The Politics of London: Governing an Ungovernable City

The Politics of London Governing an Ungovernable City

Tony Travers

The world of sub-central governance and administration – including local authorities, quasi-governmental bodies and the agencies of public–private partnerships – has seen massive changes in the United Kingdom and other western democracies. The original aim of the Government Beyond the Centre series was to bring the study of this oftenneglected word into the mainstream of social science research, applying the spotlight of critical analysis to what had traditionally been the preserve of institutional public administration approaches. The replacement of traditional models of government by new models of governance has affected central government, too, with the contracting out of many traditional functions, the increasing importance of relationships with devolved and supranational authorities, and the emergence of new holistic models based on partnership and collaboration. This series focuses on the agenda of change in governance both at sub-central level and in the new patterns of relationships surrounding the core executive. Its objective is to provide up-to-date and informative accounts of the new forms of management and administration and the structures of power and influence that are emerging, and of the economic, political and ideological forces that underlie them. The series will be of interest to students and practitioners in central and local government, public management and social policy, and all those interested in the reshaping of the governmental institutions which have a daily and major impact on our lives.

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The Politics of London Governing an Ungovernable City

Tony Travers

© Tony Travers 2004 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P OLP. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2004 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 0–333–96100–5 hardback ISBN 0–333–96099–8 paperback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Travers, Tony. The politics of London: governing an ungovernable city/Tony Travers. p. cm.—(Government beyond the centre) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–333–96100–5—ISBN 0–333–96099–8 (pbk.) 1. London Metropolitan Area (England)—Politics and government. I. Title. II. Government beyond the centre (Palgrave Macmillan (Firm)) JS3625.T73 2003 320.9421—dc21 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 Printed by Creative Print & Design (Wales), Ebbw Vale

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Contents List of Tables and Figures

viii

List of Abbreviations

ix

Preface

xi

1

1 2 5 8 11

London in Context Size matters:why London is ‘too big’ London today London within the UK Understanding urban governance London’s new governance: steering, rowing, drowning or waving? Conclusion

18 20

2 The Struggle to Govern London Origins The Metropolitan Board of Works and local particularism The London County Council and the metropolitan boroughs The Greater London Council and the post-1965 boroughs After abolition: the long interregnum The new pragmatism Docklands: a case-study in the evolution of London politics after 1986 Conclusion

21 21 23 25 28 31 35

3 Metropolitan Millennium: The Road to Reform, 1997–2000 New Labour and the legacy of the 1980s Labour’s approach prior to the 1997 election Labour in government: the process of reform Reforms in London The mayoral race begins The green paper From green paper to white paper The referendum and the Greater London Authority Act, 1999

43 43 45 48 51 55 56 58 62

v

39 41

vi

Contents Electing the mayor The election Conclusion

68 73 78

4 The Greater London Authority: Creating a New Institution The GLA Transition Team The early days of the GLA The Mayor’s Office Other mayoral appointments The advisory cabinet Mayoral commissions The assembly GLA officers Conclusion

80 80 83 86 88 94 95 96 100 104

5 Capital Idea? The GLA in Practice Mayoral government comes to Britain The London Assembly: 25 members in search of a role? Separating the executive and scrutiny functions The deputy mayor Creating a new regional government The functional bodies The Budget process Conclusion

106 106 113 117 120 122 126 132 134

6 Boroughs, Quangos and Partnerships: The Wider Governance of London London’s governance: the regional aspect The GLA and central government Boroughs and sub-regional partnerships Quangos and other service agencies Business in London Conclusion

137 138 142 143 146 149 154

7 A Very British Mayor? Who needs metropolitan government? Foreign influences? How does London compare?

155 155 159 161

Contents City government overseas Conclusion

vii 164 180

8 Is London Ungovernable? The protean city An effective system? The mayor and the Mayor’s Office – running the GLA The mayor and the Mayor’s Office – what did the GLA achieve? The assembly Implications for British government Further reform? The London elections of 2004

182 182 183 184 188 193 197 205 209

References

211

Index

218

List of Tables and Figures Tables 1.1 3.1 3.2 5.1 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4

Changes in employment within London’s region 1987–97 Results of election for Mayor of London, 4 May 2000 Results of elections for London Assembly, 4 May 2000 Greater London Authority: functional bodies, appointments, accountability, budgets, policy and scrutiny Subject matter of press notices issued by the Mayor of London, January–September 2002 Subject matter of press notices issued by the Mayor of New York, February–September 2002 Subject matter of press notices issued by the London Assembly, January–September 2002 Subject matter of assembly reports published during 2000, 2001 and 2002

4 76 77 128 189 189 194 195

Figures 3.1 8.1

The GLA and the functional bodies London’s Government: key statutory bodies

viii

58 186

List of Abbreviations CBI CEBR CLES DETR DoE DTI DTLR GLA GLATT GLC GLDP GOL ILEA LCC LDA LDDC LFEPA LPAC MBW MPA PPP PSL QUANGO SDS SERPLAN SV TfL UDC

Confederation of British Industry Centre for Economics and Business Research Centre for Local Economic Strategies Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions Department of the Environment Department of Trade and Industry Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions Greater London Authority Greater London Authority Transition Team Greater London Council Greater London Development Plan General Office for London Inner London Education Authority London County Council London Development Agency London Docklands Development Corporation London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority London Planning Advisory Committee Metropolitan Board of Works Metropolitan Police Authority Public–Private Partnership Private Sector Leasing Quasi Autonomous Non-Governmental Organization Spatial Development Strategy South East Regional Planning Conference Supplementary Vote Transport for London Urban Development Corporation

ix

Preface

No one could say London government was boring. In a period of just over thirty years, there have been four different city-wide government systems, including three kinds of elected authority. The Greater London Council, which existed only from 1965 to 1986, was simply abolished. Its home – County Hall – was sold off. A directly-elected mayor has been introduced, operating out of a gleaming, globular, City Hall. Within the boroughs, a period of noisy radicalism during the 1970s and 1980s has been followed by one of political and economic consensus. A number of borough councillors were surcharged and disqualified for their activities in the 1980s. Yet by 2003, London borough leaders are considered to be among the country’s best. But diversity remains: individual boroughs range – according to government assessments – from the excellent to the poor. Recent changes have to be seen in the context of a long struggle over the best way to govern London. The title of this book has a pessimistic tone to it. Is it really possible that a city as long-lived and successful as London could really be ‘ungovernable’? Or is the title evidence of pessimism about an aspect of a particular city at a particular time? Other cities at other times have been thought impossible to govern. As it happens, London during the 1990s and early 2000s enjoyed a long period of economic and population growth. People from all parts of the world now see Britain’s capital as a desirable place to live and work. But there are clear and significant problems facing London in 2003. The condition of the city’s basic infrastructure and public services often falls well below an level acceptable. Both the Underground and commuter railways treat the public badly. Traffic congestion, though not new to the city, is spreading relentlessly outwards from the centre into the suburbs. London has some of the worst hospitals and schools in the country. The perceived failure of the capital’s schools system undoubtedly drives many aspiring parents to leave London. Efforts to bring about changes to infrastructure and public services have been overwhelmed by the incapacity of London’s public service providers to cope with their complex and rapidly-changing population. A well-established British failure to invest in the assets required to deliver xi

xii

Preface

effective railways and other public services has simply compounded the weaknesses caused by inadequate public provision. London government has never been simple. There have been conflicts between the needs of neighbourhoods and the requirements of the city as a whole ever since the capital sprawled beyond the boundaries of the ancient City of London. The highly-centralized nature of the British state has, latterly, made matters far worse. In 2003, the government and politics of the seven-and-a-half million population of London are scattered between Whitehall and its agencies, the Greater London Authority and the boroughs. Central government itself remains fragmented into a series of departments that are infamous for their incapacity to work corporately. The 32 boroughs and the City of London are, collectively, London’s most powerful tier of local government. They remain enormously variegated and, as they are designed to be, independent. Into the middle of this seething and chaotic system, the Greater London Authority, consisting of a mayor and assembly, has been parachuted. With little by way of a route-map and minimal preparation, the Mayor of London has had to find a democratic place within one of the most difficult urban governance systems in the world. It would be difficult to argue the new city-wide government arrangements had – thus far, at least – been a great success. This book examines the early years of the new Mayor of London, the Assembly and the capital’s wider system of government. It concludes that more reform will be needed if London is ever to be governed effectively or to undertake major re-investment projects successfully. The competitive and fragmented system of government simply cannot deliver rapid change quickly. At a time when major cities will from time to time need to make radical changes, London’s government arrangements are a profound problem. The research for this book was undertaken with the support of a grant from the Economic and Social Research Foundation. Many of the interviews and literature reviews were undertaken by Alex Robertson, who went on to work within the GLA ‘family’ of institutions. The interviewers – in Whitehall, the GLA, the boroughs and elsewhere – deserve thanks for their time and ideas. The ESRC grant was awarded jointly to Mark Kleinman, who undertook major elements of the underpinning research and who contributed many key ideas to the book. A vast debt of gratitude is owed to Mark, without whom this research would have been much the poorer. Other colleagues and commentators have played an important part in developing the ideas and themes within the book. Within the LSE,

Preface

xiii

Howard Glennerster, Christine Whitehead, Ian Gordon, Andy Thornley and, in particular, George Jones have, over a number of years, offered ideas, encouragement and enthusiasm. Stephen Glaister of Imperial College has massively assisted my understanding of transport policy issues. I have also been enormously assisted by the knowledge and experience of Simon Jenkins, doyen of London commentators. But the contents of the book are, of course, the responsibility of the author alone. London itself remains the glorious, chaotic, ungovernable inspiration for any book of this kind. London

TONY TRAVERS

1 London in Context

Governing London is a complex business. The city’s vast population, its geography and history conspire to make the British capital an unusually difficult place to govern. The election of a city-wide Greater London Authority in May 2000 brought into being the fourth system of metropolitan government within 35 years. By contrast, New York City has had a single system of government since 1898. The regularity with which London’s government is reorganized suggests there is something unusual about the pressures that affect successive systems. This book describes and analyses the system of city government in London in the immediate aftermath of the 2000 reforms. These reforms were remarkable for a number of reasons. First, local self-government was restored – at the metropolitan level – to the largest city in Europe. Second, the first-ever directly elected mayor took office in Britain. London followed the example of many American, German and Italian cities in introducing a directly elected first citizen. Third, the reform took place during a period of extensive constitutional and local government ‘modernization’ in Britain. The new arrangements are put in the context of the long-term development of London government – the struggle to govern London (Chapter 2). The abolition of the Greater London Council (GLC) is considered, as is the 14-year period in which London had existed without such government, and the political process which led to the 1997 Labour government’s commitment to create a mayor and assembly for London (Chapter 3). The creation of the new system of city-wide government for the capital, including the passage of legislation, the transitional arrangements for the Greater London Authority (GLA) and the operation of the elected GLA during its first six months are then considered (Chapter 4). From here the book analyses how the GLA has worked in practice in its first years (Chapter 5), and also considers the London reforms in the context of the Blair government’s wider programme of reform of local government (Chapter 6). Elected mayors are likely to be a feature of British local government following legislation passed during 2000. Efforts to split ‘executive’ and ‘representative’ functions within local government have been attempted first within the new GLA. 1

2

The Politics of London

The new GLA is, of course, only part of the machinery of London government. In Chapter 7, we examine how Whitehall, the 32 London boroughs, the City of London and a variety of quangos – governmentappointed boards – and partnerships play important roles in the development of strategies and the provision of public services in the capital. Despite the illusion of a tidy-up of London government in the spring of 2000, London government is still a complicated endeavour. In Chapter 8 the new London government system is compared with arrangements in other, overseas, cities. Some aspects of the GLA, notably the relationship between a small core of officers and a number of large functional bodies, are probably unique. The capital is also unusual in having two tiers of government and also distinctive features such as a city centre where responsibilities are split between a number of separate jurisdictions. London government now has some characteristics in common with New York, though in other ways it resembles Berlin, Paris or other European cities. There can be no doubt that now is an opportune time to consider the development of London’s system of government. Following a number of years when it had become clear that further reform was inevitable, there now seems at least a chance that the post-2000 arrangements will prove resilient for a number of years. Each element of the city’s governance now has an opportunity to work together to create a new and lasting system. If they do not, there is a risk that a future government will decide that further reform is needed. The history of London suggests that further change is more, rather than less, likely.

Size matters: why London is ‘too big’ How London should be governed has been a headache not just for Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher, but for national authority – whether prime minister or monarch – for hundreds of years. Part of the problem is the sheer centrality of London, and the way that it dominates the economy, culture and politics of the whole of the British Isles. Four centuries before Green Belts were even thought of, King James I (1603–25) despaired of the unchecked growth of the capital: ‘Soon London will be all England’ (quoted in Browner, 1994). In 1722, Daniel Defoe wrote that London ‘sucks the vitals of trade in this island to itself’ (MacLean et al., 1999). A century later, William Cobbett used a similar image: London was ‘the Great Wen of all’ – a foul and unnatural growth which sucked the life from the rest of the country.

London in Context

3

Today, the effective London economic region is far larger than the London central business district, larger even than the administrative boundary of the Greater London Authority, and, on some measures, larger even than the South East Region. It is in fact the ‘Greater South East’ a concept first suggested by Sir Peter Hall. Hall showed that the area of maximum population growth moved further and further out from the centre of London in each successive decade in the post-war period. In the 1950s, the belt of maximum growth was 15–30 miles (25–50 km) from the centre. In the 1960s it was 35–70 miles (55–110 km) distant. By the 1980s the growth belt was outside the administrative definition of the South-East region. Hall concluded: the functional London region, joined together by complex ties of commuting and other kinds of dependence, is a vast area of over 12 million people, stretching from Basingstoke to Chelmsford, from Bishop’s Stortford to Horsham. (Hall, 1989, p. 5) This Greater South East – an even larger area than London’s functional region – contains about 40 per cent of the population of England and Wales. It is now the effective economic region and con-sideration of the London economy needs to start from an analysis at this level: By the 1980s virtually the whole of the South East, and some areas beyond, were incorporated in a functional London region within which firms are able to benefit substantially from the concentration of markets, skills, information, specialised services, international linkages and decision-makers associated with the UK’s leading region. (Gordon, 1999). Between 1987 and 1997 the peak rates of employment growth were in a belt 65–90 miles (100–145 km) from the centre of London. London thus exemplifies what the architectural writer Deyan Sudjic has called the ‘hundred-mile city’ (Sudjic, 1992): Imagine a force field around a high-tension power line, crackling with energy and ready to flash over and discharge 20,000 volts at any point along its length, and you have some idea of the nature of the modern city … The city’s force field is not a linear one, however. Rather, it stretches for a hundred miles in each direction, over towns and villages and across vast tracts of what appears to be open country, far from any existing settlement that could conventionally be called a city.

4

The Politics of London Table 1.1 Changes in employment within London’s region 1987–97 Area

000s

%

Greater London Outer Metropolitan Area Outer South East Fringe of Greater South East SOUTH EAST REGION GREATER SOUTH EAST GREAT BRITAIN

⫺49 257 184 206 391 597 1064

⫺1 12 11 18 5 7 5

Source:

Gordon, 1999.

This pattern of growth is reflected in job change across the London region (Table 1.1). Between 1987 and 1997, employment grew in the South East at the same rate as in Britain as a whole and slightly faster in the Greater South East. But this masks substantial spatial variations. Job growth was greatest in the fringe areas of the Greater South East, the Outer South East and the Outer Metropolitan Area. The number of jobs actually fell slightly in Greater London itself, though by 2002 the number was well above that in 1987. Hence from an economic point of view it is the London metropolitan region, extending well beyond the GLC/GLA boundary, or even the ‘100-mile city’ of the Greater South East, which should be the focus of analysis. But political realities mean that, in practice it is Greater London, and smaller areas within it – neighbourhoods, boroughs – which is the appropriate spatial scale, and which represents a ‘London’ to which citizens can relate. So underlying the ‘governance’ debate (see later in this chapter) is a continuing spatial dilemma. The city scale – even the metropolitan city scale – is too small to capture the appropriate economic processes. Economies and labour markets operate over larger areas that are not contiguous with administrative boundaries. There is a general question of metropolitan governance – the lack of consistency, or contradiction, between the economic scale of organization and the political/administrative scale. Economically, we are concerned with metropolitan regions/large labour market areas/travel-to-work areas. Politically, we are dealing with historically determined jurisdictions. In one sense the problem is actually insoluble – the spatial scale over which urban economic processes occur will always be different from the spatial scale

London in Context

5

with which politics can function and citizens can identify. So there is no ‘perfect’ solution to the problem of metropolitan governance but rather different attempts in our various cities to cope with this common problem. Institutional innovations in different countries have taken various forms, ranging from the creation of new metropolitan governments and regional agencies to looser and sometimes voluntary co-operation among municipalities (Lefevre, 1998). This is a general issue of city governance, and we look at experience in other cities around the world in Chapter 7. But the problem is nowhere so acute as in London, both because of London’s relative economic and political size within the UK, and because of the long history of the relationship between the Kingdom and its capital.

