How the Coalition plans to change London's political structure
In this second of a two-part article, Joe Peach explains how the new coalition government running the UK will give greater powers to the Mayor of London, but argues that greater powers must also be given to the London Assembly and the Greater London Authority to maintain the balance of power within the city.
Joe Peach
Ensuring taxpayers' money is spent wisely and scrutinising the decision-making of senior members of government should be a priority throughout politics, and London has done a commendable job in creating regulatory bodies that ensure this happens. However, now that its mayoral system is fully established, as I described yesterday, its operational style is moving beyond collaboration and into complication, and is in danger of being bogged down by bureaucracy.
Thankfully, Britain's newly elected coalition government agrees with this and the political structure of its capital city is undergoing serious reform.
The first change - considered by many to be long overdue - was abolishing the Government Office for London (GOL). Established before the Greater London Authority, it served an almost identical purpose, instead reporting to the national government. As the Tory Troll reported, Liberal Democrat Caroline Pidgeon had this to say on scrapping the GOL:
The Government Office for London has been on borrowed time ever since the creation of the Mayor and London Assembly in 2000. It is a superfluous bureaucracy which we can all do without.
That it took ten years for the GLO's abolition to occur raises many questions about how London was being run by Britain's former government, but regardless of that, this change in London's political structure hints at a more independent political future for London. This is something that Johnson strongly supports, saying to the Financial Times:
Despite providing this world city with clear leadership, the mayoralty has few formal powers, despite substantial informal powers. This will no longer do … It is time to act and, with a new coalition government strongly supportive of devolving powers, we must seize the day for London.
Whilst every political change brings an element of risk, the Paris and New York mayoralties suggest that transferring more powers to the Mayor of London is a realistic goal. In comparison to the limited powers Johnson currently holds, Paris' Mayor Bertrand Delanoë has a budget of around £6 billion and is also responsible for primary schooling and social housing, albeit for only the 20 arrondissements at the centre of the metropolitan area.
The Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, governs a constituency with a similar population and wealth to that of London, and has a budget of £30 billion covering all city services, property, policing, fire services and schooling.
If the coalition government's plans go ahead as currently stated, London's Mayor will soon see increased powers more equivalent to his international peers, including increased control over the budget for housing and regeneration. The Port of London Authority - a government board that maintains the river Thames - will also be made more transparent and accountable to the Mayor. His responsibilities for London's transport network will increase, gaining the power to award National Rail licences that operate mainly within the boundaries of Greater London, and he will gain a senior position monitoring the Olympic Games developments in order to ensure long-term benefits for local communities - a subject I explored in this column last week.
Of course, if the Mayor's political powers are to increase, it is vital that his accountability increases similarly. What has perhaps been most successful about London's mayoral system to date is the structure of the organisations monitoring his political decision making. Therefore the responsibilities of the Greater London Authority and the London Assembly need to evolve alongside the Mayor's in order to ensure that the new powers granted to him really do exist to create a better future for the capital.
Yesterday in the first part of this article, this column explained the roles of the Mayor, London Assembly, Greater London Authority and Corporation of London in the political structure of the city.
Joe Peach is a researcher at the Royal Institute of British Architects exploring the effects of technologies on cities of the future, and completing a Masters in Sustainable Communities and the Creative Economy. His opinions are his own.
