The administration of Visit London

This report examines the decisions and events that led to Visit London going into administration in April 2011 and the Mayor’s subsequent decision in June 2011 to fund a pension scheme rescue of the Visit London pension scheme.

The report, by the Economy, Culture and Sport Committee, highlights the £3m cost of rescuing the Visit London pension scheme and £2m start up costs for the new single promotion agency, London & Partners. It finds that these extra costs were not foreseen by those making the key decisions about the future of London's promotional agencies.

The Committee also concludes that, in setting up the new agency, the decision-making process was not sufficiently robust and decisions were made without a detailed understanding of the consequences for pensions and creditors of Visit London.

Our recommendations

The report makes a series of recommendations designed to improve the decision-making process and the handling of future negotiations.

• The funding and governance arrangements at London & Partners should be re-examined to ensure that proper checks and balances exist for spending public money
• Private companies that receive the bulk of their funding from the Mayor should in future be subject to the same rules on transparency and accountability as the GLA and functional bodies
• There should be a targeted and proportionate assessment of the pensions implications when the GLA is involved in changes of staff and responsibilities between different organisations
• The Mayor should set out what processes he is putting in place to ensure appropriate scenario planning in future negotiations

Our investigation

The Committee launched the investigation after hearing from concerned creditors and members of the Visit London pension scheme. At a public meeting of the Committee on 24 May, they put their concerns to representatives from Visit London, London & Partners, the Greater London Authority and the trustees of the pension fund scheme.

At the end of the meeting, the Committee received an assurance that all parties would work toward a mutually acceptable settlement and on 24 June it was confirmed that the Mayor would make £3m available to settle the pensions liabilities and the outstanding debt to creditors.

Documents collected as part of the investigation are attached below, together with the full report.

A follow-up letter to the Mayor, sent in November 2011 and the resulting response from the Mayor, are also attached.