London today London changed enormously during the 14 years between the abolition of the GLC and the creation of its post-modern successor, the GLA. Population trends show this change most markedly. After decades of decline, the population of Greater London stabilized, and then began increasing in the 1980s. Between 1961 and 1983, the resident population of London fell from 7.98 million to 6.77 million. From then it increased to 6.89 million in 1991 and to 7.1 million in 1998, to over 7.2 million in 2003. London’s population is projected to continue to increase in the future. This population growth has come from increased international migration as well as from natural increase (excess of births over deaths). The increase in international migration encompasses a range of groups including EU nationals, highly skilled professionals and also rapidly growing numbers of refugees and asylum seekers. It is estimated that the number of refugees and asylum seekers living in 2002 was between 240,000 and 280,000, including almost 40,000 children in London schools (Aldous et al., 1999). The capital’s economy, which had endured years of relative decline as population had quit the city, revived during the 1990s. Although the economy tended to be more volatile than that of the United Kingdom as a whole, its growth has broadly matched (and probably somewhat exceeded) that of the country as a whole (CEBR, 2000). The decline in population and economic activity in London, which had occurred since 1945 (though not always at the catastrophic rate of the 1960s and 1970s), resulted in part from the well-meaning policies of successive national governments – supported by the London government of the time – to decentralize economic activity from the capital. Ever since wartime planning for the capital’s future

6

The Politics of London

(see, for example, the Abercrombie report), massive slum clearance programmes and efforts to reduce inner city densities preoccupied planners. There were initiatives to restrict office developments in the capital and to subsidize London businesses to move to the regions. Such policies had the unintended consequence of removing a significant number of aspiring working-class people from inner London and, inevitably, of weakening the city’s economy. The 1980s saw an end to virtually all of the anti-London planning policies of earlier decades (Hebbert, 1998). Margaret Thatcher’s legacy to London was not just the abolition of the GLC. Her government did not believe in planning of the kind practised by successive governments since 1945. Instead, public money was used to stimulate private investment in new enterprises: London Docklands was transformed by massive public subventions to private investors in a new office district. Moreover, changes in the world economy, notably the deregulation of financial and business services during the 1980s, led to rapid new growth in the capital’s economy. Thus, curiously, during a period within which London was internationally renowned for having no citywide government, its economy returned from the grave. During 18 years of Conservative government from 1979 to 1997, the capital became a visibly more relaxed place. Street life, nightclubs, designer retailing, boutique hotels and modern art thrived against the backdrop of an economically liberal government. Mass international immigration to London became commonplace. By the later 1990s, international business magazines were obsessed with ‘cool’ and ‘hip’ London (Vanity Fair, 1997). London is now a post-industrial economy. Over the last 40 years, most of the manufacturing jobs have gone, the Port has closed and transport employment has greatly declined. As a result there has been a huge reduction in manual employment (Gordon, 1999). By sector, the largest gains between 1987–97 in Greater London were in ‘other business services’ (38 per cent growth); catering (29 per cent); ‘other community services’ (18 per cent) and ‘IT, R&D, telecom’ (14 per cent). The largest falls were in engineering (⫺54 per cent), utilities (⫺73 per cent) and ‘other manufacturing’ (⫺40 per cent). In the South East region, the pattern was similar, with increases in other business services (53 per cent), other community services (35 per cent), air (31 per cent), IT etc. (39 per cent) and catering (27 per cent), with falls in utilities (⫺53 per cent), engineering (⫺33 per cent) and other manufacturing (⫺26 per cent). The economic structure has thus shifted towards a more flexible, qualityorientated, international and information based economy. The international

London in Context

7

aspects of London’s economy and the importance of financial services are often exaggerated, however. Employment in finance fell by 5 per cent in Greater London from 1987 to 1997, and rose only by 1 per cent in the South East region, at a time when nationally financial sector jobs rose by 4 per cent. Similarly, job growth in London was associated more with domestic growth than with international business growth (Gordon, 1999). As Gordon argues, the key aspect of the London economy is its diversity, so that it cannot be understood purely in terms of the position of a few key firms, sectors or markets. London’s firms enjoy a high degree of autonomy – only 2 per cent of workplaces in London are branches of companies with overseas headquarters (London TEC Council, 1998). However, in terms of qualifications and skills, the London labour market displays a worrying degree of polarisation. Forty-five per cent of the workforce are employed in higher level occupations (professional and managerial) compared with a Great Britain average of 35 per cent. A higher proportion of the workforce is educated to university level in London. But at the same time 26 per cent of the workforce have very low levels of qualification, or no qualifications at all (London TEC Council, 1999). Skills demand is rising and employers in many sectors are experiencing skills gaps and shortages. A substantial part of labour demand by London employers is met by in-commuting: 20 per cent of the London workforce do not live in London. So unemployment and social exclusion co-exist with unmet labour demand, because of skills mismatches and low employability among some groups. More generally, despite – or perhaps because of – its booming economy, London has become a much more unequal city, with increases in measured inequality and social exclusion (London Research Centre, 1996). The position of those at the bottom of the earnings ladder has clearly worsened. In 1979, the bottom 10 per cent of male earners earned 64 per cent of median earnings, but this had fallen to 54 per cent by the 1990s. The number of adult residents in receipt of income support rose from just over 500,000 in 1989 (11 per cent) to almost 1 million in 1994 (17 per cent). Including partners and children, over 1.5 million Londoners – residents of a true global metropolis and living in supposedly the ‘coolest city on the planet’ – rely upon Income Support to feed and clothe themselves. In 1991, deaths in the most deprived neighbourhoods in London were some 25 per cent higher than expected (on standardized national mortality rates) while in the most affluent areas, deaths were 20 per cent lower than expected. Violent crime increased by 130 per cent between 1981 and 1993 (London Research Centre, 1996).

8

The Politics of London

London is a multicultural city, and its economy reflects this ethnic diversity. More than a fifth of private sector workplaces have a non-white owner (London TEC Council, 1999). People from ethnic minorities will form the most important element of growth in London’s labour force, increasing by 17 per cent between 1999 and 2006. Despite the growth in both economic opportunities and the existence of equal opportunities legislation, there are still considerable barriers facing ethnic minorities in the workplace. For example, a person from an ethnic minority group is twice as likely to be unemployed as a white person with the same level of qualification. He or she is also more likely than a white person to be seeking further education or training, but these benefits do not translate into appropriate jobs, with a greater number considered over educated for their job level (London TEC Council, 1998). Later chapters of this book will consider the developments in governance that accompanied these profound social, economic and cultural changes. In brief, these developments centred on the creation of a new London elite consisting of senior figures from the public, private and voluntary sectors. The vacuum left by the abolition of the GLC provided space for a new kind of civic community, and ‘partnership’ – a term with a variety of meanings – became a key element in the city’s progress.

London within the UK London has never fitted easily within the wider system of local government in Britain. Structural reforms of local government in the capital during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries took place in virtually all cases under legislation separate from that affecting the rest of the country. The reforms of 2000 are yet another example of London as a special case. Other legislation, affecting the scope and methods of service provision, has generally covered all parts of England and Wales. However, all aspects of the new GLA – structure, functions and even some elements of finance – were contained within the Greater London Authority Act, 1999. The GLA is a hybrid authority: while it is subject to some of the local government legislation affecting all other councils, the GLA Bill was treated as having constitutional implications during its passage through Parliament. The GLA is ‘regional’ in some ways and a city council in others. The capital’s awkwardness within the wider constitutional and democratic processes of the country is probably as great today as it ever has been. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were subject to significant

London in Context

9

programmes of devolution between 1997 and 2000. The creation of the GLA followed a year behind the Scottish and Welsh reforms: if Margaret Thatcher had not abolished the GLC, there would almost certainly have been no London reform as part of the devolution process. Yet commentators have generally included the creation of the GLA within the wider constitutional picture. The fact that the 2000 London election was fought on the basis of proportional representation (as opposed to the first-past-the-post system used for all other local government elections in Britain) further stressed a link to the PR-based Scottish Parliament and the Welsh and Northern Ireland assemblies. Nevertheless the GLA is fully included within the scope of legislation passed by the Blair administration to ‘modernize’ local government. Thus, an executive/scrutiny split within councils, the ‘best value’ regime, the imposition of Standards Committees and a number of other reforms enacted during 1999 and 2000 apply to the GLA just as much as to other councils. There will be somewhat different treatment for the GLA’s ‘functional bodies’ such as Transport for London, but overall London is treated just the same as other parts of the country. But London clearly is different in many ways from the other major urban centres in Britain. Not only is London larger, by an order of magnitude, than any other British city, but it is also the centre of the country’s political, financial and cultural elites, and is one of a handful of true ‘global’ or ‘world’ cities. Whether as cause or consequence of this, London has an economic dynamism that is lacking in other English cities and urban areas, and which produces a continuing ‘North–South divide’, as recognized in a recent Government study: There are variations [in economic success] within regions, but these are dwarfed by the systematic differences between the fortunes of places in ‘the North’ and ‘the South’. Variations within regions are a function of the nexus of local–regional–national–international linkages which different cities have established for themselves and which affect their ability to compete and collaborate … Those [cities] that have done best are generally closer to London … The array of ‘successful’ places suggests that London is, by a degree of magnitude, better placed than any of the other conurbations. (Robson et al., 2000) As a ‘global city’ London is a centre of command and control functions of various kinds (Sassen, 1991; Llewelyn-Davies, 1996). London Heathrow is the busiest European airport, and is a key driver of the London economy and

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The Politics of London

the competitiveness of London as a business location. A quarter of Europe’s largest companies have their headquarters in London. Nevertheless, the majority of workplaces in London have their main market in London. About a third of workplaces have their main market elsewhere in the UK, and a small but sizeable proportion of workplaces rely mainly on international markets (London TEC Council, 1998). Three quarters of workplaces in London employ ten people or fewer, but a third of all jobs are provided by large workplaces (more than 200 employees). Within Britain, and particularly in southern England, concern has developed about the problems of urban sprawl. Although London has been hemmed in since 1939 by a highly effective Green Belt, the prosperity of the southern part of the country has led to major and continuous development in virtually all of the counties surrounding London. Towns such as Reading, Bracknell, Crawley and Watford have been subjected to enormous planning pressure for many years. During the 1960s, migration from London to the South East region ran at a rate of up to 100,000 per year (Greater London Council, 1969, Table 2.5). This rate of exodus continued for much of the 1970s and today was at between 50,000 and 75,000 per year (London Research Centre, 2000). A high birth rate and international in-migration during the later 1980s and 1990s ensured that, overall, the capital’s population started to increase once more. Thus the pressure on the South East counties has continued. Yet in the northern cities such as Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle, urban flight and overall population decline continued right through the 1990s. As a result of the problems of these northern cities on the one hand and of the pressure for developments on green land – often, though not exclusively in southern England – on the other, the government appointed an Urban Task Force in 1998. The Task Force, chaired by architect Lord (Richard) Rogers, reported in 1999 that England required an ‘urban renaissance’. This renaissance would require a number of changes to public policy, including reforms to the tax system, improved urban living conditions and higher standards of design (Urban Task Force, 1999). An urban white paper (Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, 2000) was published by the government in the summer of 2000. This proposed tax breaks, new regeneration companies and other policy initiatives to increase the opportunities for success of towns and cities (DTLR, 2000). The notion that major urban areas should be revived and that their population should rise was part of the Labour administration’s strategy to take pressure off green land. A target was set by the government to achieve 60 per cent of new dwellings on ‘brownfield’ sites. For London, the

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implication was clear: perhaps half a million additional housing units would be required. Experts disagree about whether such a new number of homes would lead to a further rise in population or not. The density of people within households throughout London will be crucial to the outcome. The mayor’s Spatial Development Strategy (the draft London Plan), published in June 2002, will have an important bearing on this issue. What is clear is that the re-population of cities such as London has now become an issue of wider political and economic significance than in the past. This change, coupled with persistently high levels of unemployment in a number of parts of the city will almost certainly mean that the anti-London planning policies of earlier decades will not be revisited on the capital in the foreseeable future. In fact, and somewhat to the surprise of those acquainted with the Ken Livingstone of the 1980s, Mayor Livingstone vigorously pursued pro-growth policies following his election, and this approach is reflected in his Spatial Development and Economic Development Strategies (see Chapters 5 and 7).

Understanding urban governance In the later 1980s and 1990s a new vision for cities gradually emerged, which emphasized concepts of economic competitiveness and social cohesion. Slowly, governments and businesses began to see cities less as a problem and more as an asset. While cities – in Britain and elsewhere – had been in decline for much of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, an urban revival began in the 1980s; this started with the smaller and medium-sized cities, but in the 1990s spread to the major capitals and centres of finance and business. By the 1990s, cities were clearly back on the political agenda. National governments saw them as key assets; major European and North American cities engaged in a frantic and ceaseless round of city marketing, urban boosterism and ruthless competition for inward investment, attracting skilled workers and prestige arts, cultural and sporting events. At the same time, there was increasing concern about rising inequalities in cities such as London and New York (Fainstein et al., 1992; London Research Centre, 1996). Even in ‘successful’ cities, large sections of the population, particularly the unskilled, the elderly and minorities, were left out of growing affluence. In other cities, economic success and a virtuous circle of development simply failed to arrive. Politically, this implied a new political agenda as a search for institutions and policies that might reconcile these two goals of economic competitiveness and social cohesion. Indeed,

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The Politics of London

it is possible to see the whole of the period since the end of the 1970s as a continuing search for ways of modernizing governance. In Britain, Labour’s reluctant monetarism of the late 1970s gave way to a radical right agenda under the Thatcher administrations in which public spending was explicitly defined as the heart of the economic problem (see, for example, HM Treasury, 1979). The Thatcherite solution was to attempt to ‘roll back the frontiers of the state’ through various forms of privatization. In reality, total public expenditure continued to increase in real terms during the 1980s and 1990s (though more slowly than during the 1960s and early 1970s), and public expenditure as a proportion of GDP over the period of the post-1997 Labour administration was in fact considerably lower than during the Thatcher and Major governments. However, after the late 1970s, there was also a thoroughgoing ideological change in which government – particularly local government, and even more specifically in its traditional municipal form – was often seen as the problem not the solution. This ideological change at the heart of central government produced a reaction from Labour in local government, particularly in the big cities. In opposition to the Thatcherite model, these councils offered not traditional Old Labour policies but rather a New Left vision of ‘local socialism’ based around new social alliances, radical politics and new forms of democratic accountability. A number of London boroughs and the Greater London Council pushed such an approach to its outer limits. By the end of the 1980s it was clear that this form of institutionalized insurrectionary politics had failed, but so too had the radical New Right vision of government (Ridley, 1988) from which local councils were largely excluded. The external conditions were thus in place for the development of the next phase of urban governance innovation in which the key concept was partnership – both between central and local government, and between government, business and ‘civil society’. Building on the experience of Conservative government policies such as ‘Estate Action’ and other programmes, City Challenge, introduced in the early 1990s, provided the template for the new approach. Local authorities were back at the centre of urban policy (in contrast to the Urban Development Corporations of the 1980s that were explicitly designed to exclude them), but were incentivized – with grants – to form partnerships with local businesses and representatives of the ‘community’. Although City Challenge funding was restricted to the most deprived areas, grants were not allocated on a needs basis, but rather on the strength of competitive bids from prospective partnerships. The system thereby combined elements of needs-based and competitive allocation, contained both

