Mayor's £30m AI and jobs package carries £12m announced the month before

The Mayor announced £30m for artificial intelligence and jobs work on 21 July, of which £12m had been announced the month before.

His release describes the new money as an "£18 million investment to help thousands more young Londoners access careers support, training and routes into good work". It itemises £10.5m to extend the Support for Young Londoners programme for two years, reaching around 6,000 young Londoners not in education, employment or training, and £7.3m for the London Careers Programme, covering around 725 secondary and post-16 institutions.

The two programmes account for £17.8m of the £18m. The release does not itemise the remainder.

The other £12m is described on the release as money "that the Mayor announced last month to help small and medium-sized businesses harness the power of artificial intelligence".

Neither sum has been authorised in the GLA's published record. Its decisions register, sorted by date signed and checked on 14 August, carries 60 decisions signed between 7 April and 5 August, from universal free school meals to July's fare changes, and none of them approves the £18m or the £12m.

The Smoke reported on 14 August that the £58.7m the Mayor announced on 22 July for social housing retrofit also had no decision approving it on that register.

What the register does log for the taskforce is £70,000. Alex Conway, the GLA's assistant director for grants, signed decision ADD2853 on 23 June, approving up to £60,000 for an engagement event with Londoners and up to £10,000 of Talk London survey work, to "strengthen the evidence base on how AI is affecting Londoners' experiences of work, skills and opportunity".

One earlier decision touches the subject. On 5 May the GLA logged a contribution to the Institute for the Future of Work's research on AI's impact on labour markets; the register entry gives no value.

The Mayor approved the GLA's integrated settlement on 15 April, in decision MD3486, worth "over £1.7 billion across the settlement period" to 2028-29. Skills and employment is one of its five themes, and the programme-level allocations sit in an appendix that is not published on the decision page.

The taskforce, chaired by Baroness Martha Lane-Fox, puts about 600,000 Londoners in roles with high exposure to AI and limited capacity to adapt. The release states that they are mostly women, in clerical and administrative work, paid below the London average.

Sadiq Khan said: "London has the talent, businesses, universities, educators and creativity to lead the world in responsible AI adoption. By acting now, we can boost productivity, create opportunity and make sure technological progress benefits everyone."

The Mayor accepted three recommendations: an early-warning system on labour market change, a partnership between employers, workers and educators on redesigning jobs, and a London Future Ready Guarantee connecting young Londoners with employers. The release attaches no start dates to any of them.

He has also asked for a meeting with Kanishka Narayan, the Minister for AI, to discuss devolving more policy powers to London. No date is given for that either.