Speaking to ConservativeHome to mark his first anniversary as London's Mayor, Boris Johnson declared that "you can cut public spending if you really want to". His office has provided us with a list of the economies he has made, totalling £180m:
- Cancellation of The Londoner newspaper. Saving: £2.9m
- Cancellation of the ‘Beijing Bus’ - The previous administration committed Transport for London to spending £300,000 on this, of which £140,000 had already been spent. The Mayor cancelled the project and stopped all further spending on it. Saving: £160,000
- Closing down of GLA office in Venezuela and scaling down of other overseas offices. Saving: £100,000
- Income from the hire of London’s Living Room has increased from £145k in 2007-08 to £167k in 2008-09- as a result of stopping policy of allowing preferred groups and organisations to use it for free. Saving: £20,000
- Reduction in expenditure on GLA consultants - reduced from £4.7m in 2007-08 to £2.8m in 2008-09. Saving: £1.9m
- 10 delegates attended party conferences in 2008-09, at a total cost (including attendance, advertising, stands, etc.) of £9,000, compared with 19 delegates in 2007-08 at a cost of £43,000. Saving: £34,000
- Foreign travel costs for the Mayor’s office were reduced from £107,000 in 2007-08 to £30,000 in 2008-09, while the rest of the GLA reduced its costs from £102,000 to £28,000. Saving: £151,000
Other, more substantial savings include:
- 20% reduction in the GLA’s Media and Marketing budget. Saving: £700,000
- Restructuring of the Mayor’s office and reduction in stakeholder programmes. Saving: £1.7m
- Organising for Delivery – aimed at ensuring that City Hall provides value for money (full year saving £3.5m). Saving in 2009-10: £1.3,
- Securing cost savings in the police forensic service by negotiating better deals with suppliers and improving internal business processes. Saving: £10.6m
- Reorganising administrative support functions to improve effectiveness and securing reductions in rents, ICT project and building maintenance costs at the Metropolitan Police. Saving: £29m
- Streamlining administrative and project support at the Fire Brigade to improve value for money. Saving: £4.2m
- Transport for London has begun a further major review of operating costs, focusing both on the control of overheads and further exploitation of efficiencies within its operations. The review has focused explicitly on identifying opportunities to reduce or remove operating cost from the business, with items prioritised for the initial phase focusing primarily on back-office and non-operational expenditure areas. The review has identified opportunities that could realise some £2.4bn net savings by 2017-18. Saving in 2009-10: £62m
- The LDA has introduced a more streamlined staffing structure enabling it to release resources to support priority projects such as the Mayor’s Economic Recovery plan. Saving: £6.6m.
Keep up the good work Boris.