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‘top–down’ and ‘bottom–up’ elements, and strengthened central control over regeneration expenditure in the guise of decentralization. Further programmes and policies since then – the Single Regeneration Budget, New Deal for Communities, Employment Zones, Health and Education Action Zones – share these key elements, although the balance between the different elements (that is, central or local initiative, needs-based versus competitive allocation, the extent of partnership working) has varied over time and across programmes. More generally, this shift from government to ‘governance’ has occurred at several levels, not just that of cities and regions. Changes in urban governance in Britain should be seen in this wider context. The state has lost some of its exclusivity and sovereignty. Globalization has required the state both to devolve power downward and also to cede authority ‘upward’ to supra-national organizations such as the European Union or the World Trade Organization (Giddens, 1998). At the same time government structures of all kinds have experienced a loss of legitimacy and authority, demonstrated in a range of social and political phenomena, from reduced electoral turnouts to the rise of single-issue campaign groups to direct action protests of various kinds. It is true that nation-states have lost some sovereignty, in the sense of a supreme, exclusive role. States must now share power in an era of complex, overlapping and multi-layered governance. But reports of the death of the nation-state have been much exaggerated. ‘States have remained a key locus of regulation and have thus far shown no sign of future dissolution’ (Scholte, 2000). For urban governance, particularly in Britain, the state remains central. And for the governance of London, as we will see, the state remains the key actor. Paradoxically, it is London’s economic strength and size which has, for centuries, ensured its political weakness. For the Queen in Parliament, and now for the Prime Minister in Downing Street, London represents a rival and a threat. So real political power has never been devolved to the capital, and the state has played, and continues to play, the key role in governing London. In the literature on urban government, one can identify a continuing debate, which has taken place over 40 years or more, between pluralist and structuralist explanations of urban politics. Pluralism, at least as an ideal type, sees the state – national or local – as an independent arbiter between competing interests. The study of local politics is thus the investigation of how decisions are made, who influences them, how that influence is brought to bear, and what the outcomes are. The classic ‘community power’ studies of the 1950s and 1960s were concerned with the questions: Who

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governs? Which are the key actors, how are agendas set, how are decisions (and non-decisions) made? Structuralists, on the other hand, argue that the state, far from being a neutral arbiter, is a part of the power structure itself. Policies and outcomes are not determined as the result of a visible interplay of interests; rather they are the expression of an underlying (and in the final analysis, economically determined) social structure. Between these two poles, a wide variety of intermediary positions are of course possible. In the 1970s, the neutral and somewhat benign view of the state implied by pluralism came under attack, both from the New Right’s ‘public choice’ critique of pluralism, and also that of the neo-Marxist left. Both critiques sought to displace the notion of the disinterested bureaucrat and the pluralist politician. Both New Left and New Right stressed the underlying conflict between the production and distribution roles of urban politics. For the New Right, politically controlled consumption and redistribution expenditure ‘crowded out’ productive activity, while for the New Left, the ‘contradiction’ between the accumulation and reproduction roles of the state would lead eventually to social revolution. Neither view was correct, but the essence of that debate, shorn of its more apocalyptic elements, lingers on, transformed into the current discourse of competitiveness and cohesion. Paul Peterson’s City Limits (1981) presents a pessimistic view of urban politics, influenced by both critiques. Political variables and political action have little effect because ultimately external economic conditions determine the range of outcomes. Political interests coalesce around promoting a city’s economic interests. Service delivery and redistribution become secondary or worse (Peterson, 1981). The literature on ‘growth machines’ and ‘urban regimes’ is in part a reaction to this more structural approach in which politics is marginalized. Politics becomes important again where there is a key concern for the process of coalition building and the interaction between economic and political processes. In the ‘growth machine’ approach, growth-oriented coalitions are seen as the dominant force in urban development (Logan and Molotch, 1987). The key players are the most ‘place-bound’ capitalists – property-owners, local developers, local finance and others. Anti-growth movements may arise in opposition to the growth machine. Local governments are usually pro-growth. Politics is important: the explanation goes beyond the structural. To some extent, the first years of the Greater London Authority can be seen as a deliberate attempt by the Mayor of London to create a growth coalition. The concept of ‘urban regimes’ (Elkin, 1987; Stone, 1989) provides a more ‘structural’ explanation, Growth machines are seen as one type of urban regime, but other versions are possible, for example, caretaker

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regimes, which are service-orientated, and progressive regimes, which seek redistributive goals. ‘Regime’ means more than just elected government – a regime is constructed through bargaining and tacit understandings among several actors: ‘informal arrangements by which public bodies and private interests function together in order to be able to make and carry out governing decisions’ (Stone, 1989). Dowding, Dunleavy and colleagues apply the concept of ‘policy regime’ to the study of six London boroughs. They define a policy regime as one in which most or all of the following features are present (Dowding, 1999): 1. A distinctive policy agenda, which is 2. Relatively long-lived; 3. Sustained by coalitions of interests or personnel, not necessarily formally or institutionally specified; 4. Crossing sectoral or institutional boundaries. Furthermore, the policy agenda may 5. Survive personnel and leadership changes, so that continued electoral success is allowed; 6. Primarily involve mobilization of external resources, so there is a positive-sum game; 7. Be associated with strong leadership, entrepreneurialism and a distinctive political vision; 8. Tend to bridge institutions and community interests by creating ‘partnership’ structures. Hence urban policy regimes are those which ‘exhibit most or all of these features in metropolitan settings’. Not every local authority, or even set of public–private relationships constitutes an urban regime; in the empirical part of their paper, they conclude that three of the six London boroughs they studied constitute ‘failed regimes’. Urban regimes are defined both by process and by results. They ‘often involve the articulation of a particular vision of urban development, urban public service production, or both’ and they achieve positive-sum results through attracting ‘business investment or funding from higher tiers of government to promote economic growth or help to manage decline’. However, in applying the concept of ‘urban regimes’ to the London and British contexts, we have to acknowledge some keen differences between the UK and the US. First, economic and political power are highly centralized in

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The Politics of London

British central government and as a result independent corporate power bases in provincial cities, much less urban ‘growth coalitions’ are relatively rare. There are few if any real regional growth coalitions in Britain on the US model, with independent regional sources of finance and political support: The more decentralised pattern in the United States means that its cities contain key private economic interests for which urban fortunes are still important to business success … They also provide fertile environments for strong business social networks … [which] act as organisational platforms from which business interests contribute to discussions about the form and context of urban redevelopment programmes. (Harding, 1994, p. 365) Secondly, central/local government and fiscal arrangements are very different in the two countries. In the US local government spending is very dependent on protecting and enhancing the local tax base, by encouraging firms to move to, or expand in, the local area. In Britain, by contrast, the local government grant regime seeks fully to equalize needs and tax resources across local areas. Moreover, since the nationalization of the business rate by the Thatcher government in 1990, there are no direct fiscal advantages – real or perceived – to local governments in attracting new investment. In addition, both local spending and local taxation can, potentially, be capped. Hence the scope for fiscal gains at local level from prodevelopment policies (and conversely, the fiscal disincentive to slow growth or anti-growth policies) is practically zero. Thirdly, local government in Britain is weak both politically and fiscally. Within the unitary UK state, local government has always been a creature of central government, but during the Thatcher and Major governments its position deteriorated considerably. However, the devolution programme of New Labour has changed this picture somewhat with the introduction of intermediate, regional or – to use academic jargon – ‘meso’, levels of government, with varying powers, in Scotland, Wales and London, and with the possibility of English regional government in the future. Fourthly, the extent and legitimacy of the British welfare state makes it very different from the US. However, unlike other European countries, the extent of welfare restructuring in the 1980s and 1990s could be classified as sufficient for a ‘regime change’ at national level, rendering the British welfare state more ‘Anglo-Saxon’ than European. Fifthly, there is a weak tradition of business involvement in urban politics, at least in the twentieth century. There had been a far greater level

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of involvement by businesspeople in the urban government of nineteenthcentury England. Cities such as Birmingham and Manchester developed local governments that were initiated and generally controlled by business interests. Growing tax levels and the centralization of virtually all taxation diminished such enlightened interest on the part of the private sector. The removal of the non-domestic rate from local control in 1990 was perhaps the final step – of many – away from business having any direct financial stake in local government. The modern world of ‘partnerships’ between the public and private sectors (see below) is very different. Another strand of the ‘governance’ literature takes inspiration not from the US ‘urban regime’ approach but rather from the French ‘regulation’ school. In the latter, the shift from government to governance is seen as a change in the mode of regulation, an institutional restructuring which parallels the shift from ‘Fordism’ to ‘post-Fordism’ (Stoker, 1995). In this analysis local government has become more concerned about the politics of production and competitiveness and less concerned about services and redistribution (Stoker, 1999). The ‘governance’ mode of regulation implies a network mode of activity and the incorporation both of several levels of government and of agencies from beyond government. This governance mode evolved in part as a response to the introduction of privatization, New Public Management and a contract culture, but can be distinguished from these changes (Rhodes, 1999, 2000; Stoker, 1999, 2000). There are grounds for some caution about the latter analysis. Much of what local government actually does is still to deliver services, whether by direct provision or by paying for and regulating provision under contract. Furthermore, a large part of what can be classified as ‘economic development’ or competitiveness activities are in reality mainly about welfare and distribution. But nevertheless, there has been an important shift from a primary concern with the local state as a redistributive mechanism to one in which ‘competitiveness’ goals are often given primacy and in which welfare and redistribution issues are redefined as questions of social cohesion and exclusion. More generally, the concept of ‘governance’ seems well founded. Urban government now works with a range of other agencies, especially the private sector. There is near-universal support for a ‘partnership model’ – although of course this word can mean many different things in practice. Formal as well as informal arrangements are important, and co-ordination is through overlapping networks as well as hierarchies. The search for new forms of urban governance is a process that has been in train for more than twenty years and there are both continuities and

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The Politics of London

differences between the Conservative and New Labour phases of this process. Like their Tory predecessors, New Labour sees many local councils as bureaucratic, inefficient and offering poor value for money. It has continued the basic framework of the central–local government system it inherited – strong central control, restricted fiscal autonomy, target-setting and performance measurement and a requirement for local authorities to act in partnership with the local business sector and local communities. But New Labour has not proposed to reduce the role of local government further (as the Conservatives might have done), but, rather, to modernize local government. Local authorities remain important to local and regional governance – a lesson learned during the Thatcher and Major years. Equally, however, it is clear that New Labour expects local authorities to perform in a business-like and ‘inclusive’ way, and will use the levers of British centralism to ensure they act in accordance with the government’s wishes.

London’s new governance: steering, rowing, drowning or waving? In the 1980s and 1990s, there was a widespread move in the UK, the US and elsewhere towards a technocratic view of government modernization which emphasized the role of the state as ‘steering’ rather than ‘rowing’ (Savas, 1987; Osborne and Gaebler, 1992): Such authors believe urban government should be strategic … The core strategy focus should be on steering, not rowing – making policy and setting direction rather than producing services. That is, states should disengage from the business of trying to provide services directly, a task to which they were not suited. Instead, they should concentrate on setting the general administrative, regulatory and financial framework under which services could be provided. In Britain, this approach is clearly reflected in the attitudes of New Labour. Shortly after coming into office, in the first comprehensive review of spending across government, they declared: ‘Services should be provided through the sector best placed to provide those services most effectively. This can be the public, private or voluntary sector, or partnerships between the sectors’ (HM Treasury, 1998). But steering and rowing are not the only possibilities. Both steering and rowing assume (i) that government is able to formulate and implement coherent policies; and (ii) that such policies will have real effects on the object of intervention. But these assumptions may not hold in practice, and hence there are other possibilities for the realities of governance.

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First, government may not be able to form or to implement coherent policies – it may lack the resources, legitimacy or leadership to do so. In these circumstances, government can only respond to demands made on it, not shape the policy agenda, and in extreme circumstances, it may be unable to do even that. Secondly, policy may have little or no impact, however coherently formulated and implemented, and so policy initiatives will generate appearance but not substance. Following the nautical metaphor established by Osborne and Gaebler we can term these options ‘drowning’ and ‘waving’. This then generates the following typology:

Steering Following Savas, and Osborne and Gaebler, this is close to the current orthodoxy about what government, including local government, should be trying to do. This role stresses regulation, not provision, partnerships not hierarchies. Modernization is a key term, and change is promoted through incentivization of the workforce, and the adoption of New Public Management techniques. A steering government works with the market, either directly through a process of contracting out, or indirectly, through insisting on a ‘best value’ regime and the adoption of private sector techniques and benchmarking.

Rowing This is what the state used to do. It implies direct provision of services; state command and control; and large bureaucracies. The role of government is to replace the market as far as possible.

Drowning The key problem is governmental overload. Government (at all levels) seeks to do too much. At the same time, citizens’ expectations of services have increased, their knowledge has become greater, and their deference towards both government and ‘experts’ has declined. In trying to achieve both competitiveness (production-orientated) goals and cohesion (consumptionorientated) goals, government takes on too much and becomes ineffective or even counter-productive in terms of its own declared policies.

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Waving Government in the post-modern era. It’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it. Both politicians and citizens realize that government is less effective, and perhaps less desired than in a previous period. Moreover, government has to operate differently. Policies are developed (R&D); campaigned for (marketing); and then implemented by experts (sales) – there is a style of governance based around permanent campaigning, direct engagement with the public, image-making and correctly divining and expressing the public mood. Hence gestures, image and positioning become as important as policies, parties and programmes. Successful politicians are those who are able to develop an inclusivist style whether real or pretended (Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Ken Livingstone). Those unable to do so, or are trapped in an earlier style, are likely to fail (Al Gore, William Hague, Frank Dobson). ‘Govern’, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, means to ‘rule with authority’, while ‘governance’ refers to the ‘act, manner or function of governing’ (my italics). While ‘governing’ means at least steering and perhaps even ‘rowing’, the shift to governance would be consistent, linguistically at least, with a shift to the ‘waving’ mode. However, as we shall see, the challenge for the mayor, in London’s complex and confusing system of governance, also involves trying hard not to drown.

Conclusion London’s post-2000 represents yet another attempt to find a form of democratic institution that can allow the city’s vast population to direct its own destiny. The new arrangements came into effect after a period of radical and rapid restructuring within London’s economy. They also represent another step in the development of new kinds of urban politics in which local politicians work with an array of different bodies to secure the provision of public services – ‘urban governance’. Governing London therefore means facing challenges which are common to many other large cities in the developed (and indeed developing) world. But in understanding the specific challenges faced by the mayor and assembly in the post-2000 arrangements, we also need to look at the history of London government, and how that history, the institutions it gave rise to, and the continuities in the economic and political role of London, affect the stakes in London’s politics today.

2 The Struggle to Govern London The creation of the Greater London Authority is the latest chapter in a long history of metropolitan reform and change. The relationship between the national government and the capital city has been complicated and difficult for centuries. Because of the concentration of population, economic activity, politics and culture in London, central governments have always been concerned about the potential and actual threat of London self-government. Almost since Edward the Confessor founded a new palace at Westminster in the eleventh century, there has been a struggle between the political power of central government at Westminster and the independent economic power of the City of London. London played a crucial part in the Roundhead victory in the Civil War: ‘but for the City the Parliament never could have made the war’ wrote Thomas Hobbes. To take a more recent example, in the 1980s Margaret Thatcher dominated the House of Commons, facing little effective opposition within Parliament. But she was taunted daily by the huge banner hung across the front of the GLC building directly opposite Parliament across the river which counted the cost of her economic policies in the weekly total of London’s jobless. London is just too big, in relation to the rest of the country, with one-eighth of the UK population and one-sixth of the UK’s gross domestic product, for any government to feel easy devolving power to the capital.

