Police underfunding, plummeting transport revenue and overseas investors buying up London’s houses have seen the capital underperform against its full potential, the London Assembly has been told.
By Kumail Jaffer, Local Democracy Reporter
Police underfunding, plummeting transport revenue and overseas investors buying up London’s houses have seen the capital underperform against its full potential, the London Assembly has been told.
Panellists told City Hall’s Budget and Performance Committee that Londoners are primarily being failed by several key structural factors and challenged Sir Sadiq Khan to either address them directly or lobby ministers to help out.
The Mayor is responsible for a total budget of £20.7billion and is responsible for allocating funds for the Greater London Authority (GLA) and bodies such as Transport for London (TfL), Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) and the London Fire Commissioner.
During the committee’s annual session scrutinising this budget, stakeholders told London Assembly members about lingering issues with policing, transport, and housing.
Here are three things Londoners need to know about how the Mayor spends the cash around the capital.
Too many police officers?
The Met Police is often used as a political football in City Hall, with the Mayor’s critics consistently calling for more funding and the Mayor himself often passing the buck onto central government.
The force has been compelled to slash key elements of its structure in recent months in a desperate bid to make up a £260million shortfall.
Safer Schools Officers have been canned, dedicated antisocial behaviour (ASB) officers have been redeployed and most controversially, manned front counters at police stations have been heavily reduced.
Ian Wiggett, Associate Director at the World Policing Advisory, suggested that this wasn’t the fault of the Mayor of London or Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley.
“The police budget across England and Wales is still below 2010 levels,” he told members.
“And the way that budget has been allocated between forces has not been favourable to the Met. The capital city’s grant hasn’t kept pace, the precept has increased but is not producing the funding other forces get.
“Each year, MOPAC and the Met are having to find emergency savings elsewhere. The Met keeps operating on that basis and can’t seem to get out of this hole.”
It has meant that there is a significant shortfall in funding for rank-and-file police staff – those who answer the phones and do the paperwork – with the Met having the lowest proportion of these employees of any force.
Mr Wiggett added: “This is the officer-isation of the work force – if you want to bring it in line with other forces, you either reduce the number of officers, or increase police staff – but there’s no money to do that.
“So you have more police officers, but they are answering phones. Their effect on the streets is less than you would hope it to be.”
In a period where mass protests are commonly seen in Central London, a higher proportion of the operational budget is now going to maintaining peace and order during demonstrations.
“Policing is focused on the immediate challenge,” Mr Wiggett warned. “They keep worrying about the budget later.”
Not enough homes – and too many in older or foreign hands
London’s housing supply crisis is well documented, with radical reforms set to take place so the city can keep up with increasing demand for homes. However, the London Assembly were told that stagnating housebuilding is only one part of the problem.
Antonia Jennings, CEO of Centre for London, told the Budget and Performance Committee that the capital’s “acute unaffordability crisis” has also been caused by houses falling into the wrong hands.
“The supply side is one of two overlapping crisis,” she said. “There’s been a real affordability distortion, with affordability to income ratio rising from 4.5 to 12.
“There has been a huge amount of housing wealth concentration in the capital. Over-65s have gained £146billion in the last 10 years and in 2024, 25 per cent of property transactions involved overseas buyers. Together, that has created a situation where house prices have been decoupled from local demand.”
The Mayor of London looks set to make the controversial decision to slash affordability requirements for developers, but it seems like that won’t be a silver bullet for the city’s housing market.
TfL’s reliance on fares has finally caught up
On its website, TfL says it is “one of the only transport authorities in the world able to cover our day-to-day operating costs ourselves, as well as most of our capital investment programme”.
This can be taken both as a boast and a complaint. Around 60 per cent of operating income is generated by fares, far more than the transport body’s international counterparts.
Rider numbers have steadily increased since the UK came out of lockdown permanently but are still slightly below pre-pandemic levels.
Panellists suggested that with commuters unlikely to return to a five-day pattern anytime soon, TfL needs to look at “diversifying their sources of income” to be less reliant on fares.
There is also the question of whether to effectively punish Londoners by increasing fares to make up TfL’s shortfall, or to try and boost rider numbers by freezing or reducing fares.
Jonathan Seager, Programme Director at BusinessLDN, said: “It is tempting to slash fares – but that means you are slashing investment. TfL must think about diversifying their sources of revenue beyond that.”
There were also calls for reforming various concessions enjoyed by different demographics. In August, the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) revealed that the discounted 60+ Oyster card has cost the authority £206million in the last three years.
“There are some oddities in the system – if you’re over a certain age and a higher rate taxpayer, you get free travel into Central London,” Mr Seagar said.
On the other end of the spectrum, those struggling financially are avoiding the Tube and must be encouraged back on, Assembly Members were told.
“The poorest Londoners pay the most for travel in the capital – 18 per cent of their income compared to 11 per cent for the average Londoner,” Ms Jennings said.
“Prioritisation of those at the bottom must remain high. While fare freezes do a lot, they are costly – there could be a more progressive application. Free and concessionary travel must be protected and a low income discount could be introduced.”
Tony Travers, the Director of LSE London, added: “What is linked to ridership is the health of the London economy – if it is growing, fare income will grow. But disposable income has not been growing fast enough, and combined with the pandemic, fare income has not increased as it has done in the last decade.”
