Mayor Johnson has made it clear to the Conservative party that is can cut spending but still "protecting frontline services" in the public sector.
In a statement issued by Mayor Johnson on the new budget approved by the London Assembly the Mayor said:
‘ This is a budget that exemplifies the time in which we live. Over the years we have seen an exorbitant level of waste and weak financial controls at City Hall that have cost Londoners dearly. The era of endless tax rises has had its day. Over the last two years, we have proved that it is possible to still deliver on frontline services without extravagant spending.
‘London is not only leading the way out of this recession, but is also demonstrating how to tackle big issues like crime and safety and deliver vital investments in infrastructure, without increasing the financial burden on council taxpayers .’
Over 70 per cent of the £0.9 billion raised by the precept will go to the Metropolitan Police Service to help them to build on their success of reducing crime to the lowest level in the capital for over 12 years, continue with the civilianization of staff in custody suites - thereby freeing up officers to go out on the beat, and to maintain the record numbers of uniformed presence on the transport network with the Safer Transport Teams, Transport Hub Teams and Town Centre Teams.
The budget includes plans for over half a billion pounds of additional savings next year and a total of £2.4 billion over the next three years in recognition of the severe public spending constraints facing the country and the Mayor’s commitment not to add to the burden of Londoners unnecessarily.
Since he was elected in 2008, the Mayor has already overseen the banning of booze on public transport, the planting of around 5000 new street trees, free travel for veterans and 24-hour free travel for older people. Transport is getting safer, with an 18 percent drop in crime on buses and they are now more uniformed crime fighters on the buses than at any other time in the last 30 years and an additional 50 BTP officers on London’s Suburban Rail network.
£4m has been provided to transform London’s parks and £2m to create 10 low carbon zones across the city. 2000 public and private buildings across the capital have been retrofitted to be more energy efficient and the provision of rape crisis centres in the capital will quadruple.
On the District, Circle and Hammersmith and City and Metropolitan Lines there will be new air conditioned trains, whilst the Oysterisation of National Rail Services in London are make journeys simpler, quicker and often cheaper. And, after being elected during a horrendous spate of youth killings, fatal teenage stabbings are down by 50 per cent and the numbers of killings in the city are at its lowest level for ten years.
Other key priorities include delivering the Mayor’s Economic Recovery Action Plan, the largest number of affordable homes in a single Mayoral term, an end to rough sleeping by 2012 and to continue to work to reduce serious youth violence and prevent young people becoming victims of crime through the Mayor’s Time For Action Plan.
He has also delivered on a key manifesto commitment that the element of the council tax precept that will go to support the delivery of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will remain frozen at 38 pence a week for the average London council tax payer.
The Mayor’s consolidated budget consists of five individual budgets - Metropolitan Police Authority, Transport for London, London Fire and Emergency planning Authority, London Development Agency and core Greater London Authority. The total revenue budget expenditure is £14 billion.
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