Origins Some form of metropolitan governance existed from 1855, when the Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW) was put in place by Parliament. In 1889, the London County Council was created, whose boundaries (like those of the MBW) conformed approximately to what is now known as ‘Inner London’. In 1899, 27 metropolitan boroughs and Westminster City Council were set up. Together with the City of London itself, these formed the lower tier of authorities in a system that lasted until 1965. In 1965, the 21

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The Politics of London

LCC was abolished, and the Greater London Council, covering 8 million residents and almost the whole of the continuously built-up area, was created. At the lower tier, 32 relatively large boroughs (average population 250,000) were created. The GLC’s main responsibilities were strategic planning, housing, the fire brigade and major roads. Boroughs were responsible for social services, housing, local roads, libraries, recreation and parks. Education in inner London was provided by the Inner London Education Authority. In 1986, the GLC was abolished, and in 2000 the Greater London Authority was created. For hundreds of years ‘London’ was largely constrained within the City’s ancient boundaries. There was a settlement at Westminster, where the Court and Church were based, and another at Southwark which, although south of the River Thames, for a time became part of the City. But otherwise what is today Greater London was empty fields with occasional farms and villages. It was only from 1600 onwards that the City and Westminster became a continuous built-up area and that London began to sprawl eastwards and to the north. As London became significantly larger than the City’s original ‘square mile’ problems grew for the local government of the area. Unlike many other European cities, as London grew, the boundaries of the ancient City of London did not expand in parallel. The City of London actively resisted many attempts at reform and boundary extension. From time to time Parliament felt impelled to introduce reforms. For example, in 1829, the Metropolitan Police was created. Although accountable to the Home Secretary (that is, to national government) the Met was London’s first city-wide institution of what today would be called local government. The City of London, however, kept its own independent police force. The Victorian metropolis continued to grow. By 1840, the population of London had reached 2.2 million (Weinreb and Hibbert, 1983, p. 614). Yet there was still no local self-government for the wider built-up area. The City of London had its own developed system of local democracy: its common council provided policing, highways, basic water and sewage systems and, equally importantly, City trade produced significant tax revenues for the national Exchequer. Beyond the City, governmental chaos reigned. Developers (generally landowners and engineers) randomly extended the built-up area of the capital (Jenkins, 1975). As the metropolis grew, so new authorities developed to provide limited public services. There were dozens of parishes, vestries, ad hoc commissions and boards with responsibilities for provision such as poor relief, highways, pavements, public health and lighting (Halliday,

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1999, pp. 58–62). There was no uniformity and no requirement for consistent provision. Local and general acts randomly provided the capital with the services necessary for such a large agglomeration of people. As cities grow, so the need for government grows. The high density of London’s nineteenth-century population meant that housing conditions, water supplies and sewage systems became increasingly essential. The industrial revolution ensured that similar issues were confronting the new cities of the industrial midlands and the north. However, in Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham civic leaders in each case successfully lobbied for a single municipal corporation to run public services for the whole of the city. London’s history – in particular the City’s ancient freedoms and independence – meant that to create a city-wide local authority was far more difficult than in the new industrial cities elsewhere in the country. Thus the nineteenth century was characterized by a struggle over London government whose consequences are still visible in the early years of the new millennium (Davis, 1988). At its simplest, this struggle sought to impose or construct London-wide local self-government in a city which had evolved a large number of well-established, conservative, local government bodies. Parliament found itself involved in this debate on a number of occasions, though there was rarely a consensus about what kinds of reform were needed. Proposals for reform embraced the possibility of extending the City to include the whole of the built-up area of London. The Royal Commission on Municipal Corporations made such a suggestion in 1837, though as an alternative it was suggested that central government could take over London’s government. In 1854, the Royal Commission on the City Corporation suggested creating seven municipal boroughs in the built-up area surrounding the City (Travers et al., 1991, pp. 5–6). But the City always resisted reform. The Corporation lobbied furiously against any proposals it believed were detrimental to its interests. In the end, it took the chronic pollution of the River Thames to trigger an effective parliamentary effort to create metropolis-wide local government for the capital.

The Metropolitan Board of Works and local particularism The summer of 1854 was very hot. The Thames, which at this time was little more than an open sewer, became so foul that the smell made it impossible for Members of Parliament to use rooms at the Palace of Westminster on the river side of the building. This situation was sufficiently bad to

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convince MPs that something had – at last – to be done about the paralysis that affected the capital’s government. The Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW), London’s first city-wide administration, was created in 1855 (Halliday, 1999, pp. 62–4). The MBW was not a model of democracy. Its membership was drawn from the largely unreformed parishes and vestries that provided (very few) local services within their areas of the capital. These parishes and vestries were, in many cases, undemocratic. Nevertheless, the price of creating any kind of upper tier of London government was to give the lower tier voting rights controlling the new institution. The City was also represented. Resources were raised by a rate precept on the lower tier and also by borrowing. Despite its unpromising start, the MBW managed to make radical transformations in London’s physical environment. A sewage system was constructed, major streets were straightened, the embankments were created and the fire brigade was set up. The Board of Works did not, however, create an elected civic entity of the kind which by then existed in every other major city in Britain. County boroughs in Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and elsewhere had created civic leadership and municipal improvement which the capital conspicuously lacked (Davis, 1988, pp. 18–21). The debate about how best to run London continued after 1855. Proposals were revived for the extension of the City to include the whole of built-up London. Another option proposed ‘tenification’: the creation of ten large county boroughs. The possibility of two-tier structures of different kinds was also considered. But the conflicting interests of the City, existing parishes and vestries and various ad hoc commissions regularly combined to defeat efforts to push through reform. It is hard to exaggerate the parochial nature of nineteenth-century London. Parishes and vestries were often very small and there were a large number of ad hoc trusts and commissions with responsibility for tiny areas within parish and vestry areas. A brief example of the desperately localized nature of the capital’s government can be used to generalize for London as a whole: It [the Liberty of Norton Folgate] included Spital Square, Elder Street and most of Folgate (then White Lion) Street – the richest corner of Spitalfields, in fact. It was extra-parochial, and had its own government, all in eight acres. It had its own court house, charity school and workhouse. It cleaned itself, lit itself, and paved itself. From 1759 it was run by a group of 30 trustees, and patrolled by the constable, beadles and watchmen whom they appointed. (Bristow, 1989, p. 36)

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This extract gives a flavour of just how fragmented London government was during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Eight acres of land on the edge of the City comprised a free-standing local authority with all the trappings of civic self-government. But the fragmentation of the capital’s government at this time is of more than historical interest. It set the tone for the city’s development ever since. The Metropolitan Board of Works had to struggle with a membership drawn from the lower-tier parishes and district boards (that is, groups of parishes). Members of the Board were immensely suspicious of items of expenditure that would raise money from their own parish ratepayers while benefiting people who lived in other parts of the city. Rich parishes in the West End were particularly critical of the capacity of poorer areas to the east of the City to absorb resources. Worse still, there were demands from the poorer parishes for rate equalization. The parish and vestry halls that housed much of London government during the nineteenth century are still to be seen in some parts of inner London (English Heritage, 1999). But a more visible physical manifestation of a new form of local government can be seen in the many ‘Board Schools’ that are still in use today. These institutions were constructed by the London School Board (which was elected for the area covered by the MBW) from 1870 onwards. In the end, despite its epic physical achievements, the MBW became mired in accusations of corruption. It was not, by any standards, an instrument of representative government, more a temporary technical solution to the problems of equipping the world’s largest metropolis with basic infrastructure. Central government, which was anyway in the process of creating county councils for the rest of the country, decided to extend local government reform to include the capital. Thus, in 1888, the MBW was succeeded by the London County Council. For the first time, London had a directly elected city-wide local authority.

The London County Council and the metropolitan boroughs The LCC inherited virtually all the MBW’s powers and duties. But in addition it was required to provide new public services. Unlike the Board of Works, the new county council enjoyed the legitimacy of democratic election. Deep suspicion attended the first election of the Council during 1889: in particular, the quality of potential councillors was widely questioned (Gibbon and Bell, 1939, p. 83).

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Nevertheless, the LCC developed into the most powerful and effective city-wide government London has yet enjoyed. Although a ‘county’ council in name – suggesting rural interests – the LCC’s area was almost entirely urban: at the time of its creation it covered virtually the whole of the builtup area of London. In 1889, the LCC had a population of over 4.5 million. London was the biggest city the world had ever known at the time Britain was at the height of its imperial power. The coming of local self-government seemed an appropriate recognition of the capital city’s importance. The new council set about a major programme of public service development. It inherited all the MBW’s functions and gradually assumed new ones. Tramways, housing and hospitals were constructed. Thames crossings were improved. Municipal enterprise was encouraged (Davis, 1988, pp. 27–48). London government was able to catch up with the developed arrangements in other British cities. The LCC proved a radical authority, operating under the influence of leading Fabians such as Sidney and Beatrice Webb. In 1904, the functions of the London School Board were transferred to the LCC. By 1909, the Council claimed to be the biggest employer in London. With the transfer of poor law functions to the LCC in 1930, the overall number of employees rose to over 85,000 (Clifton, 1989, p. 10). Lower-tier local government in the capital was reformed in 1899. The parishes and vestries were combined into new ‘metropolitan boroughs’ by Lord Salisbury’s government. Salisbury disliked the LCC and hoped the creation of a second level of legitimate London government would weaken metropolitan power (Saint, 1989). As ever, the City of London continued as a unique element within the new two-tier system. The second tier was given responsibility for refuse collection, street maintenance, cleaning and lighting, housing, public health, building control, poor law assistance, local roads and rate collection. Thus, by the early years of the new century, London had moved from having a backward system of local democracy to enjoying arrangements which – particularly at the city-wide level – were activist and radical. The LCC’s enterprise is visible in the fire stations, schools, public housing and other municipal buildings that are still in use. Waterloo Bridge was built by the Council in the teeth of bitter central government opposition: it will forever remain a monument to the triumph of local over national political power in the capital (Donoughue and Jones, 1973, pp. 125–8). The political control of the LCC shifted from the Progressives (Liberals) between 1889 and 1907 to the Municipal Reformers (Conservatives) between 1907 and 1934 and finally to Labour from 1934 to 1965 (Young

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and Garside, 1982). The long period of Labour control from 1934 till the LCC’s abolition in 1965 is undoubtedly the best-known phase of London government, at least until the arrival of Ken Livingstone as leader of the Greater London Council in 1981. The LCC was a powerful authority for the whole of the core of London. Labour’s control of the council after 1934 was absolute. Herbert Morrison, a brilliant political organizer, ran the LCC (and the London Labour Party) with extraordinary central control, becoming Leader of the Council from 1934 to 1940. Morrison was succeeded by his political ally Charles Latham (leader from 1940 to 1947) and subsequently by another close colleague, Isaac Hayward (leader, incredibly, from 1947 till 1965). Hayward was a member of the Council continuously from 1927 to 1965. Morrison more than any politician in history understood the difficulties created by the fragmented, querulous, nature of London government. He used his tight control of the London Labour Party and LCC to centralize power. In particular, he sought to weaken the influence of the borough councils. He attempted to bring London’s transport (buses, tramways and the underground) within the control of the LCC but was thwarted only because he found himself confronting a powerful opponent – Lord Ashfield – who himself wanted to run the underground and buses in a very different institutional way (Donoughue and Jones, 1973, pp. 140–9). Even the powerful LCC had no power to slow the inexorable spread of ‘Greater’ London, as the wider built-up area came to be known. The capital grew outwards from the LCC boundary at an extraordinary speed between 1889 and the 1920s. Demands for co-ordination of transport, roads and planning grew as the city spread. Powerful local authorities existed to the east of London, for example, in East Ham and West Ham, to the south, and in Croydon and throughout the north-west (Middlesex). Indeed, most of the counties surrounding the capital were becoming heavily urbanized. In 1920, the LCC asked the government to hold an inquiry into London government. A Royal Commission was set up (Ullswater, 1923). It produced a majority report and two minority proposals. The majority rejected the idea of a central authority for the Greater London area and also preferred to keep the then existing authorities within the LCC area. The majority of the committee proposed the creation of a statutory committee to advise government ministers about planning, transport, housing and main drainage for the area within about 25 miles of Charing Cross. There were also proposals for a further consideration of the distribution of functions within the LCC area and for a possible reduction in the number of authorities elsewhere in Greater London.

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One of the two minority Ullswater reports proposed a city-wide authority for Greater London, to be responsible for services such as planning, education, water, health, fire and housing. The second minority report suggested the division of the built-up area of London into several county boroughs, with a weak central authority. Little action was taken on any of the Ullswater reports (Travers et al., 1991, p. 7). Pressure from a number of commentators, notably Professor William Robson of the London School of Economics (Robson, 1948, pp. 330–2) eventually – in 1957 – convinced central government to set up a further inquiry into London’s government. The Herbert Commission’s report (Herbert, 1960) proposed a ‘Greater London Council’ to cover much of the continuously built-up area of the metropolis, with 51 lower-tier borough authorities, plus the City of London. In this way city-wide and neighbourhood interests would be reconciled. In the end, the Government settled on a GLC with relatively few ‘strategic’ responsibilities and a reduced number (32) of boroughs with rather more powers than those envisaged by reformers (Ministry of Housing and Local Government, 1961). The South East region of England, embracing about one-third of the United Kingdom’s population and wealth, centred on London. From the late 1930s, a ‘green belt’ separated the capital from most of the other 10 million people who inhabited this area. The inter-dependence of the city and the rest of the region was evident: large numbers of commuters travelled daily across the Greater London boundary to work in the city centre. Many Londoners chose to move out of the capital to find homes elsewhere in the region. The capital’s second airport – Gatwick – was located well beyond built-up London, in Sussex. But there was no regional authority to coordinate policy within the region. In 1962, a joint committee of local authorities in London and the rest of the region – South East Regional Planning Conference (SERPLAN) – was created to facilitate such coordination. In the years until 2001, when it was abolished, it produced reports, guidance and planning advice for the South East. However, it was never an executive body, allowing limited joint planning by local authorities and providing advice to central government.

The Greater London Council and the post-1965 boroughs The first GLC elections took place in 1964 (though councillors only assumed control a year later). Despite Conservative hopes that they might

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finally control London government, Labour won the Council. However, the Tories – led by Desmond Plummer – did win the second election, in 1967, and again in 1970. Thereafter control moved backwards and forwards between the two parties until the GLC was abolished in 1986. London Transport was transferred to GLC control in 1970 (though it was removed again in 1984). The ‘strategic’ nature of the GLC meant it was always a weak authority. Its most visible efforts in the period immediately after it took power in 1965, when it drew up the Greater London Development Plan (GLDP), which, as its name suggests, was a land-use plan for the capital. This process proved long and controversial, culminating in a lengthy public inquiry (Rhodes, 1972, pp. 311–19). The GLC’s early years were dogged by a struggle over proposals to build a number of major new roads – the so-called Ringways or Motorway Box. By the mid-1970s, the GLC Conservative group became convinced that the 1965 arrangements needed reform. On returning to power in 1977, the party – led by Horace Cutler – set up an inquiry into the future of London government. The inquiry proposed that the GLC shed its responsibilities for housing and concentrate instead on ‘strategic’ functions such as planning and transport. In the longer-term, it was suggested that health might be added to the GLC’s service responsibilities (Marshall, 1978). As so often in the past, no Whitehall action followed the publication of yet another report about London government. In May 1981, the Labour party won the GLC election with a moderate leader, Andrew Macintosh. Within 24 hours, he had been replaced by Ken Livingstone, a left-wing radical. In the following five years, the GLC became an extraordinary political carnival. Under the leadership of Ken Livingstone, the GLC was a focus for ‘New Left’ politics and anti-government rhetoric. The Livingstone regime pursued a number of policies, ranging from a cut in public transport fares to financial support for minority organizations. These proved hugely controversial in the world of Westminster and media politics, but were often popular with the London public. Partly because of its minimal role by this time in direct service provision, the GLC was able to harry the Government and promote an alternative, ‘rainbow coalition’ agenda: Like no other GLC leader before, Livingstone used the wealth of County Hall and its location beside Westminster Bridge as a political platform to challenge and tease the government … As unemployment rose in the early 1980s, the six-figure of London’s jobless was displayed in huge figures along the cornice of County Hall. (Hebbert, 1998, p. 115)

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In the case of the so-called ‘Fares Fair’ policy, the Council reduced tube and bus fares by 25 per cent. This cut was challenged by Bromley (one of the outer London boroughs), who won, forcing the fares to be revised upwards once more. Council grants to a range of black, gay and lesbian and disabled groups, coupled with Livingstone’s views on Irish politics, caused month after month of tabloid outrage, real or manufactured (Carvel, 1984). The Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, was enraged by the activities of Livingstone and his County Hall colleagues, particularly, as with Ireland or economic policy, where Livingstone ranged far beyond his local government brief and deliberately and provocatively parked his rainbow-coloured tanks on the lawns of national politics. The 1983 Conservative general election manifesto promised to abolish the GLC and the six metropolitan counties. Following the Tories’ comprehensive victory, a consultative paper entitled Streamlining the Cities was published. In line with positions that would have been recognizable more than a century earlier, a number of boroughs actively supported the removal of the capital’s city-wide government. Abolishing the GLC together with the six other metropolitan authorities was very much a personal decision of Mrs Thatcher: widely regarded as an act of political spite, [it] appeared in the [1983] general election manifesto out of the blue. It made an extraordinary contrast with the circumstances of the GLC’s creation, the three-year deliberations of the Herbert Commission, the judicious compilation of data and sifting of evidence, the public hearings and careful search for consensus … Sympathisers wondered how it could be done, when the trend in London’s competitors – New York, Tokyo, Paris, Frankfurt – was reinforcing the powers and status of city governments … The GLC had many critics, but outright abolition of London-wide local government was right off the normal political agenda and in almost any other European country would have been unconstitutional. (Hebbert, 1998, pp. 115–16) As Shakespeare might have said, nothing in the Livingstone GLC’s short life became it so much as the leaving it. Livingstone and his associates ran an effective and popular campaign which successfully portrayed abolition as the spiteful act of an authoritarian government. In its innovative use of media and advertising techniques the GLC, in its swansong, foreshadowed New Labour’s modernization shift by several years.

