged and worked with residents and local partners to deliver a range of projects – including installation of cycle lanes, estate greening, mobility hubs, distribution of air-quality monitors, heat-network extensions, circular-economy markets, retrofitting programmes, youth training, apprenticeships and community engagement – to develop long-term strategies. The Mayor has also part-funded a further 10 Future Neighbourhood strategies for nine boroughs and one housing association, to develop a roadmap for sustainable place-making.
• In April 2022 the Mayor announced he would take part in the C40 Cities “climate budget” pilot. Highlighting climate measures in the financial budget ensures the Mayor’s net-zero target remains front and centre of his budget.
• In December 2022 all parts of the GLA Group published their first climate budgets alongside their wider financial budgets. These set out a list of funded and unfunded projects that each organisation will implement over the coming years, using a range of funding and financing sources – including the GLA Group budget and the Mayor’s Green Finance programme – to help London get to net zero by 2030.
• The Mayor and the Deputy Mayor for Environment and Energy both participated in several events during another successful London Climate Action Week (LCAW) that ran from 25 June to 3 July 2022. These included the LCAW opening event; the Fossil Fuel Non-proliferation Treaty event; the Climate Innovation Forum; the Business Climate forum; and the Barbican Culture event.
• In his role as the Chair of C40 Cities, in October 2022 the Mayor chaired the triannual C40 World Mayors’ Summit in Buenos Aires. It focused on approaches and solutions to tackling the climate emergency – importantly, with a focus on acceleration action to cut emissions and improve resilience.

Heat

• The UK saw its first ever UK Health Security Agency Level 4 heat alert, and Met Office Red extreme heat warning, in July 2022, meaning that impacts were expected beyond the health and social care system, and that even fit and healthy people were at risk. The Mayor kept Londoners informed throughout this period, as he did during London’s other heatwave episodes in previous summers.

• During this heatwave, the GLA worked with boroughs, community groups and faith-based organisations to increase the number of cool spaces accessible to Londoners to 495 in total (131 indoors and 364 outdoors). Whilst the Heatwave Plan encourages people to stay at home during heatwaves, there will be Londoners who are caught up outside whilst going about their day-to-day lives. During the heatwave in July 2022, page views on the environment section of our website jumped to 36,000 in a single day (from a daily average of 2,200). Most were for the Cool Spaces page, which helps the public find places of refuge during hot weather. The Refill app that can be downloaded shows where the cool spaces are located.
• Following last summer’s extreme temperatures and wildfires (18 and 19 July 2022), the Mayor pledged £3.1m for a new tree-planting package to protect and future-proof London, in response to the impacts of climate change. This focuses on tree planting for shade; supports boroughs to plant more street trees; funds community tree packs and planting projects; and makes London more resilient to flooding.
• The Mayor also convened two workshops in the autumn to explore collaborative working with stakeholders on managing heat risk in London; and to reduce the impacts of extreme heat falling on vulnerable communities. 
• The Mayor has commissioned research into retrofit measures for existing homes and buildings in London, which would help create cooler homes for summer.

• The Mayor continues to promote heat-mitigation measures, such as solar shading and ventilation in and around existing buildings, through the Energy for Londoners programme.

• The £1.5m Climate Resilient Schools programme has worked with up to 101 schools by improving water efficiency; reducing surface-water flood and heat risk; helping schools create climate adaptation plans; and teaching children the importance of preparing for, responding to and recovering from the impacts of climate change. The learning from this programme can be picked up by other schools via www.london.gov.uk.

Flooding

• Following the flash floods in summer 2021, the Mayor convened key agencies with responsibilities for surface-water flooding through a series of roundtable meetings to ensure London is better prepared in future. The Mayor published the surface-water flooding roundtable progress report, setting out the actions risk management partners in London are taking to reduce the risk of surface-water flooding, including the progression of a pan-London surface-water flooding strategy.

• In July 2022, the Mayor wrote to Londoners in 45,000 basement properties, and properties with basements, to urgently raise awareness and help them prepare in the event of a flood. The leaflet offers practical advice and guidance to residents about how to prepare for and deal with a flash flood.
• The Climate Resilient Schools programme has targeted the schools in London that are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The £1.7m programme has prioritised the 95 London schools that make up the top 10 per cent with the highest surface-water flood risk. Bespoke Climate Adaptation Plans have been completed for 60 of the schools. The plans provide practical advice that schools can follow to adjust to, prepare for, respond to and recover from climate impacts and risks. This programme also installed over 550 sustainable drainage system (SuDS) rain planters in 72 schools to help capture rainwater.
• London Flood Awareness Week ran from 28 November to 4 December 2022. This annual campaign aims to make Londoners more aware of and prepared for flooding, focusing on surface-water flooding (or flash flooding) in particular.

Energy

The Mayor is using all his powers to help tackle the twin challenges of the climate emergency and the cost-of-living crisis by decarbonising buildings and their heat/energy supply, with a focus on combating fuel poverty and environmental injustice. Action taken by the Mayor this year includes:

• The Mayor launched Energy Advice London in November 2022, a new online and telephone advice service run by the Energy Saving Trust and designed to help Londoners struggling to pay soaring energy bills due to the cost-of-living crisis.

• The Mayor targeted fuel-poor households through his Warmer Homes programme, providing heating and insulation improvements to 2,232 fuel-poor homes between April 2022 and March 2023; and supporting over 21,500 households with small energy-efficiency measures and advice on energy-bill savings. In London those at risk of/in fuel poverty are disproportionately of Black or Asian ethnicity; lone parents; older people; and/or people who are long-term sick or disabled.

• The Mayor launched the sixth round of the London Community Energy Fund, providing £400,000 to get community energy projects up and running. This round includes a focus on inclusion of diverse communities in the energy sector. To date, over 139 grant offers have been made through five rounds of funding since 2017 totalling over £1.8m of grant offers. Projects from the first four phases have the potential to save over 2,500 tonnes of carbon a year, and generate up to 8MW of additional solar capacity.
• The Mayor continued his work to increase delivery of building retrofit, district energy networks and clean energy supply though his Low Carbon Accelerators. Highlights include:
  • retrofitting over 700 workplace buildings since 2016, and lining up over 1,800 homes to undergo deep retrofit by 2024
  • funding over 30 local energy projects, such as district energy networks, which are forecast to deliver over 100,000 tCO₂ savings per year and over 90MW renewable energy capacity by 2030
  • leveraging £26m in capital grant investment for decarbonisation projects, including heat networks, and £180m of investment into public-sector buildings.
• The Mayor is growing the capital’s solar-energy sector through his Solar Skills programme, helping to create more green jobs and addressing issues of workforce diversity in the sector. He has also helped Londoners through his Solar Together London group purchasing scheme, with over 2,000 households having benefitted from competitively priced solar photovoltaic panels across several phases of the programme.
• The Mayor launched his Skills Academies and Skills Bootcamps for Londoners programmes last year. Both programmes include the green sector, and support partnerships of training providers and employers to deliver high-quality training in growth areas, such as retrofit and solar installation.

The Mayor continues to support investment in urban greening, which is directly helping to improve Londoners’ quality of life, in the following ways:

• £3.4m of funding was awarded through the second and third rounds of the Grow Back Greener Fund in December 2021 and December 2022. Funding is supporting 101 community projects to plant trees for shade, create and improve green spaces, and boost climate resilience. Projects are being delivered in areas of low tree-canopy cover, high climate risk or poor access to green space.

• The Mayor’s Rewilding Taskforce met throughout 2022 to explore opportunities for more ambitious, innovative projects to support nature in the capital. The recommendations from the Taskforce were published on 20 March 2023, World Rewilding Day. In response to the Taskforce recommendations, the Mayor announced £1m in additional funding to develop a large-scale rewilding pilot project and launch a new competition for rewilding projects.

• On World Rewilding Day, the Mayor also awarded £850,000 through the second round of the Mayor’s Rewild London Fund to 22 rewilding projects across the city. The fund, supported by the London Wildlife Trust, with commitment from Amazon’s Right Now Climate Fund, will go to projects focusing in and around London’s Sites of Importance for Nature Conservation. Altogether, these 22 projects are expected to enable around 116 hectares of priority habitat to be restored or created.

