At a glance
• City Hall will allocate £12m to protect specialist staff at London & Partners despite a £19.2m funding shortfall
• The decision has drawn political criticism, with City Hall Conservatives calling London & Partners a budget “drain” and mocking its business-investor “speed dating” events
• The GLA faces broader financial pressures, including the loss of post-Brexit government funding, potential reduced stadium income if West Ham are relegated, and the cost of relocating staff
Sir Sadiq Khan’s business “speed dating” agency is to be given preferential treatment to protect the jobs of key staff as City Hall tackles a £19.2m funding crisis.
London & Partners, which often accompanies the London mayor on his foreign trips, has been assured that £12m will be found next year to prevent it having to lay off specialists who “would be hard to replace”.
The agency was previously caught in controversy when it gave £26,000 to US entrepreneur Jennifer Arcuri and invited her on mayoral trips abroad when her then friend Boris Johnson was mayor.
Under Sir Sadiq’s time as mayor, it has sent delegations to accompany mayoral delegations to the US and most recently Africa.
But Susan Hall, leader of the City Hall Conservatives, said London & Partners was a “massive drain on the budget” and had failed to become financially self-sufficient as originally envisaged.
She mocked Sir Sadiq’s deputy chief of staff Richard Watts when he told how he had attended a London & Partners networking dinner recently “that was effectively a speed dating session” for small businesses and investors.
Ms Hall, the Tory mayoral candidate in 2024, said: “Oh, lovely – speed dating! It’s been years since I’ve been speed dating!”
The Greater London Authority’s budget crisis has been caused in part by the imminent loss of Government funding that replaced money that previously came to City Hall from the EU but which ended as a consequence of Brexit.
This fund helped to subsidise London & Partners, also known as L&P.
Mary Harpley, the GLA’s chief officer, told the London Assembly’s budget committee that the intention was to use City Hall cash to “protect” London & Partners’ Grow Local and Grow Global schemes that aim to help small firms expand locally or internationally.
However, this could mean that job cuts are required from the GLA’s core staff of about 1,500 people in order to balance the books.
Mr Watts said: “The reason we wanted to guarantee this money to L&P now, upfront, is because those projects in particular are dependent on some really expert, high calibre, quality staff who we need to give L&P the confidence to not start to lay off.
“The aim is to give [L&P chief executive] Laura [Citron] and the team at L&P certainty that she doesn’t have to start making damaging and precipitative decisions at this point to lose staff who are extremely specialist and well-qualified and would be very difficult to replace.”
The budget committee was told that the GLA’s finances would be further damaged if West Ham football club were relegated from the Premier League.
This is because the GLA owns the London Stadium, and would receive less in rent from West Ham if it played in the Championship – while having to pick up the stewarding costs for more home games.
City Hall officials expect to learn from the Government just before Christmas how much money the GLA will receive for the 2026/27 financial year.
Options will then be presented to the mayor in the New Year. The GLA draft group budget – including the Met police and Transport for London – is due to be published on January 15, probably alongside indications of how much council tax Londoners will have to pay to Sir Sadiq.
Ms Harpley was asked whether the £19.2m budget gap was likely to fall to zero. She replied: “Unlikely, I think.”
City Hall staff are also braced for a below inflation pay rise – enough money for a 2.3 per cent increase has been set aside.
Neil Garratt, the Tory chairman of the assembly’s budget committee, said: “People were told if they voted Labour, things would be better. In fact, they seem to be worse.”
Many GLA staff will be required to move to TfL’s Palestra headquarters in Southwark by December next year, as the lease on office space in the London Fire Brigade’s headquarters in Union Street is due to expire. About £2.9m has been set aside to refurbish one-and-a-half floors at Palestra.