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But while Ken had the billboards, Maggie had the votes – the Conservative parliamentary majority was sufficient to ensure that the GLC was abolished in 1986 (Whitehouse, 2000). Only the Inner London Education Authority, which provided educational services for the twelve inner London boroughs and the City, was allowed to continue as a freestanding elected body. On 1 April 1986, London had no city-wide government for the first time since 1855. Metropolitan Government had come abruptly to an end, with a spectacular fireworks display as a final gesture of defiance by the GLC, the previous night. The triumph of Thatcherism was complete – and yet within five years, Margaret Thatcher would be deposed by her own party; ten years after that Livingstone would run against his party and become London’s first elected mayor. After abolition: the long interregnum London government, which had been such a complicated and fractious business for over 150 years, remained a matter of high politics after 1986. Support for abolition by Tory-controlled boroughs had led the Labourcontrolled ones to leave the London Boroughs Association (which, since 1965, had represented the interests of the 32 boroughs and the City of London) and form the Association of London Authorities. Thus, in the years immediately following abolition, the representation of London was further fragmented by the existence of two competing representative bodies. There was profound disagreement between the government and opposition parties about the need for London-wide government. Although the post-1986 system of London had no elected tier of government for the capital as a whole, it would be wrong to say there was no London-wide government at all (Hebbert and Travers, 1988). Some GLC services were passed down to individual borough councils. Other provision was put in the hands of London-wide joint committees of boroughs. Transport and strategic planning were transferred to a governmentappointed board and to Whitehall. A London Residuary Body was created to deal with matters that could not be finally transferred to new organizational homes before the abolition date. However, some continuity of city-wide local government was provided by a number of borough-based committees that came into being in the aftermath of GLC abolition. Thus, the fire brigade, planning, grants to voluntary organizations, waste regulation and research were each made the subject of a London-wide committee. In all cases, the committees consisted of one member per borough. Beyond these city-wide entities, there were a number

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The Politics of London

of other committees for specific purposes whose membership consisted of only some of the boroughs (Hebbert and Travers, 1988). The Inner London Education Authority (previously a special committee of the GLC) was directly elected from 1986 to 1990 when it, too, was abolished. Thus, a form of inner London-wide government briefly continued, albeit for a single service. The London Residuary Body was one of a number of government-appointed bodies (others included London Regional Transport and the Metropolitan Police) which operated throughout the capital. The regional directors of the Department of the Environment (Tony Pelling) and the Department of Transport (Irving Yass) became more visibly important in the government of the capital. It would be wrong, therefore, to see London as un-governed after 1986. But the system was complex and it left power spread between a large number of institutions. The Conservative government continued to re-state the view that the capital did not need city-wide, elected, local government. It was only after a change of prime minister (which occurred in 1990) that the Tories began to lighten up in their opposition of any form of city-wide representation for the capital. By the early 1990s, many public and private sector commentators were publicly stating the need for some kind of London ‘voice’ (Dahrendorf, 1990). Tony Banks MP proposed an elected mayor for London (Banks, 1990). While there was a move towards a more pragmatic and partnership based approach in the governance of London over this period, there was at this stage little in the way of institutional innovation at the metropolitan level. In effect, central government stuck to its 1983 manifesto line that the abolition of the GLC simply removed an inefficient and wasteful level of bureaucracy. This view changed in the period 1992–2000, when there were a number of innovations at the metropolitan level. The 1992 general election was fought with the major parties offering distinct alternatives for London. Labour and the Liberal Democrats both proposed a new elected authority for the capital, while the Conservatives remained committed to a system without such an authority. But the Tories’ attitude had undoubtedly softened: their manifesto promised a number of new London institutions: a government regional office, a Cabinet sub-committee, a minister for the capital’s transport and a privately led promotional agency to provide the city with leadership. A Cabinet Sub-Committee for London was appointed in 1992, chaired by the Secretary of State for the Environment (Travers and Jones, 1997).

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A Minister for London, and a Minister for Transport in London, were created. In 1994 the Government established integrated government offices in the regions of England to bring together the regional activities of central departments or ministries. Significantly, the civil servant heading the Government Office for London (GOL) was of a higher rank than the heads of the other regional offices in England. Key tasks for GOL included distributing regeneration funds and capital expenditure on housing, strategic land-use planning and acting as a point of contact with the boroughs, voluntary organizations and the private sector. Other institutional innovations followed. London First – which grew out of Business in the Community – was set up by business to be an independent voice for the promotion and improvement of London (Hall, 1995). London First defined itself as ‘a business campaign group set up in 1992 to improve and promote the Capital by involving business in London’s strategic decision-making process’. Its core activities include strengthening London’s skills base, campaigning for a world-class transport system, building capacity in London’s sub-regions and positioning east London as the major unexploited opportunity area. London First Centre, established in 1994, was a wholly owned subsidiary of London First that acts as the inward investment agency for London. At this time it received income from three sources: the Department of Trade and Industry (as the regional inward investment agency), public authorities (the Corporation of London, the City of Westminster and the London Docklands Development Corporation) and from the private sector. After the creation of the Greater London Authority, responsibility for inward investment passed to the London Development Agency. In 1994, the Government invited London, Birmingham and Manchester to participate in a ‘City Pride’ initiative. Each city would prepare a ‘prospectus’ setting out a vision for the development of the city over a 15–20 year time horizon. While in Birmingham and Manchester the city councils were given the responsibility for delivering such a vision, in London, in the absence of metropolitan government, London First took the lead in setting up the London Pride Partnership. This organization was chaired jointly by the businessman Lord Sheppard, the Chairman of London First, and the politician Toby (now Lord) Harris, the Chair of the Association of London Government. The other organizations represented in the partnership were: the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) London, the Corporation of London, the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, London Planning Advisory Committee, London’s Training and

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The Politics of London

Enterprise Councils, London Voluntary Service Council and the City of Westminster. The London Pride Partnership succeeded in bringing together most of the significant players – the business sector, the boroughs, the voluntary organizations – in order to produce its 1995 London Pride Prospectus. This document stressed economic competitiveness and business growth, but also social cohesion and environmental concern and set out targets and action points. However, what the Prospectus clearly lacked was any capacity to implement the implicit strategy nor, for that matter, long-term democratic accountability. Once the 1997 Labour Government announced the introduction of Regional Development Agencies in England (and with the subsequent setting up of the London Development Partnership in 1998) the London Pride Partnership gradually withered away. A feature of the early to mid-1990s – and crucial in re-establishing London’s political self-confidence – was the publication of a number of reports about the capital. First of these was London World City, commissioned by the London Planning Advisory Committee (LPAC). The report established the idea that London was a key international city which was in competition with others such as New York, Paris and Tokyo. It was both outward- and forward-looking and thus an optimistic change from the glum assessments of the capital’s demise that had accompanied abolition (London Planning Advisory Committee, 1991). A torrent of reports followed in the wake of London World City, including Four World Cities (Department of the Environment, 1996) and the City Research Project (Corporation of London, 1995) as well as a consultation exercise from John Gummer in his self-appointed role as Minister for London (Department of the Environment, 1993). All took as their starting point London’s global or world city status and sought to establish London’s ‘competitive position’ in a globalizing economy, as well as being concerned, to a lesser extent, with issues of social cohesion and environmental sustainability. The period from late 1992 till 1997 was characterized by the development of dozens of partnerships within London. In the absence of city-wide government, the capital’s political and business class indulged in an orgy of power breakfasts, canapé-laden receptions, seminars, conferences and report-launches. Capital-wide creations such as London First and the London Pride Partnership were vastly outnumbered by large numbers of local partnerships, many of which were stimulated by government funding programmes. London boroughs became more cohesive following the creation of the Association of London Government.

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The new pragmatism Between 1979 and 1986, relations between Labour councils and the central government had been at their worst. After 1981 the GLC, together with several other New Left Labour boroughs, saw themselves as engaged in an ideological war with the Thatcher government. Outright defiance of the Government over rate-capping during the period 1983 to 1985 was seen as a ‘second front’ in the class war being waged at the time of the Miners’ Strike. After 1986 a more pragmatic and ‘partnership’ approach gradually developed. London was governed by a combination of the 33 lower-tier authorities (32 London boroughs plus the City of London); a variety of joint boards and appointed committees; and through direct government and administration by the central state. The resulting pattern of governance has often been described as ‘messy’ or ‘fragmented’ (Newman and Thornley, 1997). However – and contradicting many critics at the time who predicted breakdown – the system of governing without a centre worked to some degree, and indeed generated certain benefits (see below). As John Hall, an observer of the ‘London industry’ put it, ‘the new arrangements for administering pan-London services by joint committees and other methods worked tolerably well in most cases. Despite the inevitable warnings that London would simply fail to function from 1 April 1986 onwards this was not the case’ (Hall, 1995). Other commentators were more measured, predicting that some form of London-wide government would re-emerge in future, but that it would inevitably be different from the GLC (O’Leary, 1985). In the period immediately after abolition, a degree of mythology grew up around the now absent Greater London Council. Its abolition was blamed for a variety of urban ills, including deteriorating quality of life, poorer public services, increased homelessness and growing inequality (Porter, 2000). In reality, the GLC had virtually no direct service functions left by 1986; its housing stock had been transferred to the boroughs in the 1970s and early 1980s, partly in response to a poor record in housing management. Rising inequality in London, though real, was largely due to the impact of national economic and policy changes rather than factors specific to a supposed global city status (Buck, 1997; Buck et al., 2002). Moreover, a London Residuary Body had been created to secure the orderly transfer of GLC responsibilities in the period following abolition (Hebbert and Edge, 1994). The system was nevertheless extremely complex. London government was bound together by a large number of formal and informal partnerships, joint committees and networking arrangements (Travers and Jones, 1997).

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The Politics of London

In 1993 there were 272 appointed bodies in London, with gross expenditure in 1992/93 of over £6 billion. There was virtually no overlap between the 1,975 elected councillors in London and the 1,675 appointees (Skelcher and Stewart, 1993). However, London was not exceptional in this regard, but was in line with the enormous growth in the ‘unelected state’ or ‘quangocracy’ in the Thatcher and Major years so that by 1993 there were over 17,000 members of UK appointed bodies, compared with approximately 25,000 councillors (Skelcher and Stewart, 1993). Governing without a centre generated both costs and benefits for London. There were four main costs. First, the fragmented system of governance made co-ordination more difficult and led arguably to an absence of strategic planning for London. Newman and Thornley (1997) argue that the initial fragmentation after GLC abolition in 1986, with planning, transport and other strategic functions distributed across a range of boroughs, quangos and other agencies, was increased by the development of a whole series of local and sub-regional development and regeneration projects and companies in response to central government’s policy of competitive bidding for both urban policy (for example, City Challenge and the Single Regeneration Budget) and National Lottery funds. Each of the 32 boroughs and the City Corporation produced its own Unitary Development Plan, with no higher-tier strategic planning body. A joint committee, the London Planning Advisory Committee (LPAC) advised the Secretary of State on matters of strategic planning in London, but had no statutory powers. The potential for duplication, parochialism and balkanization was obvious. Secondly, London lacked a voice. With neither a mayor, nor a metropolitan council, there was no one to speak for or champion London’s case at national or international level. This drawback was felt by many to be significant in London’s inability to attract, or even mount a credible bid for, major international events such as the Olympic Games (Hebbert, 1998). Moreover, it was also felt that within central government, London’s case often went by default, with no-one to challenge the view of many MPs and interest groups from other parts of Britain that London was a privileged, favoured, place which drew resources and attention from the rest of the country. However, the lack of a London voice did not seem to impede the ability of London to access European structural funds, for example, and the vacuum was to some extent filled by other organizations – particularly the City Corporation, the boroughs and the Government Office for London.

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Thirdly, there was the issue of the ‘democratic deficit’. For many, it was simply unacceptable that a great city such as London should have no metropolitan democratic accountability. It is not just a functional question of determining strategic vision for London, or advancing London’s economic case; but also a political question of accountability and democracy. The Labour Party’s discussion document A Voice for London stated: The vast majority of Londoners clearly feel that they want a voice for London, speaking up on their behalf both within Britain and within the European Union. They feel that London is at a disadvantage compared with other cities. Other bodies have developed in London to take on some aspects of his role, but they are not representatives of the people of London and so lack the political clout to do the job properly. (Labour Party, 1996) Finally, fragmentation was accompanied not by decentralization, but by centralization. As described above, a Cabinet Sub-Committee for London was appointed in 1992, chaired by the Secretary of State for the Environment. Other new posts were created within government in an attempt to cope with London (Travers and Jones, 1997). The membership of many boards, agencies and other quangos were directly appointed by government ministers. Most importantly, in 1994 the Government established integrated government offices in the regions of England to bring together the regional activities of central departments or ministries (Hall, 1995). Key tasks for this regional office include distributing regeneration funds and capital expenditure on housing, strategic land-use planning and acting as a point of contact with the boroughs, voluntary organizations and the private sector. In effect, the British Government – virtually by accident – created a Préfet de la Thames in the French mould. But, crucially, this was a Prefect without an elected mayor or Mitterrand-style decentralization reforms to balance it. As Travers and Jones (1997) put it: Anyone reading GOL’s helpful Directory of Services could be forgiven for assuming GOL, with a staff of 300, was a powerful delivery mechanism, with a full range of directorates, strategy units, planning divisions, funding programmes and other institutional mechanisms suggestive of political power. However, GOL’s budget was only £1 billion, which was only a fraction of government spending in London. While the seniority, personality and

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The Politics of London

ability of GOL’s first two directors – Robin Young and Genie Turton – gave it considerable influence, it was ‘not, and could never be, an effective regional authority’ (Travers and Jones, 1997, p. 25). Offsetting these disadvantages one can identify at least four types of benefits to London in the post-1986 period. First, and paradoxically, there was what Michael Hebbert has called the ‘strange death of Greater London’. Rather than increased parochialism, there was in fact an increased awareness of London’s metropolitan character during the abolition period. Hebbert noted that by the mid-1990s the phrase ‘Greater London’ was disappearing from administrative arrangements corresponding to the built-up metropolis (Hebbert, 1998): ‘Greater’ always had overtones of annexation and subordination. Territorial perceptions have changed. From being engulfed by Greater London in 1963, and resenting it for a generation after, the suburbs have today become part of London proper … The media continually reinforce this sense of common identity. Journals, newspaper supplements, event listing guides, London Weekend Television, and radio stations take it for granted that London ends just inside the encircling M25. Differences in attitudes and politics between inner and outer London, while remaining important, were becoming attenuated. Londoners became more and more in favour of an elected authority for London, and this was true of those in the suburbs as much as those in inner London: support for an elected authority grew from 47 per cent in 1987 to 61 per cent in 1994 in Outer London (Hebbert, 1998). Secondly, there was a developing experience of joint working and network-based governance. The lack of an upper tier authority combined with the confused and fragmented system which obtained after 1986 meant that the London boroughs had to become both more co-operative with each other, and also more competitive in the sense of having to innovate and modernize in order to obtain additional funding. Suburban politicians necessarily had to participate in, and sometimes lead, Londonwide policy networks. As argued in functionalist political science theories, such routine collaboration and participation can generate wider loyalties through policy ‘spillover’, thereby offsetting parochialist tendencies (Hebbert, 1998). Thirdly, and most directly, there was an increase in bi-partisanship after 1986. Although the battle over GLC abolition had been bitter, the political parties co-operated surprisingly well in the joint committees and boards, such as LPAC, which were set up. Between 1986 and 1994 no one party had

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outright control of a majority of the London boroughs (Hall, 1995). Although the boroughs were grouped into two rival associations, the Conservativecontrolled London Boroughs Association and the Labour-dominated Association of London Authorities, the two bodies had managed to undertake effective joint action of issues such as EU funding, environmental pollution, traffic and parking policy (Hebbert, 1998). These two organizations merged in 1994 to form the Association of London Government. Finally, the period after 1986 saw a considerable increase in the involvement of business in the governance of London. In the second half of the 1980s, the business lobby in London became much more organized.