• In August 2022, £4m was awarded from the Green and Healthy Streets Fund to deliver innovative and exemplar greening projects (such as rain gardens and SuDS tree pits) that integrate green infrastructure and climate-resilience measures into local streets, alongside interventions that support the Mayor’s commitment to promoting active travel, reducing carbon emissions and improving air quality. Eleven boroughs received £2.85m to deliver 18 projects on borough roads. Funding will also be provided to TfL to deliver projects on TfL roads (£1m) and to enable the development of strategic green walking routes (£150,000).
• As of the 2022-23 tree planting season, the Mayor has funded the planting of over 487,000 trees across London since 2016.
• In December 2022 as part of the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15), the Mayor signed on to the Montréal Pledge, which sets out to demonstrate the leadership of cities, and the ambition to act swiftly to reverse global biodiversity declines and protect ecosystems. The Pledge includes 15 actions that align with the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework as well as the C40 Urban Nature Accelerator, to which London committed in 2021.

Making London a zero-waste city

• In support of his objective to lower the city’s carbon emissions and climate risk, the Mayor supported several activities towards making London a zero-waste city.

• To tackle avoidable plastic waste, the Mayor supported improving access to refillable locations and drinking-water fountains across London. In partnership with Thames Water, 110 drinking fountains have now been installed across 23 London boroughs. Additionally, the Mayor is supporting City to Sea’s Refill London campaign, a water-refill scheme where people can go into shops and businesses and ask for a free water refill instead of buying one. There are now over 4,500 refill points across the city.

• A further 40 fountains have been gifted to schools to help them become water-only, supporting environmental and health commitments.

• All boroughs are currently finalising new 2023-25 Reduction and Recycling Plans. The Mayor has set out his expectation that these plans will include greater ambition and actions to cut waste and boost recycling – for example, through encouraging commitments to roll out ReLondon’s Flats Recycling Package, which includes proven measures to increase recycling at purpose-built flats and estates.
• The Mayor launched the Food Connect service to redistribute surplus food to people experiencing food insecurity through a network of community fridges in Southwark, using electric vans and cargo bikes. The programme redistributed 133 tonnes of food, saving 260 tonnes of greenhouse-gas emissions.

A Green New Deal

• Through the Mayor’s Green New Deal fund, ReLondon supported circular businesses, which helped create and safeguard 630 green jobs in the capital.

• The fund directly enabled 54 businesses to access £590,000 of grants and over 550 hours of expert advice from ReLondon’s business support specialists, helping them explore, pilot and scale innovative new waste-busting business models.
• The Mayor’s Green New Deal Better Futures+ programme expanded the delivery of cleantech business support to increase access to more diverse communities through its grants and internship programme; and to include support for businesses to transition to net zero by offering free net-zero support in learning and carbon-reduction impact, cutting costs and catering to the growing consumer market. By the end of March 2023, 95 unique businesses had been supported; 127 had received specialist net-zero support; 175 had measured their carbon footprints and transitioned to “green”; and 47 internships had been completed.

London Sustainable Development Commission (LSDC)

• The LSDC held a conference on London’s ‘Just Transition’ – ensuring the city’s journey to net zero carbon is fair. Building on this, the LSDC is developing a set of recommendations for the Mayor and borough leaders to give communities a greater say in local environmental projects, and ensure the benefits of a green economy are accessible to all Londoners.

• The LSDC also published a report titled ‘Social Value in the Built Environment’. This made recommendations for how developers, councils and the Mayor can create better neighbourhoods for Londoners to live and work in. These are now being delivered, which includes exploring how they can be incorporated into the next London Plan.

Leading by example

• The GLA Group is leading by example to deliver the Mayor’s environmental vision for London. TfL, the Metropolitan Police Service, London Fire Brigade and the London Legacy Development Corporation have all produced plans to achieve net zero carbon by 2030 and are working towards delivery.

• The GLA Group annually procures around £9.5bn worth of products and services. Its Responsible Procurement Implementation Plan is taking action to use this expenditure to drive community benefit for Londoners and the local economy. This includes: requiring suppliers of new contracts over £5m to provide carbon-reduction plans; requiring all vehicles delivering to GLA Group sites to be zero-emission in all new contracts from 2025; and aiming for 20 per cent of spend to be with small and medium-sized businesses.

• 2022-23 was another record-breaking year for affordable housing in London, with construction starting on 25,658 affordable homes under the Mayor’s affordable housing programmes. This means that through working with partners, the Mayor has surpassed the target of starting 116,000 genuinely affordable homes for Londoners between 2015-16 and 2022-23, with 116,782 started.
• Alongside the starts delivery, the Mayor also delivered 13,954 completions of genuinely affordable homes for Londoners, taking the total since 2016 to 63,817.
• Increasing the provision of genuinely affordable homes benefits communities most likely to live in overcrowded, poor-quality or unaffordable housing, who are disproportionately likely to be in poverty and from a Black, Asian or minority ethnic background. Building affordable homes is expected to help eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity, and foster good relations between those who share a protected characteristic and those who do not. An Equality Impact Assessment for the Affordable Homes programme is available here.  Other GLA equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) housing objectives are:
  • increasing the number of homes that meet Londoners’ diverse housing needs – including, year-on-year, the pace of provision of affordable specialist and supported housing
  • addressing the barriers that stop some rough sleepers leaving the streets and rebuilding their lives.

Progress on delivery of these objectives is outlined in the relevant paragraphs below.

• For the first time, the Affordable Homes Programme 2023-2026 introduces new requirements on partners to advance EDI in their own organisations, in the wider sector and among the communities they house, as a condition of funding from the GLA. These sit alongside contractual requirements to meet building safety standards and new requirements on design and sustainability.
• In 2021-22, after beating his target to enable London boroughs to build 10,000 new council and Right to Buy replacement homes by March 2023, the Mayor increased that target to 20,000 by 2024. He has, again, exceeded that target a year early, with more than 23,000 council housing starts under way by the end of March 2023.
• The Mayor’s Right to Buy-back programme has helped boroughs provide more homes for permanent social rent and good-quality temporary accommodation – helping to counteract the historic loss of London’s council homes through Right to Buy. Nearly 1,300 homes were acquired by councils as of 31 March 2023.
• On 24 February 2023, the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Mayor announced that City Hall had secured £126m in grant funding from the government’s Local Authority Housing Fund to be administered as the Refugee Housing Programme (RHP) in London. The RHP will provide funding for up to 630 homes in London for Ukrainians and Afghans who have fled conflict and are homeless, at risk of homelessness or living in unsuitable temporary accommodation.
• Building homes on the Mayor and GLA Group’s land is also critical. In 2022-23, 2,364 homes were started on GLA land or through joint ventures, bringing the total to 5,522 since April 2021 and exceeding (a year early) the target to start 5,000 homes between April 2021 and March 2024. This includes 238 homes in the Royal Docks in 2022-23, exceeding the area target of 1,000 housing units by starting 1,358 since April 2021.
• During 2022-23 the implementation of Lord Kerslake’s 15 recommendations to improve GLA Group housing delivery has been progressed. The Housing Professional Collaboration Community has expanded its remit to provide a forum for GLA Group collaboration at both strategic and operational levels. The programme for implementation has been established and the new Homes for Londoners sub-committee met regularly to review progress of the Group bodies and scrutinise the approach to collaboration.
• In 2022-23, £77m of Land Fund money was committed to projects to enable the delivery of just over 1,470 homes. Overall, of the £736m Homes for Londoners Land Fund, circa £566m has been committed to date. These investments will enable the delivery of just under 16,000 homes, approximately 50 per cent of which are affordable homes. These latest commitments mean the Mayor committed the full £486m allocation from the government (which was part of the Homes for Londoners Land Fund) within the timeframe. More importantly, however, it means he is set to over-achieve the original target of 8,000 homes with that funding, forecasting 14,765 homes – of which 50 per cent will be affordable. Of those forecast starts, 6,076 homes have already started; of these, 838 have completed. Through this programme the Mayor is again increasing the provision of genuinely affordable homes, which will benefit diverse groups and communities that are most likely to live in overcrowded, poor-quality or unaffordable housing.
• 566 longer-term homes for rough sleepers were started in 2022-23 through the Mayor’s Rough Sleeping Accommodation Programme and his Move-on Programme. This took the total number of starts through these programmes to 1,346 between April 2021 and March 2023. This exceeds the target of starting 1,000 homes during the current Mayoral term. At the end of March 2023, 1,068 people with a history of rough sleeping, or who are at immediate risk of sleeping rough, were accommodated and being supported in units delivered through this programme.
• During 2022-23, revenue funding through the Mayor’s Community Housing Fund (CHF) was allocated to enable the delivery of 37 community-led homes, bringing the cumulative total of homes that have received revenue funding to 254. Capital CHF funding has been allocated to enable to delivery of 186 homes (cumulative) and 29 of these started on site, bringing the total to 95 started on site under this programme.
• During 2022-23, the Mayor’s Life Off the Streets core services worked with 4,867 individuals on the streets of London, and supported 2,119 former rough sleepers in their tenancies.
• This year, the Mayor has focused his work for private renters on better-equipping councils and enforcement agencies to tackle poor standards and conditions, and to prevent illegal evictions. Across 31 different boroughs, 240 council officers have undertaken GLA enforcement training sessions this year, as part of the Private Rented Sector Partnership. In addition, more than 9,250 front-line Metropolitan Police officers have undertaken mandatory illegal eviction prevention training; and the Mayor’s year-long Better Renting qualification, to train more council enforcement staff, is nearing the completion of its second year. The Mayor’s Rogue Landlord and Agent Checker now contains almost 3,000 records of private landlords and letting agents who have been prosecuted or fined by councils; these were viewed 99,649 times during 2022-23, and almost 400,000 times in its lifetime.
• During 2022-23, over 10,500 survivors of domestic abuse in London have been supported through the Mayor’s Domestic Abuse Safe Accommodation programme as part of his Part 4 duties under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021.
• Funding was released to progress the replacement of unsafe cladding on 100 additional buildings across the capital in London in 2022-23, under the Social and Private Sector ACM Cladding Remediation Funds and the Building Safety Fund. The Mayor continues to lobby the government to ensure that all leaseholders are fully protected from building safety remediation costs.

