Pre-Budget Report 2015

Every year the Budget and Performance Committee publishes a Pre-Budget Report, spelling out the key issues for transport, policing and other Mayoral services, before the Mayor publishes his own draft Budget.

Transport for London faces a critical financial appraisal in the Pre-Budget Report 2015:

• Figures reveal that delayed upgrades to the Circle, District, Metropolitan and Hammersmith lines (the Sub-Surface Upgrade Programme), including the failed Bombardier contract ^[1] cost TfL £1.15 billion. Passengers face a five-year delay for these planned upgrades.
• TfL will have to manage 600 million more passenger journeys a year by 2021, and find another £4 billion^[2] to cope with its underestimate for the Sub-Surface rail upgrades and reduced funding from government.
• The resulting effect of the delays on London’s wider economy total £900 million.^[3]
• In November, the Government announced its grant to TfL for day-to-day spending (e.g. on wages) is to be cut entirely. While Government investment in transport in London reduced by 20 per cent, investment in transport across the country rose by 50 per cent.

The Pre-Budget Report also finds:

• There are “worrying signs” regarding the London Legacy Development Corporation’s performance, particularly around the rising costs of the Olympic Stadium and the Arcelormittal Orbit, and its performance must be monitored.
• While police funding appears to have been protected in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement, the Met will still need to make significant changes and the force may lack the commercial expertise to manage its outsourcing reforms.