Docklands: a case-study in the evolution of London politics after 1986 In understanding the shift in central/local relations and the changed view of the role of local government, from both within and outside the local authorities themselves, the experience of the three Docklands boroughs is instructive. The relationship of the three boroughs (Tower Hamlets, Southwark and Newham) with the centrally-imposed London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) changed substantially over the period of the Corporation’s existence, from an adversarial stance to a far more co-operative and positive partnership. In Newham, initially the local authority did not want the LDDC. It took until 1986/87 and a ‘Memorandum of Agreement’ before there was a better understanding between them. From then on, there was a good working relationship. After 1990, the situation changed again. The impact of the deep property recession altered attitudes. Social housing began to be seen as a problem. This was driven by two specific local factors. First, there were large numbers of owner-occupied households in negative equity in Beckton, which was blamed to some degree on the presence of social housing nearby. Secondly, with an increase in homelessness, many owners with negative equity leased their properties to homeless families via the council’s PSL (private sector leasing) scheme. Homeless families from several boroughs were then placed in this accommodation. This led to some social tension and conflict in Beckton. In Tower Hamlets, the relationship with the LDDC was conditioned in part by the way the borough was administered and also by its political control. In the early days, the relationship was adversarial; there was significant friction between the Corporation and the Labour group that ran the council.

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In 1986 the Liberal Democrats took control, and brought in radical decentralization, with power being devolved to neighbourhoods. There were two Docklands neighbourhood committees, the Isle of Dogs and Wapping, both of which were Labour-controlled. While there were tensions between the neighbourhoods and the centre, the relationship between the neighbourhoods and the LDDC steadily improved. LDDC represented a source of funding which the neighbourhoods were keen to tap into. Eric Sorenson, the then LDDC Chief Executive, was thought to be accessible and ‘hands-on’ where he was interested in a local project. In Southwark, too, the relationship steadily improved from being adversarial in the early 1980s to a partnership approach in the 1990s. Local Labour politicians radically altered their approach to centre–left politics. An anti-development approach was replaced by a gung-ho pro-development stance. LDDC developments along Southwark’s riverfront, which were originally opposed by the council, were later joined by further large schemes at Surrey Quays, Bankside and around the Borough. Major proposals came forward for London Bridge and Elephant and Castle that built on the developer-led approach used by LDDC. As in Newham and Tower Hamlets, local authority opposition gave way within a few years to the adoption of LDDC-style pro-development policies. The experience of the three Docklands boroughs in relation to the LDDC is significant in several ways. First, it demonstrates once again that pragmatism tends to trump ideology, particularly when there are substantial, and relatively unconstrained, public resources to unlock. Secondly, the successful (at least in economic and property terms) regeneration of the Docklands was a remarkable shift in the economic geography of London. It at least checked, if not reversed, the nine-hundred-year-old Western bias of London’s growth, driven by such diverse and arbitrary decisions as Edward the Confessor’s building of a palace at Westminster (Weinreb and Hibbert, 1987, p. 943) and the choice of Heathrow as London’s main airport by military planners during the Second World War. In doing so, LDDC opened up further development to the East, particularly in the Thames Gateway, with important consequences both for economic development and for governance in the London region. Thirdly, the experience of working in partnership with a single-purpose market-oriented development agency (the LDDC) had longer-term consequences for politics and governance not just in the Docklands boroughs, but throughout London. It exposed local government to alternative ways of working, and left a pro-development legacy, and an understanding of the advantages of economic development, not just for ‘competitiveness’ goals,

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but also for local boroughs’ more traditional concerns with what came to be called ‘social inclusion’. In the years between the late-1980s and 1997, London government moved from a period of ideologically-charged distrust to one of extraordinary harmony. The decision – encouraged by the Major government – by business leaders, the boroughs and the voluntary sector to work together created consensus on a range of policy issues affecting London. It was against this improved background that Labour introduced their proposals for the reform of London government in 1997.

Conclusion The efforts of governments since the early part of the nineteenth century to create acceptable and durable arrangements for the local administration of the metropolis have resulted in a virtually continuous interest in the reform of whatever arrangements happened to be in place at a particular time. Those who observe contemporary – or recent – struggles over the Greater London Council, its abolition, or the creation of the Greater London Authority could be forgiven for believing that the difficulties of the 1980s and 1990s were, somehow, unique. Nothing could be further from the truth. Books such as John Davis’s Reforming London: The London Government Problem 1855 to 1900 and Ken Young and Patricia Garside’s Metropolitan London: Politics and Urban Change 1837–1981 very clearly show how the government of the capital has engaged Parliament, local politicians and service users in a near-continuous struggle over such issues as whether or not there should be a city-wide tier of government; what the balance of powers should be between any Londonwide tier and the more local ‘borough’ level and, most importantly, how much autonomy London government should be given in relation to the powers of central government. More recent, popular, books such as John Carvel’s Citizen Ken and Mark d’Arcy and Rory MacLean’s Nightmare! have chronicled the frantic, politicized and often chaotic reforms of London government during the years from 1983 to 2000. Although this most recent phase is but a further extension of a long-term struggle, there are also important differences with, for example, the battles of the nineteenth century. Local government as a whole in Britain has lost autonomy and power during the years since 1945. The struggle over London government at the end of the twentieth century took place at a time when British local government had been much

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weakened. The sound of battle may have been similar, but the spoils of war were certainly diminished. Four significantly different systems of London government existed between 1965 and 2000. The London County Council existed until 1965, to be followed by the 21-year life of the Greater London Council. A 14-year ‘interregnum’ with no city-wide elected government was followed in 2000 by the election of the Greater London Authority. By any standards, this was an eccentric approach to the government of the vast city at the centre of the United Kingdom’s most economically-important region. The pattern established in the years up to 2000, notwithstanding the relative calm of the 1990s, suggests the creation of the GLA will not be the end of the story. The struggle to govern London will continue. The next phase will be the early years of the new mayor and assembly.

3 Metropolitan Millennium: The Road to Reform, 1997–2000 Despite years in the political wilderness at the national level, Labour was powerful in local government throughout the country in 1997. Having been in power nationally for a very long time, the Conservatives had seen their – traditionally strong – local power-base badly eroded. Indeed, Mrs Thatcher’s visible dislike for much of local democracy had evidently demoralized many of her party’s local workers. Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats won seats in what had previously been Tory heartlands, notably the South East region surrounding London. Within the capital, traditional Conservative strongholds such as Croydon, Harrow and Redbridge had fallen to the centre–left. In many cities beyond London (such as Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle) the Tories held no seats at all. Within the capital, only Westminster, Wandsworth and Kensington and Chelsea remained impregnable.

New Labour and the legacy of the 1980s London had been different from the rest of the country, at least until 1994. There had been a visible ‘Labour Effect’ in London, which had depressed the Party’s vote in London councils in 1986 and 1990. Neil Kinnock’s leadership of Labour had been badly blighted by the impact of some of its urban councils. The Conservatives had been able to use the threat of London Labour leaders such as Ken Livingstone (GLC), Ted Knight (Lambeth) and Linda Bellos (Lambeth) to frighten the electorate. There is no doubt that the quality of services in a number of Labour-controlled boroughs collapsed because of the failure of political leadership. By far the most visible of the Left-controlled councils was the Greater London Council. Taken over by the Left following the 1981 GLC election, the London-wide authority gave a major national platform to its Leader, Ken Livingstone. A number of Labour councils, including the GLC, came 43

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close to deliberately failing to set a lawful rate as a protest at the Thatcher government’s decision to limit their rates. The tabloid press made much of the allocation of grants by the GLC to a number of community groups, notably those representing ethnic minorities, gays and lesbians, and women. It is impossible to exaggerate the effect of the GLC, Liverpool and the other Left-controlled councils on Labour thinking during the 1990s and beyond. Even though the bulk of Labour-controlled and other authorities were administered in much the same way as they had been in the past, the actions of a handful of radical councils came to dominate Labour policymaking. The fact that many ministers, MPs and civil servants lived in a number of the more problematic London boroughs did not help matters (Jones and Travers, 1996). It profoundly affected New Labour’s approach to local government after 1997. The Blair view of local government went well beyond the distaste felt by senior Labour politicians such as Neil Kinnock and John Cunningham as they had battled with the left during the 1980s (Butler et al., 1994, pp. 256–7). By 1997 virtually the whole of local government – including former hot-spots of militancy such as Liverpool and Lambeth – was under the control of mainstream party politicians, whether Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, or otherwise. A number of the more militant councillors from Liverpool and Lambeth had been surcharged and barred from public office. Long before Tony Blair entered Downing Street, the rigours of local politics – coupled with a raft of Tory legislation – had convinced Labour in the inner cities that the time for posturing and ideology was over. Cleaning the streets and improving school standards had become top priorities in virtually all areas. Paradoxically, in many of the places where Labour had been most radical during the 1980s, such as, Southwark, Camden, Greenwich, Brent, Manchester and, eventually, Lambeth, the transformation was greatest. The new realism gripped many councils – particularly in London – in such a way as radically to improve service standards and expectations. New Labour found natural allies within the reformed councils in Manchester, Newham, Camden and Southwark. Hammersmith and Fulham was one of the first authorities to appoint an executive mayor (even before legislation allowing directly-elected mayors was passed). Lewisham committed itself to a referendum on whether or not to introduce a directly-elected mayor. The Liberal Democrat leader of Liverpool – Michael Storey – strongly supported an elected mayor for his city. Service improvements generally took place rapidly in authorities where collapse had been greatest during the 1980s.

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The Blair government’s concerns did not focus on the newly-efficient, newly-moderate authorities which had forsaken their wicked extremist pasts for the sunlit uplands of New Labour’s inclusive modernized paradise. Instead Downing Street became almost obsessively concerned with the ‘complacent average’ authorities that appeared to coast along with outdated and inefficient political leadership and which were gradually, it was believed, losing public support. At a stroke the many plodding, old-Labour, councils in places such as West Yorkshire, the West Midlands and South Wales became a problem. The coincidence that a number of new Labour ministers had constituencies in the North East of England (where old Labour was vastly powerful within local government) simply served to encourage the modernizers that something had to be done, and fast. To the party faithful in these areas, the fact that they had been the bedrock of traditional Labour local government during the turbulent 1980s created a massive sense of injustice when the Blair whiz-kids singled them out for a short, sharp, lesson in modernization.

Labour’s approach prior to the 1997 election Nevertheless, the Labour Party had been committed to reinstate Londonwide government ever since the Greater London Council was abolished in 1986. Successive election manifestos in 1987, 1992 and 1997 had proposed a new ‘Greater London Authority’ (see, for example, Labour Party, 1987) though senior Labour figures generally stressed that any new London government would be ‘streamlined’ and that it would be different from the GLC. Many senior Labour figures had been badly traumatized by the experience of the 1981–6 regime at County Hall, and were anxious never again to suffer the agonies of an oppositionist, extremist, Labour administration in control of a major local authority. The Party’s commitment in 1987 and 1992 was to introduce an elected council for Greater London, along the lines of traditional local government elsewhere in the country: there would be members elected for wards. These elected members (presumably from a majority political group) would then choose a leader for the council. Under both Neil Kinnock and John Smith, the policy was consistent. The death of John Smith in May 1994 brought Tony Blair to the leadership of the Labour Party. Blair, a far more presidential figure as Labour leader than his predecessors, had an instinctive affinity with the concept

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of a directly-elected mayor, to provide strong executive leadership as part of a transformation of traditional local government. Blair envisaged mayors revitalising moribund local government as city halls were shaken by their arthritic necks by dynamic, reforming pragmatists possessed of star quality. Local models of himself, sons and daughters springing from the ear of Blair, would arise to modernise civic government as he was modernising the country. (Rawnsley, 2000, p. 342) In 1996, he held a meeting with Simon Jenkins, the leading commentator and journalist, at which Jenkins argued strongly that the new London government arrangements should include a directly-elected mayor. Blair, it is evident, was convinced. He floated the idea in February 1996 in his John Smith Memorial Lecture, and it was included as an option in Labour’s April 1996 consultation document A Voice for London, although the ‘idea looked as if it had been thrown in towards the end almost as an afterthought and hedged about with caveats’ (Carvel, 1999, p. 255). But later that month, as part of a series of debates on ‘London in the Twenty-first Century’, organized by the Architecture Foundation and the London Evening Standard, Blair gave a keynote speech to 2,500 people in Central Hall, Westminster in which he clearly endorsed the principle: Strong civic leadership could help restore some of the much-needed civic pride in London. It could provide vision and direction for London’s future, someone to drive the development of the city, to pull together the partnerships needed to make things happen. (Carvel, 1999, p. 255) This was not the first time the argument for a directly-elected mayor for London had been put. Although the idea had not been the subject to any recorded proposals during the relentless nineteenth- and twentieth-century debates about how best to run London, the principle of elected mayors had been floated by Michael Heseltine during his period of the Tory backbenches in the 1980s. There had been a serious proposal, put forward in 1990 by Tony Banks, a leading London MP, for a directly-elected mayor. The proposal was the more important because Banks had been a member of the 1981–6 Livingstone regime at County Hall and the GLC’s final chairman. (He also stood in the Labour contest to select a candidate to fight the 2004 mayoral election.) During the period of the Interregnum in the 1990s, John Gummer, then Environment Secretary, styled himself as ‘Minister for London’. Although the reform of local government was never far from public debate, the apparent evidence that London was thriving without any form

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of local self-government probably subdued the demand for change. The 1997 general election was to prove the catalyst for reform. Blair’s enthusiasm for directly-elected mayors was not shared by most of his senior Labour colleagues. Labour’s environment shadow in the period immediately before the 1997 general election was Frank Dobson, MP for the central London constituency of Holborn and St Pancras. Dobson was a traditional Labour member, who had seen long service as leader of Camden Council and in shadow cabinet posts during Labour’s wilderness years from 1979 to the mid-1990s. He was opposed to the idea of directly-elected mayors, considering that it would give too much power to one individual, and would threaten the traditional pattern of local government. For Blair of course, this latter point was precisely one of the attractions of the proposal. Blair, unlike most senior Labour politicians, had never been a local councillor. He therefore had neither experience of, nor any sentimental attachment to, the time-honoured (and, to New Labour, time-serving) principles of British local government. Dobson loyally went along (at least in public) with his leader’s newfound enthusiasm for such a post in London. Blair’s commanding position within the party meant that his views prevailed, but the failure to make and win the argument within the party or to provide detailed policy options prior to the 1997 election had longer term political consequences: there was never any serious attempt to build a consensus in the London Labour Party. Nobody battled with the leader, but nobody did the work. A radical departure from the British local-government tradition was imposed from the top down by a leader who had no political roots in local-council politics. The mayoral plan was to be a rare example of devolution without any evidence of support from those who were supposed to benefit. (Carvel, 1999, p. 256) The reform of London government did not prove a particularly visible issue during the 1997 election, despite the fact that opinion polls had long showed a clear majority of Londoners in favour of a return to some form of metropolitan government. The Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats all published London manifestos, but it was issues such as transport and the health service in the capital that – as elsewhere in the country – dominated campaigning. Conservative politicians who argued that ‘ordinary Londoners’ were not clamouring for change were probably correct: answers casually given to pollsters did not mean there was a powerful demand for yet another upheaval in the capital’s government.

