The Met Police have an unusual problem

I suspect there are many parts of the public sector which wished they had this problem:

Underspending continues to be an issue in the management of the capital programme, although unused funds can often be carried forward through reserves to support projects at a future date.

Part of the issue is large projects slipping, with the Met’s response to this being:

Agreeing an ‘opening’ programme in excess of available funding in the year.

This happens on a noticeable scale:

The MPA Finance & Resources Committee agreed a revised Capital Programme budget on 15th July 2010 at £276.3m for 2010/11 following the first quarter review. This is the value that the MPS is targeting to achieve. This target represented a gross programme valued at £309.6m with a slippage factor, also known as over-programming, of -£33.2m resulted in a revised budget of budget of £276.3m.

Source: Draft borrowing and capital spending plan 2011/12 to 2017/18