Mayor reveals extra £1.43m spent correcting congestion charge mistakes

4.48.36pm GMT Fri 16th Jan 2004

Mayor Ken Livingstone has spent £1.43million sorting out higher than expected numbers of congestion charge appeals as a result of poor management.

Lynne Featherstone, transport spokesperson, criticised the Mayor for wasting public money:

"Thousands of Londoners - many more than predicted - complain that they have been wrongly fined over the congestion charge. The Mayor's bureaucrats, instead of doing the work themselves and investigating the mistake, pass the buck by telling people to contact the independent Appeals Service.

"The result is that the Mayor is now having to pay the Appeals Service £1.43m for work his own people should have done.

"The administration of the congestion charge scheme seems to be dogged by problems. Capita has already been bailed out to the tune of £31m. Now we find out that the Appeals Service is dealing with far more appeals than Transport for London had intended. These problems need to be ironed out or else the public will lose confidence in the scheme."

ENDS

Notes to editor:

This payment was approved by the Mayor on 4 December 2003. London Assembly members were informed of this Mayoral Approval (MA1552) on 15 January 2004:

MA1552: To approve an increase in the estimated expenditure for the adjudication of appeals against congestion charging. This is a result of the higher number of appeals than originally forecast. TfL will meet the cost from the proceeds of congestion charging. The number of appeals for 2003/04 is now estimated to be around 35,000, which will result in an estimated outlay of £1.43m.