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Labour in government: the process of reform Labour won the election with an overall majority of 179 and immediately started the process of devolution: not just for London, but also (and indeed with greater urgency) for Scotland and Wales. When they took office in 1997, Labour found local government in England in a depressed state. Years of reform, affecting structures, functions and finance had demoralized councillors and officers alike (Stewart and Stoker, 1995). Public spending had been constrained for over 25 years, with the consequence that many councils were providing threadbare services. Councillors of all parties had imagined that an incoming Labour government would somehow liberate them and provide more funding for local services. In reality, the Blair Government was hardly more sympathetic to local government than its Tory predecessors. London local government, which had changed remarkably – and generally for the better – during the 1990s, faced upheaval because of the commitment to create the GLA. More generally, local government in Britain has suffered a long-term loss of esteem and power (Loughlin et al., 1985). Services which had originally developed within nineteenth and early twentieth century town and city halls had been removed from local control. Utilities such as gas, water and electricity had been nationalized and then privatized. Health, where the London County Council had been a leader (Gibbon and Bell, 1939), was largely removed from council control in 1948, and completely in 1974. Ambulances were also transferred to national control (from the Greater London Council) in 1974. The development of a ‘welfare state’ where services were free at the point of delivery and, crucially, consistent across the country made the job of justifying local service variations more difficult. Westminster and Whitehall attempted to impose greater uniformity. As a result, more and more of what had been local government became directly or indirectly subject to central control (see Rhodes, 1986). There are both continuities and differences between the Conservative governments of 1979–97 and New Labour after 1997. Under the Conservatives, the proportion of local spending funded from central government rose to about 80 per cent. There was a large increase in private–public partnerships and ‘quasi-markets’ for public services – that is, services paid for by local or central government but provided by private or non-profit organizations. There was also a large increase in the ‘unelected state’. In its first two years in office, the Blair Government, as it had promised in the election campaign, kept to the public spending plans of the outgoing Conservative administration. The governance of Britain remained

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essentially centralist. Local government powers were controlled by Parliament; sub-national government did not have independent constitutional authority. Local government expenditure remained very tightly controlled. However, New Labour was also concerned to show a different approach to government not only from the Conservatives that it replaced in office, but also from the ‘Old Labour’ governments of the past. Key words for the Blair government were (and remain): ‘modernization’; ‘reform’; ‘markets’ and ‘opportunity’. New Labour has continued to see many local councils as bureaucratic, inefficient and offering poor value for money. To this extent, it shares some of the analysis of the previous Conservative governments. But New Labour’s goal was not to reduce the role of local government further (as the Conservatives might have done), but rather to modernize local government. It has aimed to change the old, bureaucratic system of running local councils and encourage a more streamlined approach. The post-1997 Government has argued that this will re-invigorate local democracy. Critics argue the opposite: that decisions will be taken by a smaller number of people and the result will be less democratic. Many councillors have argued their role would be diminished as the result of New Labour reforms. Under the Local Government Act 2000, councils had to consult their communities and then come forward with a new constitution. For major urban areas this new constitution had to take one of three options: 1. a directly elected mayor with a ‘cabinet’ 2. a cabinet with a leader elected by the council 3. a mayor directly elected by the people with a council manager appointed by the council Moreover, in the Government’s Urban White Paper, it argued that ‘International experience suggests that directly elected mayors are often the best option to provide the leadership which larger towns and cities need.’ Another component of the Government’s approach to government was New Labour’s programme of devolution. In 1999, the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly were created, and in 2000 the Greater London Authority with its directly elected mayor. The Scottish Parliament has legislative powers over most matters of domestic policy, and a limited (though awkward) capacity to vary income tax. The Welsh Assembly was given more limited powers, and has no right to vary taxes. The Scottish and Welsh governments and the GLA are important symbolically as the beginning of alternative centres of political power. After four years, there are emerging

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differences in the politics of Scotland and Wales compared with the rest of Britain. Many Labour MPs and supporters hoped that devolution would go further, and lead to regional government in England. But New Labour’s approach in office was cautious and sometimes muddled. New Labour did create nine Regional Development Agencies in England, including the London Development Agency under the mayor. The eight other RDAs were set up in April 1999. Outside London, these are appointed, not elected, institutions, charged with co-ordinating regional economic development and regeneration; improving competitiveness; and reducing poverty in their areas. Funding comes from central government. Budgets are not large – for each RDA they typically range from £50 million to £200 million. In 2001, the Government announced an increase in funding and greater spending flexibility for the RDAs. Alongside the development agencies, regional chambers have been set up – voluntary groupings of councillors, business people, community groups and trade unions. These chambers, or assemblies, which were intended to secure some form of local political accountability, were constituted from indirectly-elected members of local authorities within their areas plus a minority of individuals from other representative organizations. In theory, these could evolve into regional parliaments in the future. Despite a genuine shift of power to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and London, devolution in England (apart from the capital) proved a reform too far for New Labour’s constitutional modernizers. Press reports between 1997 and 2001 suggested the Cabinet remained split about the issue. On the one hand, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott remained an enthusiast for regional power, while on the other hand, Home Secretary Jack Straw was highly sceptical. Local government, which had long suspected that any move towards regional government would have damaging consequences for (particularly county) councils, was not enthusiastic for change, except, perhaps in the North East. Tony Blair has not been an enthusiast for English regional government. The first Blair government made no move towards fully-fledged regional government in England. Regionalism’s Cabinet champion was clearly John Prescott, whose influence waned after New Labour’s second victory. Responsibility for regional policy has been fragmented rather than consolidated since June 2001. It is equally clear that the Prime Minister’s emphasis – and therefore that of his Government – was on the delivery of public services, not on further constitutional changes.

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However, in May 2002, a white paper on regional government was published (Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, 2002), but the powers suggested for English regions were generally weaker than those given to the GLA. Moreover, the thrust remained centralist. Regional government would only be set up where requested in a referendum, and even then only at the expense of abolishing, where two exist, one of the existing lower tiers – presumably the county councils. The powers of the new English regional governments, such as they are, will come from quangos and government regional offices, not by virtue of the existing central state powers.

Reforms in London The London reforms of 2000 were put in the hands of the Government Office for London, rather than the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR). This was an important decision, as it located the civil servants handling the reform at a slight distance from the centre of the reform’s sponsoring department. Normally, DETR would have undertaken work on consultative documents and, indeed, on the legislation itself, from within the Department. But GOL was run by a Deputy Secretary – each of the other regional offices was headed by a lower-grade Under Secretary. Moreover, the first two directors of GOL – Robin Young from 1994 to 1997 and Genie Turton from 1997 to 2001, were talented high-flyers, who took a broad strategic and wide-ranging view of their role. This ensured that GOL built up a solid rapport with the full range of London political and business institutions and played a key role in the network governance of the 1990s. Robin Young moved on just after the general election in 1997, to the Cabinet Office, and then to be Permanent Secretary first at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and subsequently at the DTI in June 2001. Genie Turton moved to head the DTLR’s division of Housing, Urban Policy and Planning in 2001. The consequences of dealing with the GLA reform in this way (that is, in GOL, not DETR) are impossible to measure. On the one hand, GOL officials evidently felt themselves to be a small, motivated, team who strongly believed they were creating a new and different kind of political institution. International experience of mayoral systems of government was researched on ministerial visits to Boston, New York, Washington, DC, and Barcelona. A directly-elected executive mayor was a constitutional novelty within the United Kingdom, and yet the reform was being handled by a regional office.

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Officials within GOL undoubtedly saw themselves as defenders of the purity of the new institution, even against the regular efforts of their Whitehall colleagues to water down the impact of the change. On the other hand, handling the legislation in this way meant it did not have a powerful ministerial sponsor. Dobson, a clear sceptic on the issue of elected mayors, was promoted from the environment brief he held in opposition to the higher profile job of Health Secretary – in charge of rescuing and modernizing Labour’s welfare state totem, the National Health Service. The Secretary of State in charge of the newly-created Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) was Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, no less a sceptic on the subject of elected mayors, but prepared to back the London reform as part of a devolutionary shift that would eventually include his personal project of regional elected governments in England. On a day-to-day basis most of the ministerial work on consultative documents, legislation and implementation was put in the hands of two junior ministers: Nick Raynsford (from May 1997 to October 1999) and Keith Hill (from October 1999 onwards). All the evidence suggests these ministers worked closely and effectively with GOL through its director, Genie Turton, to shape, promote and defend the London government reforms. In reality, the most important supporter of the directly elected mayor ‘experiment’ was the Prime Minister, Tony Blair. He had convinced his party to accept the idea of a mayor for London and, indeed, believed other cities and towns would benefit from a similar reform. But Blair, as Prime Minister, was preoccupied on a day-by-day basis with intractable issues such as the economy, the Northern Ireland peace process and international peace-keeping in Kosovo. Despite the Prime Minister’s undoubted commitment to the London mayoral reform, little time was available for Downing Street to concentrate on it. This factor was to prove hugely important when Labour came to select its candidate for the first mayoral contest during the autumn and winter of 1999/2000. For their part, the Conservative Party had remained opposed to a new tier of London-wide government during the 1997 general election. However, once the election was over and William Hague had taken over from John Major as leader, the Party accepted the reality of its new position and dropped its opposition to the new Greater London Authority. The Party put its handling of the London mayoral issue in the hands of Richard Ottaway, a London MP representing the outer borough of Croydon. A green paper was published in July 1997, outlining the government’s first detailed proposals for the Greater London Authority. The proposals in

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the green paper formed, with considerable precision, the basis for a later white paper, Bill and the final legislation that followed. A small team was recruited within the Government Office for London to set out the institutional arrangements for the new GLA, and in particular how the mayor, assembly and a number of service-providing functional bodies would relate to each other. The team included Liz Meek (whose background was in the former Department of the Environment), Steve Watts (brought in directly from DETR), Gill Rendall, Steve Puttman, Matt Leach, Geth Williams, Mark Lambirth and David Hill. Like Meek, the officials primarily involved had a background within the former DoE. Liz Meek had particular experience of the issues involved, having been head of the previous Conservative government’s London Policy Unit. She had dealt with policies such as World Squares and the improvement of the South Bank of the river. Civil servants were appointed within relevant departments (Home Office, DETR, the Treasury) to provide links to the functional divisions within those departments that were responsible for services (transport, police, fire, economic development, planning and pensions) that were to be transferred to the GLA or where there was a more general interest (such as finance). Links were also established with officials in the organizations that would themselves be brought within the ambit of the GLA. Efforts were made by the GOL officials to consult relevant organizations outside Whitehall, such as the Association of London Government (representing the boroughs), professional groups and academics. At this time, officials within GOL with responsibility for generating the green paper had no blueprint to follow. They were copying no particular overseas model and, of course, had no directly relevant British experience upon which to call. Because the GLA was being created in an environment where it did not involve abolishing any existing institutions, there was no strong or antagonistic lobbying for any particular outcome. Indeed, the most determined efforts to affect the direction and content of the proposals came from the Home Office, DETR and other parts of central government. Such efforts were generally to reduce the potential power of the new mayor and assembly – for example, in relation to policing in London. The GLA that resulted from this mangling by parts of Whitehall was very much weaker than an effective city government needed to be. Whitehall departments undermined the capacity of the Mayor of London to deliver for the capital. It was the key GOL officials, in conjunction with their ministers (in particular Nick Raynsford) who shaped the green paper and who did their best to strengthen the new authority. Officials would discuss amongst themselves possible configurations of power, for example whether or not the

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assembly should have any role in board appointments, or the extent of the assembly’s veto over the annual budget, and then present their proposals to Raynsford. Some proposals had to be taken by Raynsford to John Prescott and/or other ministers or, in some cases, to the Cabinet. Thus, for example, it was the Cabinet, on the advice of the Home Secretary (Jack Straw) which decided on the precise relationship of the mayor to the new Metropolitan Police Authority. John Prescott determined how and if the London Underground would be passed across to the mayor’s control. Proposals for a ‘public–private partnership’ to invest in the Tube’s infrastructure had, Prescott decided, to be finalized before the Underground would transfer to the GLA. Other decisions, such as the precise composition of the new London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, were made by GOL and Home Office officials without ministerial involvement. By and large, the more high-profile and political a decision, the more likely it was that a senior Cabinet member (or the full Cabinet) would be involved. Other individuals who were of key importance at this stage included Robin Young who, despite having moved from being Director of GOL soon after Labour was elected, attended the earliest meetings with Prescott and other ministers about London government reform – from within the Cabinet Office – and assisted in the creation of the GOL team to write the green and white papers. The officials brought together had, in many cases, worked together before. Peter Mandelson, although a Cabinet minister with no major responsibilities affected by the GLA (he was Secretary of State for Trade and Industry), also played a role in encouraging the creation of a strong mayor for the capital and, on occasion, argued the case for particular changes to then policy in Cabinet. Pat McFadden – within the Downing Street Policy Unit – was the link between GOL officials and the Prime Minister. McFadden was able to provide Meek and other GOL civil servants with virtually instant replies to questions. Throughout the process of drafting the green paper, Liz Meek, Steve Watts and the other officials involved sought to create an institution which they saw as being broadly analogous to United States mayoral systems, but which had to work within British local government traditions. Meek and other GOL officials travelled to the US with Nick Raynsford to see cities such as Boston and New York at first hand. It was at a meeting at Columbia University in New York where Raynsford became convinced (by US city government expert Ester Fuchs, who in 2002 became a member of New York mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration) that a small number of GLA assembly members would be better than a larger number.

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The Cabinet signed off the green paper in July 1997, within three months of the general election. The officials concerned had created the outline of Britain’s first executive mayor within a remarkably short time. They had been able to do this partly because of the relatively tight-knit nature of the ministerial/official team and partly because there was virtually no opposition to the restoration of London-wide government.

The mayoral race begins While ministers and civil servants were putting together and then publishing their green paper, potential mayoral candidates were beginning to make it clear who they were. In particular, Lord (Jeffrey) Archer and Ken Livingstone MP had, from the 1997 election onwards, started to undertake speaking engagements and media debates which suggested they were likely to put themselves forward as candidates (see, for example, Castle, 1997; Frean, 1997). Livingstone, of course, had been leader of the Greater London Council at the time of its demise in 1986. Other Labour possibles at this time included Tony Banks, MP, while ex-Transport Minister Steven Norris was clearly a Tory frontrunner. Commentators saw Simon Hughes, MP for Bermondsey, as the most plausible Liberal Democrat hopeful. Richard Branson, owner and chairman of Virgin, was regularly cited as a possible independent candidate, despite expressing no wish to do so. The Prime Minister, according to insiders, hoped a non-political businessperson would come forward as a potential candidate. The publication of the green paper produced a flurry of press speculation about who candidates might be. The bulk of national newspapers were supportive of the reform, obviously seeing the enormous potential – to their circulations – of personality-based politics. Parallels with United States politics were immediately drawn, in particular with New York, where Rudolph Giuliani had proved a highly effective mayor from 1994 onwards. Jeffrey Archer went on a fact-finding trip to New York to watch Giuliani in action (Dougary, 1997). But no one could formally start canvassing explicitly at such an early stage. There would have to be some sort of within-party election to select a single candidate for each of the main parties. Moreover, it was still at least two-and-a-half years before the first mayoral election would take place. Out-and-out campaigning for almost three years would risk boring the electorate and could also be seen as starting the meter running for election expenses calculations.

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The green paper On 29 July 1997 the Government’s first thoughts on the new London government system were published in a green paper, entitled New Leadership for London (DETR, 1997). Politicians involved in the process now believe the production of a consultative paper within three months of taking office was surprisingly quick. Whereas proposals for Scotland and Wales had been the subject of much detailed work before the May 1997 election, the London system had not. Moreover, London was about to introduce an entirely new kind of political institution to the United Kingdom, while the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly were, in may ways, close to existing institutional models of government. New Leadership for London outlined the government’s reasons for the proposed reform: ‘There is a democratic deficit in London. Since the abolition of the Greater London Council in 1986, there has been no democratically elected city-wide authority, able to provide firm leadership and to promote and enhance the prosperity of its people and deal with its problems. Few now doubt that London needs democratic city-wide government and a voice to speak up for the interests of Londoners’ (paragraph 1.02). The solution to these problems was a new Greater London Authority (GLA), to consist of a directly-elected mayor and assembly. The green paper explained: the Government believes that London needs a strong executive mayor, able to provide firm leadership and with the power and authority to bring about much needed change. But checks and balances also need to be put in place to ensure that the assembly can scrutinise the mayor’s proposals and actions. (paragraph 2.01) Details of the new system of government were outlined in the chapters that followed. The mayor would have powers to propose the GLA’s annual budget, to devise policies, to make appointments to executive bodies under GLA control and to provide a ‘voice’ for London. The assembly would examine the mayor’s budget and policies, approve board appointments and provide scrutiny both for the mayor and for other publicly-funded London organizations. The assembly, it was envisaged, would need the power to summon witnesses, organizations and experts. The green paper envisaged that the mayor would be a full-time, salaried, position. The assembly, on the other hand, would not be paid. There would

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be four-year terms for both mayor and assembly, with no limits on the number of terms to be served. Presumably, the government did not imagine that Members of Parliament would vote through a measure that introduced such an alien concept into the British democratic system. Elected mayors were one thing, but term limits would have been quite another. The GLA would cover precisely the same area as the GLC had done (although there had subsequently been a number of minor boundary changes). There were 74 Members of Parliament within this area, rather fewer than the 84 that had existed at the point of GLC abolition. GLC members had been elected on the basis of one per parliamentary constituency. It was planned at this stage there would be 24 to 32 assembly members – about one third of the number of GLC councillors. Transport, the police, economic development, fire and emergencies, land-use planning, the environment, culture, media and leisure provision were to be the GLA’s main functions. The first four of these responsibilities would be undertaken through boards (for instance, a London Transport Authority, a London Development Agency, a Metropolitan Police Authority), some or all of whose members would be appointed by the mayor. Land-use planning and the rest would be handled by the GLA core staff. This staff would be made up of individuals drawn from a number of the London-wide bodies that had been jointly funded by the boroughs. In addition to these inherited staff, new ones would be appointed by the mayor and assembly, up to a maximum of about 450. The government proposed that all of the new London Transport Authority’s members would be appointed by the mayor. The London Development Agency would be discussed in greater detail in a later consultative document, but would have similar powers to the other Regional Development Agencies proposed for the English regions. The mayor would appoint a majority of the Metropolitan Police Authority membership, though would do so from among GLA assembly members. The mayor would, in addition, appoint assembly members to the fire authority, though there would also be members appointed (by the mayor) from the London boroughs. The green paper described the GLA as ‘a new form of government’. It went on: ‘This is not … bringing back the Greater London Council or tinkering with existing local government structures. We wish to create a new model of government, appropriate to a great capital city in the new Millennium’ (paragraph 1.09). The Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, hoped the publication of the document would ‘generate a great debate in London’. He could never have guessed just how much of a political firework had been launched – with damaging consequences for New Labour.