London Plan and Growth Strategies

• Implementation of the London Plan has been supported during 2022-23 by the publication of the London Employment Sites Database, the London Industrial Land Supply Study, and adoption of London Plan Guidance on: Sustainable Transport, Walking and Cycling; Air Quality Positive; Air Quality Neutral; and the Urban Greening Factor. Energy Assessment Guidance was also published. Public consultation concluded on draft guidance on fire safety. Collectively, this planning guidance helps achieve objective 4 of the Mayor's Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy by ensuring new development contributes to improving Londoners’ air quality and access to green space; and lowering the city’s carbon emissions, so that inequalities in exposure to harmful pollution and climate risks are reduced. On 8 February 2023 a statement was also published clarifying that all residential buildings over 30m in height would need to be designed to include two staircases before they are referred to the Mayor for a Stage 2 decision.
• As part of the Planning for London Programme, a series of deliberative events were hosted, inviting a representative group of 160 Londoners to talk about the challenges facing the built environment (covering topics such as housing, the economy, the environment, transport and communities) and their views on tackling them.
• Monitoring is now underway on the quantum, rate and character of development across London’s 47 Opportunity Areas (OAs) on a dedicated OA-monitoring website. This uses data from the Planning Datahub. OA monitoring helps in understanding the impact of OA designation; obtaining an up-to-date picture of OA progress to date; revealing patterns of growth in OAs at a pan-London scale; conducting comparative analysis of OAs; and informing future strategic planning. The OA monitoring site currently includes up-to-date, accessible data and mapping of residential and non-residential development, including completions, starts and affordable housing delivery. New OA-monitoring dashboards were added in early 2023 to cover development pipeline, density and social infrastructure.

Planning applications

• The Mayor considered 157 applications at Stage 2 of the referral process in 2022. Of these, 136 applications were referred to the Mayor at Stage 2 with a borough resolution to grant consent.
• Of the approved schemes, 82 were residential or mixed-use development – providing a total of 46,844 residential units (C3 use class), of which 18,012 were affordable. This is the highest proportion of affordable homes secured in strategic schemes approved by the Mayor (38 per cent) since the data was first recorded in 2011. This compares with 25 per cent in 2016, and is the equivalent of 43 per cent affordable housing when measured by habitable rooms. The average level of affordable housing per scheme was 41 per cent (by unit) and 45 per cent (by habitable room).
• 84 per cent of strategic applications provided 35 per cent affordable housing or more in 2022 (up from 53 per cent in 2018), which is the highest proportion recorded to date. Two-thirds of eligible schemes followed the fast-track route in 2022 (up from 27 per cent in 2018), which is also the highest to date.
• The highest overall number of affordable homes and social rented housing in strategic applications was secured in 2022 (since data was first collected in 2011).
• Two call-in hearings were held, for a commercial scheme at Vinegar Yard in Southwark and for the residential redevelopment of Paddington Green Police Station in Westminster. Both were approved subject to the completion of a Section 106 Legal Agreement.

Regeneration

• The £75m Good Growth Fund continues to support delivery of 79 projects that are creating new jobs, community spaces, public-realm improvements and affordable workspace across the city. With 45 projects now complete, the social impact, design quality, and climate-conscious projects being delivered in collaboration with local communities are beginning to bear fruit. Projects completed this year include:
  • The Africa Centre (awarded £1.6m) opened its new home in Southwark, from where it will continue to promote and celebrate its rich heritage and ambition to become London’s hub for African arts, culture, enterprise and development.
  • Talent House in Stratford (awarded £1.35m): the project promotes dance and Black music culture, working with local community organisations to support young people to develop skills and employment pathways into creative industries.
  • Fore Street Library and high-street improvements in Enfield (awarded £1.1m), alongside a new cultural programme, are boosting the local economy, including the night-time economy, and creating a community-first approach to creative enterprise.
• The High Streets for All Mission continued to support the recovery of high streets from both the pandemic and the emerging cost-of-living crisis. Delivery this year included:
  • ​​​​​​High Street Data Service – collective purchasing of data to support local decision-making that is enabling boroughs and Business Improvement Districts to develop data-driven strategies that respond to local needs.
  • The launch of Property X-Change, an online platform and network promoting accessible asset management to create thriving high streets that respond to local needs.
  • Allocation of the final £1m of the High Streets for All Challenge Fund, to exemplar high-street projects led by local partnerships in Hounsliow, Newham, Hackney, Croydon, Hillingdon, Bromley and Ealing. 
  • Adaptation of a vacant department store in Hounslow into a community-driven meanwhile space providing opportunities for local people and businesses to test and trial their ideas.
  • Establishment of the first Community Improvement District pilots in England (Kilburn and Wood Green) which seek to embed local representation in town centre stewardship.
• The Good Growth by Design Programme – which promotes quality and inclusion in the built environment – announced a refreshed panel of 42 Mayor’s Design Advocates. The new cohort includes practitioners with expertise in net zero carbon and sustainability; the safety of women and girls; and housing quality. Women make up 55 per cent of the panel; and 45 per cent come from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds. Delivery this year included:
  • The launch of the Architecture and Urbanism Framework Panel in February 2023. The procurement process implemented a range of progressive measures to address the under-representation of women and people from minority groups. More than half (57 per cent) of places on the Framework have been awarded to ‘diverse-led’ enterprises, meaning at least half of their executive leadership identifies as female, Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic, disabled and/or a member of the LGBTQIA+ community
  • New research into the role of design in the safety of women, girls and gender-diverse people in public spaces. This takes learning from international precedent, and is testing principles on live projects across London.
• The second London Markets Board was appointed in September 2022 to oversee the Street and Covered Markets Programme. Women make up 47 per cent of the board; and 32 per cent are from Black and Minority Ethnic backgrounds, reflecting the diversity of London’s communities and market operators. Delivery this year includes the Openmarkets platform, enabling traders to apply for pitches in different boroughs and local authority markets, in order to fill vacant pitches. The initiative was enabled by the Resilience Fund, which supported partnerships between London’s tech sector and local innovators to address longstanding challenges and build resilience in the capital.

Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC)

• In June 2022, the Mayor was pleased to announce the adoption of the OPDC’s Local Plan. This was a major milestone for the development corporation. The Local Plan sets a planning policy framework for the OPDC for the next 25 years and beyond, paving the way for 25,500 new homes and 56,000 jobs. It will frame and guide development to create a thriving community of healthy streets; high-quality and affordable homes; and connected places to live and work, including an innovative industrial area. It will also capitalise on the construction of the High Speed 2 station at Old Oak Common.
• Following the adoption of the Local Plan, the OPDC has developed a suite of Planning Documents (SPDs) including, amongst others, Planning Obligations; Community Infrastructure Levy; Old Oak West; Public Realm and Green Infrastructure; and Industrial. These will add important detail to the policies in the Local Plan, to deliver inclusive and sustainable regeneration that meets Mayoral priorities for a greener, healthier and more prosperous part of the city. 
• To support the adoption of the Old Oak West SPD, a series of Place Lab (co-design) sessions started in March 2023 to engage the local community to help shape the future of the area. Engagement has reached over 20,000 Londoners across 24 events, representing the diverse make-up of the area. This includes groups representing young people; those with disabilities; the LGBTQ+ community; different faith and race organisations; and women’s networks.
• To date, the OPDC has approved planning applications for 6,839 new homes, 41 per cent of which are affordable, with over 6,000 built or under construction. This year, applications for the construction of 527 homes have been approved; 247 homes have completed; and a resolution to approve a further 457 homes and 462 co-living homes has been passed.
• In March 2023, following the award of £50m from the GLA’s Land Fund to support delivery of 1,100-1,500 new homes by 2029, the OPDC exchanged contracts for the acquisition for a site on Victoria Road. This is the first land acquisition made by the development corporation to support delivery of the GLA’s housing target and unlock the delivery of Old Oak West.
• The OPDC has developed a strategic business case for a major sustainable heat and energy network, utilising waste heat generated by local data centres. The network could support many thousands of new homes as well as existing energy users, including Central Middlesex Hospital, and achieve around a 90 per cent saving in carbon emissions. A funding bid for £35m to the government’s UK Green Heat Energy Fund is currently being assessed, subject to which a detailed commercial case will be developed prior to a final decision to secure a commercial partner to take the project forward to delivery.
• The OPDC has made excellent progress in delivering its Park Royal programme organised around infrastructure and sustainability; public realm and placemaking; workspace and intensification; business support, skills and employability; community capacity-building; and governance and engagement. 
• Since securing Creative Enterprise Zone status for Park Royal (launched by the Deputy Mayor for Culture and Creative Industries in September 2022) with the London Borough of Ealing, the OPDC has delivered a programme of public events, artworks and skills programmes through commissions and grant funding. This year saw the launch of an open call for ideas where 10 local projects were, between them, awarded £159,000 in total.  
• The OPDC has delivered enhancements to Willesden Junction, Old Oak Lane Towpath and Harlesden Canalside. These include public artwork; better and improved access to the canal and station; community gardens and planting; two dedicated community-operated moorings; and improved facilities for the canoeing club, local fitness groups and boaters.
• In line with planning policy, the OPDC has developed an Affordable Workspace Delivery Plan, setting out the ambition for direct delivery of affordable workspace. This year saw the launch of the Park Royal Open Workspace, an affordable shared workspace for local creatives, and provision of £150,000 to deliver a Creative Enterprise Zone Small Business and Affordable Workspace Loan Fund. The loan fund will help creative businesses and affordable workspace providers to expand. As a revolving fund, loan repayments will be recycled to help additional businesses.
• The Forge (run in partnership with the London boroughs of Brent, Ealing, and Hammersmith and Fulham; West London College; the Shaw Trust; and the Department for Work and Pensions) continues to improve opportunities for local people to access jobs. It has advertised more than 400 vacancies (with more than 170 filled) and supported over 200 local businesses, alongside delivering a programme of outreach in local job centres, covering Harlesden, Wembley, Queen’s Park and Ealing.
• This year saw the launch of the OPDC’s first Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Strategy, setting out how the corporation will identify, prioritise, enable and champion equitable opportunities for both staff and the community. All major procurements this year have been assessed on their EDI action plans, which include commitments to provide training to local schools and employ local people.
• The OPDC is continuing to support communities and local volunteering initiatives through its Small Grants programme, which grant funded nearly £150,000 to 21 community-led projects, reaching over 45,000 beneficiaries across west London. The activities – promoting art, culture, heritage, sustainability and diversity – support communities in Brent, Ealing, and Hammersmith and Fulham. They range from foodbanks, youth work, nature walks on the Scrubs, summer clubs and charity work.

London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC)

• The Mayor announced on 20 April 2022 that he had asked the LLDC’s Chief Executive, Lyn Garner, to coordinate housing delivery on GLA Group-owned land, implementing one of the recommendations of the Lord Kerslake review.
• During his visit to New York in May 2022, the Mayor announced that Major League Baseball was to return to London Stadium as part of a new three-year deal. It built on the success of the London Series 2019, which generated £37m for the local economy and a further £10m nationally.
• Other event announcements at London Stadium came throughout the year, with UK Athletics, Burna Boy, The Weeknd and Monster Jam all confirmed as part of the summer 2023 schedule.
• Events hosted throughout the year at London Stadium, the London Aquatics Centre, the Copper Box Arena and Lee Valley VeloPark, and across Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, included concerts from Green Day, Fall Out Boy, Weezer and Red Hot Chili Peppers; the London Halal Food Festival; the Arena Games Triathlon; the Wheelchair Rugby League World Cup; the Commonwealth Games track cycling event; and UK Black Pride.
• Work on our flagship culture and education district, East Bank, has taken significant steps forward over the past year. This included a topping-out ceremony held on 24 May 2023 to mark the BBC’s new music studios at East Bank, which featured the first live musical performance to take place at the site; and the opening, in November, of University College London’s (UCL’s) East campus at One Pool Street. At Stratford Waterfront, the V&A’s iconic branding was put in place in January, while University of the Arts London’s (UAL’s) sign was installed on the London College of Fashion building in March.
• The Mayor attended the official opening of ABBA Arena on 27 May 2022. Since then, ABBA Voyage has attracted more than 1m additional visitors to the Park.
• On 31 May 2022, the LLDC published a report on the safety of women and girls on and around Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. This followed a consultation that was held in September 2021.
• SHIFT London, the world’s first inclusive innovation district, was formally launched at Here East on 17 June 2022, at the end of London Tech Week. Led by seven core partners – UAL, UCL, Loughborough University, Here East, Plexal, Lendlease and the LLDC – SHIFT is London’s living testbed for creating better urban futures, building on the successful legacy of the Park. It will lead the next 10 years of growth and opportunity in east London.
• In June 2022, a £6m renovation and modernisation project to upgrade several of the historic buildings at the iconic 3 Mills Studios commenced, thanks to funding from a GLA grant and the LLDC’s Community Infrastructure Levy.
• In July 2022, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park was awarded the Green Flag Award for a ninth consecutive year.

• On 22 July 2022, the Mayor was delighted to attend the 10th anniversary of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The event was hosted by Olympic cycling champion Sir Chris Hoy and welcomed an audience of Olympians, Paralympians, community groups, schoolchildren and others involved in the Games and legacy work. The event was a great opportunity to celebrate the legacy of 2012, and to look forward to plans for Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

