First Published: Tuesday 22 July 2008, 23:28
Boris Johnson today said preventing youth crime, delivering value for money and improving the quality of life of all Londoners will be at the centre of his first budget.
The Mayor also confirmed that all new policies must contribute to his commitment to reduce CO2 emissions by 60 per cent by 2025.
The comments came as City Hall published Greater London Authority Group Budget Guidance for 2009-10 which outlines the Mayor's spending priorities. A formal draft budget will be published in December and will be open to consultation.
Speaking earlier today the Mayor said: "Crime is the number one issue for Londoners. I will build on the early measures I have introduced such as the alcohol ban on the tube and extra 440 safer transport police officers. Tackling the long-term root causes of crime and violence and ensuring a visible police presence on the streets must become the priority for the entire GLA group."
Mr Johnson said he was "proposing a 15 per cent saving in the GLA budget to ensure we are providing maximum value for London taxpayers."
The Mayor's spending plans have come under fire from the Liberal Democrat group on the London Assembly.
Commenting after questioning Kit Malthouse, Deputy Mayor for Policing at today's meeting of the London Assembly's Budget Committee, LibDem Group Leader Mike Tuffrey said: "The Met Police have budgeted for an increase of 2.5% in police spending next year, just to cope with inflation. At a time of rising fuel costs and wage increases, this was always going to be a tough sum to achieve.
Now the Mayor has told the Met Police that they should only budget to spend an extra 1.75% in the next financial year. This means real cuts in spending on London's police service next year."
Tuffrey has called on the Mayor to "guarantee now that there will be no real cuts next year in the policing service Londoners receive."
GLA Budget timetable:
July 2008 - Budget Guidance document issued.
December 2008 - budget for consultation
January 2009 – The Mayor will present the draft budget to the Assembly
2. at 14:38 on Wednesday 23rd July 2008, TawkinSenz wrote:
Well written Damian - it's a sad state of affairs when we have the London mayor trying the 'con' the public into thinking it is getting a better deal than before.
If you look at Bozo's strategy (or the closest thing to one) he is clearly trying to cut as many long term community projects and switch the funding into the authoritarian approach (more police). This will probably reduce crime in the short term, but is completely un-sustainable in the long term. Locking up more and more people simple increases the criminal population as once you've been inside once there is very little chance of returning to a honest and law abiding life. I just hope Londoners are not fooled by these 'savings'. It didn't work in the 80's and it's not going to work now.
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1. at 2:21 on Wednesday 23rd July 2008, Damian Hockney wrote:
The devil, as they say, is in the detail. It is all very well for the Mayor to trumpet 'cuts' in the 'overall GLA budget' and then accompany this by spun stats about this representing a '15% saving'. Yes, it would be a 15% saving...but on the tiniest part of the Budget, the roughly £80 million City Hall budget: not of the overall Budget of the Greater London Authority (GLA) family. That is well over £10 BILLION. So the £15 million saving would be out of a budget exceeding ten thousand million pounds. I had an e-mail this morning from someone saying that they had "read in the paper that there is going to be a 15% cut in the council tax under the new Mayor."...the "Bob Hope and No Hope" response, corny though it is, sprung to mind (although I put it differently in my weary reply). To raise false hopes (another Hope) is not a good start to the Budget process. This Budget statement disguises the fact that there are genuine savings to be made in the other parts of the GLA family Budget to be made without affecting services, including the sacred Met Budget. It may initially fool supporters into believing there will be 'substantial savings' but that is not what has been promised. But here is just a tiny example of something else the Mayor could do if he is going to go for the detail. As I pointed out at one police authority meeting, if police officers have to travel on an investigation, why should they now be obliged to spend, say, £200 on a train journey when a flight might cost only £50? ...and is it really right that the Met has spent tens of thousands on 'carbon offsetting'? Irrespective of what you think about flying, the automatic payment by the state to carbon offset schemes is simply an additional tax on the public. There must be a detailed examination of all the Budgets so that value for money can be achieved...that would be a far better use of resources than these Forensic Audits