Neil Garratt's City Hall Diary - ULEZ scrappage, bad apples, and Mayoral complacency.
Mayor announces ULEZ scrappage scheme, Met Commissioner on removing bad apples, and what is MOPAC for?
Hello,
Three topics this week:
The Mayor announces his ULEZ scrappage scheme
The Met Police Commissioner on clearing out the bad apples
What is the benefit of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime?
ULEZ Scrappage Scheme Launched.
As the controversy over ULEZ rumbles on, with Lib Dem and Labour outer London boroughs joining Conservatives in calling at least for a delay, the Mayor has this week announced details of his scrappage schemes.
There are two: one for cars and motorbikes, the other for vans and minibuses. If you wish to apply I suggest getting in quick smart because when ULEZ expanded in 2021 the scrappage schemes were overwhelmed, quickly running out of money. Especially because those people in inner London can apply again - even though this scrappage scheme is linked to the expansion to outer London, people anywhere in London can apply.
You can find the details and how to apply on the TfL website:
In broad terms, the scrappage scheme for private vehicles is limited to people on benefits and will pay up to £2000 towards a replacement car and up to £1000 towards a motorbike. I don’t think you’ll find a compliant vehicle for that and your old non-ULEZ vehicle will now be worth very little, so expect to be out of pocket.
Meanwhile, the scheme for vans and minibuses will pay £5000 towards a van or £7000 towards a minibus, or you can put the grant towards retro-fitting your existing vehicle. While that’s more than for cars or motorbikes, it will only cover a fraction of the cost. It also only covers charities, sole traders and “micro-businesses” so even as a small business you may find you’re not eligible.
And I feel bound to say that if you take out a loan to buy a new vehicle, you might still be paying off that loan when the Mayor changes the rules so it isn’t compliant any more. The ULEZ rules won’t stand still because the Mayor’s ultimate plan is to charge every vehicle per mile every time it moves on any road in London. He’s yet to say whether his next step will be to bring more vehicles into the daily charge or to go straight to the per-mile charging for all vehicles.
You can see how the Mayor’s priorities are skewed when you consider that he’s planning to spend about £200 million on ULEZ cameras but only about half that funding cleaner vehicles.
Clearing Out The Bad Apples
At the Police and Crime Committee on Wednesday, the Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley updated us on his plans to remove unfit officers from the Met. As reported in the media, he told us it’s going to get worse before it gets better: there are 2 or 3 officers per week in court and that’s likely to continue for some time. It’s a necessary part of the clean-up process as his new professional standards team go searching for unfit officers, but the stream of negative headlines risks making it seem things are getting worse not better.
He also updated us on the police recruitment drive: of the 4557 new officers being recruited this year, he expected to fall short by “high hundreds” as there is enough money but they struggle to find suitable candidates.
The final piece of news was Sir Mark’s plan for a new Leadership Academy. He told us that although officers receive a lot of training in job-specific skills, even senior officers get little training in how to build a team or establish the right culture. He thinks that’s one reason why the culture is so inconsistent across the Met - some areas very strong, others not so much.
My sense is that Sir Mark has the right ideas and the right drive, but the real test will be whether all the plans ultimately do improve professional standards and public confidence in the Met. That’s what I’ll be keeping my eye on.
What Does MOPAC Do?
But the same cannot be said of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC). MOPAC’s job is to set the Met Police’s priorities, acting for the Mayor as London’s Police and Crime Commissioner. But despite a staff of over 250 they seem cripplingly passive, acting more like a pundit than a leader.
Sir Tom Winsor, formerly Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary, told us last year that the decision to put the Met Police into special measures (officially called “Engage”) was partly about problems at the Met and partly about the weak leadership in MOPAC. So on Wednesday, I asked the MOPAC Chief Executive - what problems have they identified in themselves? What lessons have they learnt? What changes have they made?
She couldn’t name a single one. You can watch my increasingly frustrating exchange here:
Are budget cuts to blame? Quite the opposite. During Sadiq Khan’s term as Mayor, MOPAC’s annual budget has risen from £8.1 million to £18.4 million and its staff from 123 people to 269. So it’s extraordinary that despite a ballooning budget and headcount plus their own weakness causing the Met to go into special measures, they can’t name a single thing they’ve done wrong or need to change.
As you will also gather from the video, the MOPAC Chief Executive has been reluctant to attend the Assembly Police and Crime Committee so the following day we formally summonsed her to the meeting on 22nd February. As with our legal summons of the Mayor last year, this compels her to appear and, I hope, offer us some better answers!
That’s it for this week, please do share my City Hall Diary with someone you think may find it interesting.
Re the Scrappage Policy - I have a classic car for which I 'may have to pay' the ULEZ charge according to the TfL website. It's worth around £18,500, so the scheme goes nowhere near compensating for it. And as a further aggravation, it is probably compliant (conventional cars with the same engine are), but because it only gets an IVA test the manufacturer cannot supply a Certificate of Conformity and there does not seem to be any other way of proving the NOx levels are acceptable, especially as TfL says it won't accept a current emissions test.