• In the same month, almost 300 local young people participated in the annual East Summer School – now in its fifth year. The two-week programme allowed participants to benefit from various free, interactive workshops and courses hosted by East Bank and local partners, inspiring the next generation and showcasing the opportunities available on and around the Park.
• The work to deliver new homes continued throughout the year with Chobham Manor, the first neighbourhood on the Park, reaching completion and delivering 880 new homes, a café, a nursery, and 1,500m2 of open space and public realm.
• In July 2022, the LLDC’s independent Planning Decisions Committee approved the outline planning application for Bridgewater Triangle, which is set to offer circa 575 new homes. It also granted approval for Notting Hill Genesis’ reserved-matters application for 190 homes (50 per cent affordable) and 4,000sqm of commercial space (25 per cent at low cost) on LLDC-owned land in Hackney Wick. In the same month, it was also announced that a 50/50 joint venture had been set up between the LLDC and Ballymore to deliver circa 1,200 new homes across two sites: 600 at Stratford Waterfront, and about 575 at Bridgewater Triangle. The LLDC also launched procurement for a development partner to deliver at least 450 new homes at Rick Roberts Way. In January 2023, it was announced the LLDC was seeking a joint-venture development partner to deliver the last major development site on the Park. This £675m project will deliver a new local centre at Pudding Mill Lane, with a proposed 948 homes (45 per cent affordable). The development site is currently home to ABBA Voyage.
• In September 2022, the Mayor agreed a set of recommendations on the future of the LLDC, and the ongoing oversight and operation of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The LLDC’s town-planning powers will return to the four boroughs (Newham, Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest) on 1 December 2024. The LLDC will maintain its status as a Mayoral Development Corporation and a functional body of the GLA beyond 1 April 2025, but with reduced functions, a reconstituted board and governance structure, and a reduced area of oversight (subject to consultation). In line with the legal requirement to consult on any changes to a Mayoral development area, the LLDC undertook a consultation on a proposed reduction of the LLDC boundary to the core area in which it owns and/or manages or operates land. The consultation was launched on 7 March 2023.
• On the night of Queen Elizabeth II’s passing, 8 September 2022, the screen on the exterior of London Stadium paid tribute to Her Majesty, as did the inside screen during West Ham United’s fixture against Steaua Bucharest in the Europa Conference League.
• October 2022 saw the first of five LLDC appearances in front of the London Assembly at City Hall. The appearances included: a Plenary meeting in October; the Planning and Regeneration Committee in November; the Budget and Performance Committee in December; a further Plenary meeting in March; and the GLA’s Audit Panel later that month.
• On 8 October 2022, alongside Newham Council, Network Rail and TfL, the LLDC launched a public consultation that invited residents, businesses and anyone else using Stratford station to have their say on initial design proposals for how the station and surrounding area could be improved. These proposals are part of the project considering Stratford station’s long-term redevelopment.
• On 18 October 2022, the Leader and Mayors of Newham, Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest, representing the Growth Boroughs Partnership, signed a Memorandum of Understanding at City Hall with the LLDC and the Deputy Mayor for Planning, Regeneration and Skills, Jules Pipe. This cemented their commitment to continued collaboration to drive sustainable and inclusive growth for east Londoners. The Mayor was pleased to see that Sir Peter Hendy (now Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) was nominated as a crossbench peer later in the month. Lord Hendy was appointed chair of the LLDC in 2017, and this latest recognition is a fitting reward after so many years of dedicated public service.
• On 21 November 2022, the Legacy Youth Board held a relaunch. Over the last six months, the Board has been working with a local design agency to develop a new brand strategy for the Park’s Youth Engagement Programme. This will collate and better connect the youth activity and opportunities on around the Park under one distinctive umbrella, and broaden reach and impact.
• In December 2022, the new academic space of the Global Disability Innovation Hub (GDI Hub) at UCL East’s One Pool Street building was officially opened on the Park. The GDI Hub is a research and practice centre driving disability innovation for a fairer world. The opening marked the UN’s International Day of Persons with Disabilities.
• On 23 February 2023, a review of the Fixed Estate Charge (FEC) was published; this was undertaken by the Deputy Mayor for Planning, Regeneration and Skills, Jules Pipe. The FEC was developed to contribute towards the cost of maintaining Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park’s parklands and its facilities as an estate for the enjoyment of all those living, working in or visiting the Park. The charge applies to commercial and residential occupiers on the Park in line with the LLDC’s boundaries.
• On 18 March 2023, Elevate – the new identity of the Park’s youth programme – held its Future Me, Future Youth annual conference at Plexal, at Here East. Attended by 150 local young people, the event (part of East Careers Week) aimed to connect young people with employers; and to help create, and shape pathways to, new opportunities.

• The Civil Society and Sport Unit funded 88 community-led projects through the Building Strong Communities (BSC) grants. So far, 797 Londoners have benefited – with over 600 of these individuals identifying as belonging to minoritised groups. Over 200 volunteers have supported BSC projects to date.
• There were 2,300 volunteers participating in the Ambassador and Major Sporting Events programmes, completing 7,500 shifts. Their work supported events including Formula E, the Big Half and the Women’s Euros. Over 1,000 volunteers supported the HM the Queen’s funeral – both in the run up to, and on the day of, the event. Volunteers supported events that engaged with London’s diverse communities, including Eid in the Square; Diwali on the Square; Black History Month; and the UNESCO International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition. Of all volunteers who participated across the year, 28 per cent identify as being from a Black, Asian or minority ethnic group; and 7 per cent identify as having a disability.
• The Mayor convened an equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) volunteer advisory group to improve the inclusion and accessibility of our volunteering programmes. He also created a partnership with Macmillan Cancer Trust, English Heritage and Citizens Advice to organise the first EDI Volunteer Manager Forum to build a community of practice for volunteering colleagues involved in EDI work.
• The London Volunteering Strategy Group developed the London Lifelines campaign, which increases awareness of how volunteering contributes to stronger communities; celebrates the diversity of volunteers in London; signposts sector activity, enables collaboration; and supports people to take action, in particular on food volunteering, providing critical support in response to the cost-of-living crisis.
• The Mayor’s Youth-led Social Action programme empowers marginalised young Londoners to address local issues and amplify their voices. It works in the following ways:
  • Young Ambassadors connects young people to their communities through alternative provision and school-based social action. It supported 4,538 young people, particularly those at risk of exclusion and with special educational needs, with over 70 grants awarded to schools for equalities projects.
  • HeadStart Action engages those aged 14-18 in youth-led community social action, offering employability and training opportunities. It supported 720 marginalised young people through capacity-building support to grassroots organisations in 13 London boroughs.
  • My London develops tailored youth social action projects in collaboration with community organisations, improving the mental health and wellbeing of vulnerable young people aged 11-24;  and assisted 252 of them in six London boroughs.
• The Sport Unites programme used sport and physical activity to bring people from diverse backgrounds together, to reduce inactivity; improve mental health and wellbeing; and support young people affected by violence. The programme works in the following ways:
  • The Sport Unites fund supported Londoners most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, including young and older people; and those with long-term health conditions and poor mental health. Participants totalled 4,300.
  • The London Together programme which uses sport for change and aims to increase social integration, in partnership with Comic Relief, also delivered to its final participants – making a total of 8,062 participants between 2018 and 2023.
  • Open Doors provided 402 young people – who have already been or are at risk of exclusion from education, or at risk of youth crime – with coaching, mentoring, local role models and enriching engagement in safe and familiar spaces, by opening school facilities during holidays.
• In partnership with London’s Violence Reduction Unit, the team launched sport interventions for young people affected by violence. These include the Future Ready Fund, which has awarded grants to 13 organisations to deliver sport coaching and mentoring to support young people at risk of exclusion during the transition between primary and secondary school; the Young People Affected by Violence Steering Group, which ensures that young people are heard and afforded the opportunity to make changes within this area of work; and afterschool and holidays provision which supported 4,635 young people in 2022-23, and upskilled the community sport workforce in order to deliver mentoring to young people with diverse needs.
• Major Sport Brand partnerships supporting young Londoners included the following:
  • A £1m partnership with the US National Basketball Association to create a managed network of development, training and deployment opportunities for 500 new young coaches across London; and to provide coaching and mentoring for up to 20,000 young Londoners with Basketball England
  • National Football League (NFL) Foundation London Partnerships, which delivered US NFL flag football through community organisations. This project also develops youth advocacy and social connectivity; reduces physical and mental wellbeing inequalities; and has delivered to 497 participants to date.
• The £19.5m Go! London Fund in partnership with Sport England and London Marathon Foundation will support underserved Londoners aged between four and 24. It officially opened for applications in March 2023, with 169 applications for evolution grants, and 420 applications for foundation grants.

Health and Well-Being

Mental health and wellbeing

• This year, 65,000 Londoners have participated in Mayoral-funded mental health and wellbeing events, taken training, and engaged in community projects. This takes the total number of Londoners who are championing mental health to more than 143,000. This means the Mayor is making progress on his ambition to have 250,000 wellbeing champions in London by 2025.
• As of March 2023, 342,000 Londoners – including the Mayor – have taken the #ZeroSuicideLDN training, helping to raise awareness of suicide, supporting conversations, reducing stigma and signposting to sources of support. Working with Thrive LDN and Papyrus, the Mayor has also funded suicide-prevention training, which is being delivered across 350 further and higher-education settings.
• The rollout of Youth Mental Health First Aid was completed. The training has been rolled out to 4,000 education and youth-sector staff, helping them spot signs and symptoms; and be confident in talking to children and young people about their mental health.
• A £150,000 investment in 2022-23 has funded a further five innovative projects as part of the Right to Thrive Innovation Fund. This has focused on supporting the mental health and wellbeing of those who are experiencing higher levels of unfair treatment and discrimination. 
• Over 500 of London’s local government councillors – one in four – representing all London boroughs have taken training funded by the Mayor to help them take meaningful action to improve mental health in their communities.

