A decision to give £60m of government money to the Garden Bridge charity project has been criticised by the powerful Public Accounts Committee as having no basis except “wishful thinking and a close relationship with the mayor”.
The committee said the decision to give funding to the project to build a new bridge across the Thames was a “sorry tale” and further evidence of how high-profile individuals could get access to government funds for their pet charitable projects “with little risk”.
It said the project has been subject to ministerial direction – the same process used to ensure money went to Kids Company – because civil servants were so concerned about the decision to provide it with cash. But ministers had gone ahead and funded the project anyway.
The Garden Bridge project – run by a charity called the Garden Bridge Trust, in partnership with Transport for London – received £30m of funding from TfL under former mayor of London Boris Johnson, and another £30m from central government.
The government’s decision to fund the project was publicly protested by the accounting officer from the Department of Transport, Philip Rutnam. Transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin issued a ministerial direction to instruct him to provide the additional funding.
Ministeral direction is a rare procedure used when a civil servant wishes to register public concern about a decision. The last time ministerial direction was given for charitable funding was in regards to Kids Company.
The bridge is now under investigation by Margaret Hodge, former chair of the PAC, on behalf of Sadiq Khan, mayor of London, and the PAC has submitted evidence to Hodge including correspondence about the ministerial direction, as well as its own deliberations.
Meg Hillier, chair of the committee and Labour MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch, wrote to Hodge saying her committee has not taken an official position on the Garden Bridge but was concerned about risk to taxpayers’ money.
"The story of the Garden Bridge is a sorry tale about how high profile individuals with the ear of the powerful Mayor of London can gain access to funds with little risk,” she said. “All this public money has been pledged without a convincing business case.
“Wishful thinking and a close relationship with the Mayor are not the basis on which central government should be spending taxpayers' money.
“Even when officials made their concerns clear the minister overrode them, potentially throwing good money after bad to protect taxpayers' original investment.”
In addition to the investigation by the mayor, the Charity Commission is also looking into the Garden Bridge Trust.
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