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The long-running impasse over the financing of London’s public transport system has deepened just days before its latest deal with the government is due to expire.
Sky News has learnt that Bernadette Kelly, the Department for Transport’s (DfT) most senior civil servant, wrote to Andy Byford, Transport for London’s (TfL) commissioner last week, to notify him that a formal dispute period under the terms of its funding settlement had been triggered.
In her letter, which has been obtained by Sky News from a Whitehall insider, Ms Kelly complained that TfL had failed to produce a recommended approach to reforming the organisation’s pension scheme in order to put it in “a financially sustainable position”.
“We also do not consider the subsequent responses, indicating that a recommended approach will be delivered in approximately 18 months, to be in line with our previous agreement, nor do they represent an ambitious timeline to resolve this issue,” she said.
Overhauling TfL’s retirement scheme has been a long-standing point of dispute with the government, and has been among the factors in a string of strikes affecting London transport services in recent months.
The emergence of Ms Kelly’s letter comes just over a week before a four-month funding deal agreed in February is due to expire, with little sign that ministers are preparing to offer a more comprehensive long-term solution.
TfL has been mired in uncertainty over its future since the onset of the pandemic, with a slump in commuter traffic having a devastating impact on its revenues.
A series of short-term deals have triggered trenchant criticism of the government from business groups amid accusations that the delays have been politically motivated, and despite TfL meeting dozens of conditions imposed by…
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Source : skynews