School Superzones

• Between 2022 and 2023, the Mayor invested a further £800,000 to expand the School Superzones programme. The funding provided 19 new grants to boroughs working with schools, and other local actors to improve children’s health and address issues contributing to health inequalities. There are now 53 School Superzones across 20 boroughs, prioritising areas of London with the highest needs, and more are due to launch soon.

Water-only schools

• In March 2022 the Mayor officially launched the ‘drinking fountains for London schools programme’ pilot. The programme, which is a partnership with Thames Water and City Hall, has seen 20 water fountains already donated to London schools, with an additional 20 drinking fountains being gifted by April 2023. It aims to increase access free high-quality drinking water, and encourages schools to take the pledge to become ‘water- only’ schools.

London’s Health Inequalities Strategy

• In the second year of the Health Inequalities Strategy Implementation Plan 2021-24, the Mayor has successfully delivered on each of his key commitments. The Mayor remains committed to working with partners to deliver the rest of the commitments in the plan to improve Londoners’ health and reduce health inequalities.
• The GLA grant-funded the Institute of Health Equity to support the development of a series of evidence reviews focused on interventions to reduce health inequalities in London; and to collaborate with partners on a data snapshot of health inequalities in London. The data snapshot and reviews on housing and the cost of living were published, with work on skills, climate change and structural racism ongoing.

The Mayor becomes a London Lifesaver

• On 4 October 2022 the Mayor completed London Lifesaver Training with the London Ambulance Service, showing Londoners how straightforward and important it is to learn these vital lifesaving skills – including how to perform CPR, use a defibrillator and put someone in the recovery position.

Supporting blood donation in London

• In February 2023, the Mayor and NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) hosted a blood drive at City Hall, while urging more donors from Black Caribbean and Black African heritage to step forward and become donors. For conditions that require regular transfusions, such as sickle cell disease, the best match usually comes from blood donors of the same ethnic background. Sickle cell is the country’s fastest-growing genetic blood disorder, and it disproportionately impacts people of Black African and Black Caribbean heritage.

The Mayor’s six tests

• In 2022, North West London Integrated Care System set out proposals to create an elective orthopaedic centre at Central Middlesex Hospital. The Mayor published his response, based on an independent review of the proposals against his six tests, commissioned to ensure that the changes were in the best interests of Londoners. In November 2022, the Mayor also refreshed the health inequalities strand of the six tests. The strengthened tests require future schemes to have a resourced action plan to tackle health and healthcare inequalities, as well as requiring proposals to address health inequalities relating to socio-economic deprivation and structural racism.

GLA Group Public Health Unit

• Throughout 2022, the GLA Group Public Health Unit continued to provide the Mayor with expert advice to support London’s response and resilience to public-health threats, many of which disproportionately impact diverse communities and contribute to widening health inequalities. Some of the work included: providing heatwave guidance and advice to support vulnerable Londoners; monitoring strep A, polio and monkeypox outbreaks while amplifying prevention advice; and supporting winter-preparedness campaigns such as the COVID-19 autumn booster and flu vaccination programmes.

Children and young Londoners

Universal free school meals

• On 20 February 2023, the Mayor announced a historic £130m emergency, one-off funding plan to help families with the spiralling cost of living by ensuring that primary school children in London will receive free school meals in the 2023-24 academic year. This funding will help around 270,000 primary school children in the capital receive free school meals and could save families around £440 across the year. This emergency funding is for one year only, and the Mayor will continue to call on the government to step forward and provide the funding to make this permanent.

New Deal for Young People

• Between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023, the Mayor’s New Deal for Young People enabled over 22,000 disadvantaged young Londoners to access mentoring, taking the total number of young Londoners reached to over 46,000. This support helped them achieve outcomes such as improved mental health and wellbeing, and improved relationships.
• Since April 2022, the Mayor has invested £9m in over 30 mentoring projects that will reach more than 12,000 young people facing the biggest challenges over the next two years. These projects will provide young Londoners aged 10-24 with access to a mentor to help them reach their full potential and make the most of the opportunities our city has to offer.
• In November 2022 the Mayor joined with funders across the city to launch Propel, a collaborative fund that aims to provide £100m over the next decade in funding for the voluntary and community sector. The Mayor has invested over £10m in 27 new mentoring projects that started delivery in April 2023. These will support an additional 11,000 young people from disadvantaged groups, including young refugees and migrants, young carers, young parents and care-experienced young people.
• To ensure mentoring organisations deliver the best possible quality mentoring for young Londoners, the Mayor invested in a Mentoring Quality Framework and a Mentoring Support programme that includes training, networking and resources for youth-mentoring organisations.

Healthy School London (HSL) and Healthy Early Years London (HEYL)

• The Mayor’s HSL and HEYL programmes saw an increase in of 25 per cent in take-up of their Bronze Awards across early-years and school settings. The Mayor is investing £261,000 over the next two years to improve the programmes, and align the priorities with wider health partners to support a system-wide approach to reducing child-health inequalities.

Early years

• The Mayor continued to invest in in rebooting his London Early Years Campaign, by investing £23k in a social media campaign that aimed to raise awareness of the range of early-education and childcare support offers available. The successful campaign targeted parents of under-fives via Facebook and Instagram; it was indicated that we were reaching a more sought-after pool of users who engaged with the content.
• The Mayor invested £30k to expand his existing Strong Early Years London programme to ensure that London’s early-years sector has continuing access to an online one-stop shop of business-support resources.

The Mayor’s Young Londoners Fund

• Since its launch in 2018, the Mayor’s Young Londoners Fund has invested £45m and reached over 150,000 young Londoners (through Round 1 and 2 and scale-up projects), exceeding its lifetime target. Through investing in over 350 locally delivered projects, young people have accessed positive opportunities and safe spaces, and built trusted relationships, helping them to reach their full potential.

Youth engagement

• The Mayor’s Peer Outreach team is a diverse group of young people aged 15-25, many of whom are not in employment, education or training. They play a vital role in shaping policies, strategies and services for London; and have led a series of inspiring events on the Mayor’s behalf, working with partners and bringing young people from across the city together on issues such as mental health and safety.
• The London Partnership Youth Board supports the work of the London Partnership Board, and ensures that young people’s voices are included in addressing some of London’s challenges. The group of diverse young Londoners involves members of the Peer Outreach team, as well as the London Youth Assembly.

Community engagement

• The Community Engagement team supported year-round engagement opportunities across several priority GLA policy areas, including public health, air quality, mental health and the cost-of-living crisis. There was targeted support for groups facing barriers to participation, such as racism, digital exclusion, language, insecure immigration status, limited access to support services and mistrust of public institutions.
• This programme of engagement included quarterly interfaith meetings with senior faith leaders and twice-yearly meetings with Black majority church leaders. Quarterly meetings with communities were held with Public Health England on a range of health topics, including mental health and air pollution.
• A priority for the team has been to engage key communities and civil society organisations with the consultation of the ULEZ extension and the understanding of both the scheme and air quality more widely. This has provided groups such as younger people and faith leaders with an opportunity to provide unique insight and feedback to the GLA. 
• The Community Engagement team recognises key cultural and religious dates for communities. As such, it has highlighted dates such as Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month, International Women’s Day, Ramadan, Chanuka and Black History Month through the coordination of visits and events for the Mayor and the Deputy Mayor for Communities and Social Justice, and across communication channels. The team’s monthly Community Newsletter has a readership of over 5000 community organisations.
• We ran the third round of Civil Society Roots in partnership with the National Lottery Community Fund and City Bridge Trust. Civil Society Roots is a £1m funding programme to support equity-led organisations led by and for those impacted by structural inequalities. Grants ranging from £5,000 to £50,000 were awarded to 31 grassroots organisations, including women-led, disability-led and migrant-led groups from Enfield, Redbridge, Havering, Newham, Hounslow, Bromley, Sutton and Wandsworth.
• In September 2022 we launched the London Engagement Collaborative (LEC), a pan-London, cross-sector network aimed at improving engagement practice and collaborative working. The network held monthly meetings, bringing together from representatives from 50 organisations – including local authority representatives, academics, GLA staff, and representatives from community and art organisations. As part of its work, the LEC funded eight organisations up to £5,000 each to test and develop their engagement practice.
• In May 2022, the third round of the Civic Futures Programme, a year-long fellowship for civic and local government leaders (including GLA staff), was launched. Thirty fellows worked together to explore the skills, tools, methodologies and relationships that we need to collectively build a better future for Londoners. Work also began to develop an alumni network for the programme.
• We strengthened engagement practice across the GLA through the development of tools, guidance and networks to better equip policy teams to engage diverse communities in policymaking. This included the convening of the Internal Engagement Working Group, a community of practice for GLA officers and the creation of a diagnostic tool to assess engagement needs and outcomes. We completed an evidence review to better understand how peer-led research is used at the GLA, with a set of recommendations to embed this practice in the organisation's work.
• We developed and designed a prototype for the Community Insights Hub, which embedded user research at the heart of its design. The prototype focused on the Green New Deal London Recovery Mission, which will be developed further next year.

