Mayor attacked for pouring taxpayers' money into congestion charge contractor

4.22.48pm BST (GMT +0100) Wed 10th Sep 2003

London Assembly Liberal Democrats will ask tomorrow why Ken Livingstone has poured another £31 millions of taxpayers' money into congestion charge contractor Capita.

At a London Assembly budget committee hearing, Lib Dem members will grill the mayor on his new contract with Capita Plc as well as the original deal that Transport for London entered into.

Sally Hamwee, Lib Dem chair of the London Assembly, warned that there were at least three serious unanswered questions about the mayor's deal with Capita:

'The mayor told us traffic in the charging zone would fall by ten to 15 per cent,' she said. "In fact it is just one per cent higher than that. He has to explain why that means the net income has been halved from £130million to just £65 million.

'Despite a 27 per cent increase in half-year profits in July, Capita claims it is not making a profit on congestion charging, and Mayor Livingstone gives them an extra £31 million. We need to know whether Capita can come back every year to ask for more cash.

'People write in to Capita because they've been wrongly issued with £40 fine notices, and they're just pushed on to appeal. Yet Transport for London doesn't contest 60 per cent of these appeals. Capita now gets £4.90 for every fine notice it issues, so isn't it in their interest to issue as many as possible?"

Sally Hamwee said that though Liberal Democrats regarded congestion charging as a great success in reducing traffic levels, the mayor's administration of the charge was "a shambles".