FOI - Marketing campaigns on drug use [Jul 2026]

Thank you very much your help with this and for that information. It is really useful to understand how that overall marketing budget is spent and that this is primarily done though individual campaigns.

In line with your suggestions, I was wondering if we could resubmit a new FOI along the lines of:
 

1. How many marketing ‘campaigns’ were undertaken in 2025/2026?
2. Of these campaigns, how many related to ‘drug use’ issues?
3. If possible, please could you indicate how much money was spent on marketing of these (drug use) campaigns?
    

I am guessing this still may not be perfect, but hopefully this gets us closer. We are essentially trying to understand how much budget has been spent on raising awareness of drug issues, given our own focus of this as a campaigning area.

Our response

I can confirm that the GLA holds some information within the scope of your request.

The GLA has a responsibility to keep Londoners informed and engaged in the work of the Mayor of London and the London Assembly. This includes, for example, public information communications and campaigns to inform Londoners about People’s Question Time events and encourage them to register to attend, or to encourage Londoners to take part in statutory public consultations.

In any given year, we also run cost-effective, multi-channel communications campaigns to ensure Londoners receive information about issues they have listed as their top concerns. These include, but is not limited to, support through the cost-of-living crisis, supporting rough sleepers, tackling violence against women and girls, and violence affecting young people.

Some of the major public campaigns announced by the Mayor in 2025-2026 include, the ‘Loved and Wanted’ campaign, supporting social cohesion in the wake of increasing concerns about this issue, and a ‘Stronger rights for renters’ campaign, ensuring Londoners are aware of changes following the new Renters’ Rights Act. In the year 2025/2026 we launched 1 integrated hero campaign, and 10 smaller-scale campaigns to support wider policy goals across the issues most effecting Londoners. These were all multi-channel marketing campaigns.
 

We can confirm that there has been no GLA spend on drug-use related campaigns.