Equalities

• The GLA Equalities team delivered several activities to address structural inequalities across London. This includes developing and launching, in partnership with the London Partnership Board, a structural inequality action plan for London, Building a Fairer City. The plan provides a framework for partners across London to tackle the structural inequalities that led to the disproportionate impact of the pandemic. Since the Plan was launched, significant work has been undertaken by partners across London to address structural inequalities and progress delivery across each of the Action Plan’s four priority areas. Working with the commissioning partners, a programme of support to assist organisations and sectors to implement action under the plan is in final stages of development and will be launched in summer 2023. Sectors involved in this work include local government, the GLA Group, transport, health and care, business, hospitality, trade unions, and the voluntary sector.
• In November 2022 the Mayor published an update of his Equality Objectives. The new Objectives focus the GLA’s work on 14 key objectives, compared to the 39 set out in the previous version of the Mayor’s equality strategy, Inclusive London (2018). These objectives reflect the priorities of the missions set out by the London Recovery Board, providing the basis for how the GLA’s work is now structured for the purposes of budget-setting and performance-reporting. 
• We undertook a review of the implementation of equality impact assessments (EqIAs) across the GLA.  In November 2022, it was agreed that the GLA’s work on EqIAs required strengthening. Refreshed guidance on the use of EQIAs is currently being finalised and will be launched across the organisation in summer 2023. The team has collaborated on this work with the Environment team to launch a joint equalities and environmental-assessment tool.
• In March 2023 we successfully convened City Hall’s first ever Women’s Policy Summit to mark International Women’s Day. Over 80 attendees – representing voluntary-sector organisations and charities, campaigners, councillors, London Assembly members, trade unions and individuals who support women across the capital – attended to discuss issues including the cost-of-living crisis, skills and employment, housing, and the challenges facing the women’s sector. The findings from the breakout sessions and the plenary session will help to inform future GLA policy-development.
• Effective stakeholder engagement is foundation to informing the GLA’s equalities work. We engaged regularly with equalities stakeholders via the equality, diversity and inclusion advisory group, which has been meeting in line with meetings of the London Partnership Board (LPB). With members of the advisory group also joining the LPB, this has helped to ensure there is more meaningful connection between stakeholders with expertise on issues affecting equalities groups, and the work of the partnership board. 
• We coordinated further meetings for the Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations forum. The forum is supported by close working between the Equalities team and Inclusion London, a key disability stakeholder for the GLA. Over the course of the year, this forum has also been attended by the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, as well as GLA teams working on the ULEZ consultation and the cost-of-living response, to seek input and insights from stakeholders.
• We organised regular roundtable discussions with key race-equality organisations to help support a collaborative approach; identify new opportunities; and discuss the most pressing needs and concerns facing race equality organisations. This forum has a particular focus on wider policy in race equality and convenes national organisations working with a range of different ethnic groups. Over the past year it has been attended by the new Metropolitan Police Commissioner and the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, as well as GLA teams working on tackling structural inequalities and the cost-of-living response across the city. 

Financial Hardship

• The Mayor invested more than £2m to boost the capacity of London Citizens Advice (LCA) and London Legal Support Trust (LLST) law centres to respond to the cost-of-living crisis. As a result of this investment, law centres supported more than 11,000 Londoners and achieved cumulative income gains of more than £4m. Preliminary demographic data suggests the grant-funding has been effective in supporting a more diverse demographic than advice agencies usually reach. Where ethnicity was recorded, 46 per cent of LLST and 51 per cent of LCA clients were Asian, Black African and Black Caribbean, compared to Citizens Advice’s London-wide average of 36 per cent. 
• The Mayor also continued his support for partnerships between advice providers and community organisations through the Advice in Community Settings programme. In 2022-23, the programme supported nearly 3,900 Londoners to achieve cumulative income gains of £1.7m. Of the clients for whom ethnicity was reported, 34 per cent were Black, 34 per cent White, and 18 per cent Asian. Of those seen, 55 per cent had never accessed advice before; 44 per cent spoke a first language other than English; and 35 per cent were disabled. 71 per cent were women. 
• In April 2022, the Mayor launched the Cost-of-Living Hub to provide Londoners struggling with the rising cost of living with information on the different forms of support available. At the end of March 2023, the hub had registered 307,747 unique page views. To ensure that the information on the hub was accessible to those who experience barriers to getting online, the Mayor also developed a hard-copy leaflet that was sent to 80,000 households, targeted using the digital exclusion map developed by the London Office of Technology and Innovation; a further 30,000 leaflets were distributed by delivery partners.
• To help Londoners better able to navigate online forms of support, the Mayor also provided funding of just under £435,000 to seven organisations, to provide digital online tools that can help navigate the rising cost of living. Examples of funded projects included Contact’s London Hub for families with disabled children; full redevelopment of Turn2us’s crisis-search tool; and support for Hyde Housing to translate information pages into a range of community languages.
• In early 2023, the Mayor provided crisis-support grants to food partnerships in 30 of London’s 33 borough areas. Payments of up to £13,000 are helping these partnerships to improve the sustainability and resilience of local food partnerships and food-aid approaches.
• The Mayor launched an innovative Pension Credit awareness-raising campaign in partnership with London’s boroughs. As of the end of March, 13 boroughs were taking part; and nearly 6,000 households with potentially eligible older Londoners had been contacted. Full results will be gathered and published later in 2023.
• In response to the cost-of-living crisis, the Mayor provided £145,000 funding to Toynbee Hall, which hosts the Debt Free Advice partnership, for a debt-advice bus roadshow across London. The bus, which was manned by debt and welfare advisers, visited 46 locations across 26 boroughs and engaged 32,000 Londoners at stops. Nearly 450 Londoners received face-to-face advice on the bus. Of those that received debt advice, 70 per cent were female; 78 per cent were from a Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic background; and 25 per cent were single parents. 

Migration

• We continue to invest strategically in the advice and support sector to ensure that new arrivals and historically marginalised migrant communities can access support in London, including qualified independent immigration advice. This includes the Frontline Immigration Advice Programme, building the capacity of organisations to become registered, train staff, and provide legal supervision necessary to give qualified immigration advice. We have also launched the Migrant Advice and Support Fund, providing funding to 11 organisations working with migrant communities in London, including Deaf migrants, LGBTQI+ migrants, Roma Londoners, Windrush families and people seeking asylum. 

• The London Strategic Migration Partnership (LSMP) continues to provide strategic leadership for the city on migration, refugee and asylum issues. This includes ongoing support on Ukrainian arrivals, Afghan refugees and the wider asylum system. The LSMP worked with London Councils to coordinate the London Asylum Plan to widen access to asylum dispersal accommodation through an agreed fair share. The LSMP continues to support boroughs to manage pressure from high numbers of people in contingency hotel accommodation through its convening and leadership of the Asylum Welcome Design Lab, supporting boroughs to redesign services to meet the needs of local asylum populations. 
• The Hong Kong Welcome Hub – supported by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities – is delivering a £917,000 programme to support the welcome and integration of Hong Kong British Nationals (Overseas). The programme includes the launch of £309,970 funding for 10 local authorities, and £333,318 funding for 22 civil society organisations. Alongside this we continue to invest in specialist mental health and wellbeing provision; and celebrate Hong Kong arts, culture, language and heritage through events and convening. 
• We launched the Migrant Londoners Hub and Migrant Services Map to provide access to information and support for Londoners with immigration needs. The site includes specific resources for arrivals from Afghanistan, Ukraine and Hong Kong; and tailored information for Windrush families, European Londoners and undocumented young people. This information is accessible in multiple languages. 
• We launched a programme to provide bespoke training in employments rights where it intersects with immigration, as well as drop-ins, casework supervision and second-tier advice to caseworkers in participating organisations, and a community of practice to improve learning, deepen collaboration and provide more joined-up coordination to improve outcomes for migrant victims of exploitation. 

Transport

• In May 2022, the Elizabeth line opened for passengers. The new railway is the most significant addition to the capital’s transport network for a generation, and is helping to unlock journeys for disabled passengers. As with all TfL stations, Elizabeth line stations offer a ‘turn up and go’ service to anyone needing assistance. Step-free access is in place from street to train across all Elizabeth line stations between Paddington and Woolwich. There are four dedicated wheelchair bays on all trains, including low-level emergency alarms to connect wheelchair users to the driver, and other shared-use bays for passengers who need more space. It is not just step-free access that has improved with the new line: dedicated priority seats are in every carriage; all stations have induction loops in ticket halls and on platforms in the central section; and accessible toilets have opened in many stations on the route.
• In June 2022 TfL published the Direct Vision Standard (DVS) report, ‘One year on’. The data showed that, between 2018 and 2021, the world-first scheme – which reduces lethal blind spots in lorries – led to a halving in the number of fatal collisions where vision was a contributing factor. In the first year of enforcement more than 112,000 heavy goods vehicles were fitted with safety measures to protect people walking and cycling. DVS is one of the ways TfL is seeking to reduce road danger for those most at risk of harm. Recent TfL research has shown that deprivation, sex, age and mode of transport have a significant impact on casualty risk in London. Twice as many people were killed or seriously injured per kilometre of road network in the 30 per cent most deprived areas of London, compared to the 30 per cent least deprived areas.
• In July 2022, the Mayor celebrated the opening of a new Overground station at Barking Riverside, one of the fastest-growing areas of east London. The new railway will help unlock more than 10,000 homes for an estimated 30,000 new residents, along with new leisure facilities, schools and riverside walks. Barking Riverside station is fully step-free, bringing the total of step-free stations across London Overground to more than 60. Barking Riverside is London's only ‘Healthy New Town’, a project led by the NHS to explore how the development of new places can provide an opportunity for healthier communities. Facilities, events and open spaces at Barking Riverside create an environment where physical and mental health is prioritised.
• In January 2023, in partnership with the British Transport Police, the Metropolitan Police and the City of London Police, TfL and women’s safety groups launched a new phase of the Zero Tolerance to Sexual Harassment campaign, with the aim of creating a culture of active bystanders on the network. The campaign encourages customers to look out for and support others by learning to recognise the signs of sexual harassment, providing support to a person who has been targeted, reporting any incidents, and setting out clear guidance on how to intervene safely.
• In February 2023 the Bank station capacity upgrade was completed, with a new entrance on Cannon Street providing step-free access to the Northern line for the first time. The work involved creating a brand-new Northern line tunnel and passenger concourse (which was opened by the Mayor in May 2022), a wider southbound Northern line platform, and new walkways to make moving around the station easier.
• On 5 March 2023, TfL fares under the Mayor’s control increased overall by 5.9 per cent, in line with increases in national rail fares set by the government. The increase was consistent with assumptions in the funding agreement set by the government, while ensuring the increase in fares is as affordable as possible. Despite the increase, fares set by the Mayor are currently 12 per cent lower – thanks to the his fares freeze – than if he had increased them in recent years in line with inflation.
• The success of Santander Cycle Hire continued, with another record year which saw over 11.5m hires –  more than 0.5m more hires than in 2021. Seven new docking stations opened in Southwark; and in October 2022, TfL introduced the first 500 e-bikes into its Santander Cycle Hire scheme. The new e-bikes will enable even more Londoners to enjoy the benefits that cycling can bring, by helping to break down the barriers that stop some people from cycling, such as fitness and age. The e-bikes have been incredibly popular, seeing over 250,000 hires from October 2022 to April 2023.
• In March 2023, the Mayor launched plans for the Superloop – a game-changing network of limited stop express bus routes, circling the entire city and connecting outer London town centres, hospitals and transport hubs more quickly. The Superloop will be introduced in stages, with some routes already on the ground and others subject to public consultation.
• The Mayor and TfL have transformed London's taxi fleet by no longer licensing new diesel taxis, and reducing the age limit for older cabs. There are now over 6,500 zero-emission capable taxis now on the street (making up 43 per cent of all taxis). 
• The Mayor and TfL have delivered more than 300 rapid-charge points, out of almost 900 rapid-charge points available in London. In total, London now has almost 13,000 charge points.
• The Mayor and TfL have delivered a fully ULEZ-compliant bus fleet, and invested in zero-emission buses. To date, over 10 per cent of the bus fleet is zero-emission, making it the largest zero-emission bus fleet in Western Europe.

Infrastructure

• The Mayor’s Infrastructure Coordination Service (ICS), which has secured external funding for the next five years (reflecting its progress from experimental pilot to becoming a long-term function of the GLA) has achieved the following:
  • Accelerated collaborative street works, with 10 collaborative street-works projects having been completed this year (saving at least 530 days of disruption to Londoners) and over 18 more in the pipeline. These collaborative efforts have also saved approximately 15 tonnes of CO2 and contributed to reductions in air pollution. Whilst these projects only represent a small proportion of London’s street works, the ICS has used them to develop best practice and to continue embedding collaborative approaches across London’s utilities, so that the approach can scale up widely across the industry.
  • Tackled the challenge of electricity capacity in west London through the Mayor’s convening power, working with the electricity sector, Ofgem, boroughs and the government, resulting in an immediate solution for small developments. This has allowed many affordable housing schemes to progress, where they would otherwise have stalled. The ICS continues to convene partners to work toward a longer-term solution to the issue.
  • Convened partners to deliver subregional water, energy and digital strategies, including an Integrated Water Management Strategy for East London, and a Local Area Energy Plan for West London. These will ensure London’s high-growth areas are better prepared to support new affordable housing delivery and decarbonisation.
• The GLA is the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology’s delivery partner in London for the National Underground Asset Register, which launched in spring 2023. Over 50 asset owners – including all 33 of London’s local authorities, as well as the major utilities – are actively engaging with the GLA on this programme of work.
• The Mayor continues to work with his London Infrastructure Group (LIG), comprised of senior executives across infrastructure providers, regulators, the government and wider industry. The LIG has committed to working collaboratively toward the Mayor’s goal for net zero by 2030, and to continuing its programme around improving diversity and inclusion in the infrastructure and construction sector. It will achieve these aims through the following:
  • Building Future London – a primary school outreach programme that seeks to raise aspirations and showcase career opportunities in the sector. This successfully reached 3,451 pupils across 30 schools, with a high proportion of students from under-represented backgrounds.
  • A cross-sector reciprocal mentoring pilot that matched 17 senior individuals with a diverse cohort of junior professionals in the sector, creating connections and challenging senior leaders to facilitate a more inclusive working culture in the infrastructure and construction sector.
  • The network of LIG member organisations’ HR, and equality, diversity and inclusion representatives who continue to meet to share best practice.
• The Mayor has continued to convene two diverse panels to support his work on infrastructure – the Mayor’s Infrastructure Advisory Panel and the Mayor’s Young Professionals Panel. These bring together a diverse range of leaders in the infrastructure and development sectors. They share the key aim of addressing the lack of diversity in the sector, by offering a platform for innovative ideas to be brought forward by highly skilled but often under-represented women and ethnic minority professionals.

Connectivity

• The Mayor’s Connected London network has connected 175 public sites with full-fibre connectivity, delivering new or improved services to Londoners and taking fibre directly into London’s neighbourhoods; and creating new opportunities for business and domestic usage with gigabit-capable speeds that will support digital inclusion and future growth. The network, to which the Mayor has allocated £16m of grant funding, plans to connect another 500 public buildings  – such as libraries, youth centres, community buildings and hostels – which will improve the service they can provide.
• The Mayor has allocated an additional £1.2m to the London Office of Technology and Innovation, which has partnered with the Good Things Foundation to continue delivery of Get Online London. The funding supports years two and three of the programme, which seeks to support 75,000 Londoners to get online by providing a device, as well as data and/or digital-skills training. The programme is in early delivery, with over 1,800 devices donated to Londoners; 26,000 sim cards distributed; and over 5,000 Londoners upskilling their digital skills through the Learn My Way platform.
• The Connected London team and the London Plan team are coordinating to develop London Plan Guidance (LPG) to support Policy SI 6 of the London Plan. The guidance will provide specific planning guidance for digital connectivity using the Mayor’s general powers. A draft LPG has been produced with support from consultants, and is undergoing internal review. A public consultation will be launched later in the year with plans for formal adoption thereafter.

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