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The Politics of London Figure 3.1 The GLA and the functional bodies

London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority

Metropolitan Police Authority

Greater London Authority

Transport for London

Source:

London Development Agency

Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, 1998a, p. 17.

The configuration of the new GLA is shown in Figure 3.1. The Government was clear it wanted to create an institution with a core (consisting of the mayor’s officials, the assembly and a small number of control functions) and the four ‘functional bodies’ at some distance from the central institution. This would be very different from the Greater London Council, which had over 10,000 full-time officials based at County Hall at the time it was abolished in 1986. There was another important feature of the green paper. It committed the government to retaining the Corporation of London as a separate local authority. The 1997 election had been the first for perhaps 200 years in which there was not a significant group or party proposing the abolition of the City. Labour conceded in the green paper that ‘the City Corporation has sought to play a much more positive role in order to promote inward investment and to fund schemes and studies for the benefit of London as a whole’. However, the City had agreed with the new government to modernize its medieval electoral arrangements. The Corporation of London was yet again set to survive a major upheaval in the capital’s government. From green paper to white paper Once the green paper consultation period was over, officials at the Government Office for London could start to finalize the white paper that

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would become the basis of legislation. But before that, a short bill had to be published and passed through Parliament to allow a referendum to take place on the London government proposals in May 1998. The referendum bill was not contentious and did not consume particularly large quantities of civil service resource. However, the white paper was a different matter. Because it was more detailed than the green paper, Whitehall departments began to take the GLA more seriously. If arrangements were agreed for the purposes of writing the white paper, it would be far more difficult than previously to stop them going into the draft bill. A powerful mayor and assembly in London would threaten traditional central government powers, and Whitehall departments worked hard to ensure the powers granted to the GLA would remain limited. In fact, the white paper changed few of the broad proposals made in the green paper but it provided more details about many aspects of the new system. For example, the white paper settled on an assembly of 25 members and changed the name of the London Transport Authority to ‘Transport for London’. Other, more substantive, details included finance and proposals for the electoral arrangements to be used. The white paper confirmed that the mayor would be a full-time, paid, official. He or she would have powers to determine policies and budgets and would undoubtedly be powerful in relation to the assembly. The assembly, which it had been decided would also be full-time and paid, would be able to reject the budget, but only if they could produce a twothirds majority for an alternative set of proposals. A deputy mayor would be appointed from among the assembly members. Assembly members would also, as proposed in the green paper, be appointed to the police and fire boards. A key development in the white paper was the publication of the systems of election to be used for the mayor and assembly. A Supplementary Vote (SV) system (a modified form of the Alternative Vote system) was proposed for the mayoral election. Under the SV system, voters would mark their first and second preferences on a ballot paper. They would not be required to vote for two candidates. Voters’ first preference votes would be counted: if a candidate received 50 per cent or more of the votes, they would be declared the winner. If no one received 50 per cent, all of the candidates except the two who received the highest number of votes would be eliminated. The second preference votes of the eliminated candidates would then be counted and any that had been cast for the two remaining candidates would be given to those candidates. The one with the largest number of first and second preference votes would then be the winner.

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The assembly would be elected using the Additional Member System, which had also been used for the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. Fourteen members were to be elected for constituencies, plus another eleven who would be London-wide members. Electors would have two votes each. The first vote would be cast within a constituency using the firstpast-the-post system. The second vote would be for a political party or independent candidate. For the London-wide vote, parties (or independents) would list the names of candidates to be elected, in order, on the ballot paper. Constituency members would be elected in the usual first-past-the-post way (that is, the candidate with the largest number of votes, whether over 50 per cent or not, would win). All the second (that is, London-wide) votes cast would be counted, with winning candidates drawn from the list of parties (or independent groups) so that the overall number of assembly members would match the proportion cast for each party. Thus, a party that polled 40 per cent of the votes in the London-wide vote would be entitled to ten seats overall. If that party had won seven constituency members, its top three ‘list’ candidates would then become assembly members. Equally, a party that had polled 17.5 per cent of the London-wide vote, but which won no constituency seats would be entitled to four ‘list’ members. The Government Office for London commissioned Patrick Dunleavy of LSE and Helen Margetts of University College London to examine the electoral systems proposed for the new system of government. Their work considered different possible electoral outcomes, based on previous elections and with the benefit of polling information about voters’ behaviour (Dunleavy and Margetts, 1999). The white paper explained that the government had decided on these electoral arrangements because Londoners wanted ‘a new style of nonconfrontational politics in London’ (paragraph 4.6). Given the recent past politics of the capital, the arrangements selected would be very likely to produce an assembly without a single-party majority. Indeed, proportional representation of various sorts had been supported by the Liberal Democrats and other smaller parties for many years. The Liberal Democrats, Greens and other smaller parties could, with proposed electoral arrangements, hope to win seats on the assembly in a way they had rarely managed on the Greater London Council. Whether creating an assembly without a party political majority would necessarily mean less confrontational politics remained to be seen. Also described was the government’s intention that there should be arrangements to limit the funding of election campaigns (the costs of which

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would be significant, particularly for the mayoral candidates). There were also rules about eligibility to stand (including the requirement that assembly members should put down a deposit and also provide a significant number of signatures supporting them). The mayor and assembly would, as expected, serve four-year terms of office, with no limits on the number of terms to be served. The deputy mayor was to take over if the mayor became incapacitated or stood down: unless a mayor left office within six months of the next election, there would be a by-election. Most responsibilities were to be managed as envisaged in the green paper: transport, economic development, police and fire and emergencies would be run through boards that would wholly or largely be appointed by the mayor. However, lines of accountability from the mayor to the transport and economic development boards were stronger (bolder lines on the key figure in the white paper) than those to police and fire. This change of emphasis – as compared with the green paper – was the result of efforts made by the Home Office to limit the control of the GLA over the latter two services. As the proposals for the new authority moved closer to enactment, Whitehall departments began to resist the efforts of Government Office for London officials to create a consistent and powerful set of mayoral responsibilities. The success of these efforts was to have implications for the new authority (in particular the mayor) to achieve the kind of results originally envisaged by the supporters of directly-elected executive mayors. The white paper included greater detail about the strategies that the mayor would, by law, have to publish. There were to be separate strategies or plans for transport, economic development, spatial development, waste management, air quality and cultural policy. The mayor would also have a duty to promote efforts to reduce the effects of noise, to promote health and to pursue a number of other policies, such as the promotion of tourism. The Metropolitan Police Authority (rather than the mayor) would have a duty to produce an annual police plan. Finally, the government used the white paper to outline in more detail the financing arrangements for the GLA. The white paper was published in March 1998. It formed the basis for a brief campaign for and against the new London government arrangements in advance of the referendum in May 1998. As with the green paper, the completion of the white paper was relatively painless because crucial, final, decisions about many issues had still not been made. However, the drafting of the Greater London Authority bill and its passage through Parliament were to prove far more difficult elements in the Whitehall stages of the birth of the GLA.

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The referendum and the Greater London Authority Act, 1999 A campaign was initiated on 18 March 1998 to lobby publicly for the proposed mayor and assembly for London (see, for example, Financial Times, 1998). This all-party affair followed closely on the governmentfunded information campaign about the GLA referendum – at a cost of £1.5 million – launched on 25 February. Given the high levels of support that had regularly been shown by opinion polls to exist for a London-wide authority, and the government’s enthusiasm for the ‘modernization’ of local government, a reasonable turnout in the referendum was considered essential. Moreover, the higher the turnout, the greater the legitimacy conferred on the system introduced. Members of all the major political parties took place in the pro-reform campaign. Mayoral hopefuls such as Jeffrey Archer, Ken Livingstone, Steve Norris, Trevor Phillips and Simon Hughes joined Association of London Government leader Toby Harris, Corporation of London ex-leader Michael Cassidy and Minister for London Nick Raynsford to form the lobby. Stickers and balloons were handed out, there were photo-opportunities and a trip on a bus. But with such a large majority apparently in favour of London-wide government, it proved hard to generate much debate or public attention. The ‘anti’ campaign barely existed. Simon Randall, a lawyer and ex-councillor from Bromley (who had initiated the legal challenge to the Livingstone GLC’s Fares Fair policy in the early 1980s) headed a small effort to oppose the government’s proposals. In many ways, a more effective ‘anti’ campaign might have generated more public interest and therefore a higher turnout. As it was, the actual referendum turnout was just 34 per cent, lower than the normal London borough election turnout figure. Results were declared by the chief counting officer, Robert Hughes (previously chief executive of Kirklees in West Yorkshire) at a desultory event held at Church House, Westminster on the night of 7–8 May 1998. The fact that the referendum was held on the same day as borough elections made the low figure even more awkward to excuse – the turnout at the May 1994 borough elections had been 45 per cent. Every borough voted in favour of an elected mayor and assembly. The biggest ‘yes’ vote took place in Haringey (83.8 per cent), followed by Lambeth (81.8 per cent) and Hackney (81.6 per cent). The lowest levels of support were in Bromley (57.1 per cent), Havering (60.5 per cent) and Hillingdon (63.1 per cent) (London Research Centre, 1998). Victorian London was far more enthusiastic about the proposed reform than the interwar boroughs. Nevertheless, the proposals gained a clear majority even in

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the outer boroughs, once again showing the extent of dissatisfaction across London with the lack of a metropolitan tier. Once the referendum was over, only the legislative stage of creating the GLA remained. Civil servants now had to turn the aspirations and commitments of the green and white papers into a political system. This part of the reform process was to be the most complex and difficult of all. The services to be transferred to the GLA were large and, in some cases, run by antiquated institutions. Government departments were to prove awkward when it came to passing powers to devolved politicians. Finally, the GLA was a new and wholly different kind of political institution from any other in the United Kingdom. The Greater London Authority Bill was introduced into Parliament in November 1998. As expected, it provided the legislative framework that would allow the proposals outlined in the white paper (and subsequently approved in the May 1998 referendum). A core GLA was included, as were Transport for London, the London Development Agency, the Metropolitan Police Authority and the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. Many previous Acts of Parliament were repealed. In particular, the changes affecting the police were profound, as the Met had been within the Home Secretary’s control since its creation in 1829. Many of the financial and administrative arrangements within which the police operated had been put in place gradually over almost two centuries. The team of civil servants assembled to guide the Bill through Parliament was based heavily upon those who had worked on the green and white papers. The Government Office for London (GOL), not the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR), took responsibility for the legislation. The decision to use a regional office in this way was unique: no Bill had ever before been steered through Parliament other than by a mainstream Whitehall department. GOL was, of course, headed by Genie Turton who had worked for many years in DETR and its predecessor, the Department of the Environment. The officials put in charge of the Bill – Liz Meek and Steve Watts – were the same ex-DETR civil servants who had worked on the green and white papers (indeed, they had worked together as far back as the 1970s). Moreover, GOL’s offices were only a mile across the Whitehall village from DETR’s headquarters. Nevertheless, the decision to give responsibility for the legislation to GOL created distance between officials and their political bosses. Ministers, including Minister for London Nick Raynsford, had their main offices at DETR. The Bill started with a ‘list of headings’ derived from the white paper. Thereafter, it was written quickly, with inevitable consequences for the

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quality of the first draft. Sub-teams were created within the Home Office (police, fire) and within DETR (to deal with the Underground public– private partnership (PPP)). Other transport issues and the environment were dealt with by GOL itself. There were problems because DETR was not able to make sufficient lawyers’ time available. From the start, there were large numbers of amendments to early drafts of the Bill. The need to shoehorn in the PPP for the Tube caused great trouble for the civil servants responsible for the Bill – it was very much seen as a malevolent cuckoo dumped into the cosy nest created by the GOL Bill team. There was relatively little opposition to the Government’s proposals. The Conservatives (led in committee by Richard Ottaway) wanted to remove the proposed assembly and replace it with a joint committee of borough leaders. The Liberal Democrats (led by Simon Hughes) were opposed to the concept of a mayor, though they wished to strengthen the GLA overall. Although the ministers responsible for the Commons committee stage (Nick Raynsford and Transport Under-Secretary Glenda Jackson) were friendly to their opponents, there was no need – given Labour’s massive majority – to concede any points of principle. The only serious difficulty faced was in the House of Lords, where the legislation was threatened with delay by amendments about the publicity material to be circulated during elections. The London boroughs, represented by the Association of London Government, did not oppose the creation of the GLA, although they did promote some amendments to the legislation. The boroughs’ attitude to the creation of a new upper-tier was in marked contrast to the outright opposition that had attended the creation of the GLC and, for that matter, the London County Council. In both these earlier cases – in 1888 and 1963–4 – the then-existing lower-tier bodies had opposed the new city-wide authority. During the legislative stage, as at the time the white paper was being prepared, Whitehall departments took action in an attempt to restrict the powers to be given to the GLA. The Home Office, in particular, was keen to limit the mayor’s powers. For example, they successfully defended the Home Secretary’s appointment (on the monarch’s behalf) of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. GOL officials had argued that the mayor should appoint the commissioner (as in New York). On the other hand, the Home Office lost an attempt to remove a power for the mayor to appoint the deputy mayor to the police authority. On this latter occasion, officials in GOL had to ask for the assistance of Downing Street in thwarting the Home Office’s intentions. The Downing Street link ‘could get 10 minute replies’ where GOL needed them. However, as one official put it

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‘the government was not sure how brave it could be in devolving power’ over the Metropolitan Police. The Greater London Authority Act was the longest Act of Parliament since the India Act of 1935. It contained 425 clauses and 34 schedules. In line with the proposals in the green and white papers, it provided for a GLA consisting of a directly elected mayor and a separately elected assembly, each serving a term of four years. The GLA represented a new form of governance in Britain, with an attempt at a separation of powers between the directly elected mayor and a small London Assembly of 25 members. The mayor was made responsible for developing the GLA’s strategies for transport, planning, the environment (air quality, ambient noise, waste management and bio-diversity), economic development and culture. The mayor was also given responsibility for setting a budget for the GLA and its four functional bodies: Transport for London (TfL); the London Development Agency (LDA); the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA); and the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA). The London Assembly would have to be consulted by the mayor during the preparation of each of the GLA’s strategies. The Assembly would consider the budget for the GLA and for each of the four functional bodies and was given the power to veto the mayor’s budget with a two-thirds majority for an alternative proposition. The assembly would scrutinize the exercise of the mayor’s functions and conduct investigations into London issues. Transport for London, which could be chaired by the mayor, would have a wide range of executive responsibilities. The London Development Agency (LDA) was made responsible for economic development and regeneration and would promote competitiveness and employment in the capital. The mayor was to be responsible for London’s economic development strategy, and would exercise most of the functions exercised by the Secretary of State in respect of Regional Development Agencies in other parts of England. The mayor was to appoint the members of the board of the LDA, the majority of whom would be expected to have had a business background. No more than four out of the twelve members of the LDA board could be elected (that is, assembly or borough) members. The extent of mayoral control would thus vary from service to service. The capacity of London’s mayor to deliver would crucially depend upon how the officeholder used powers to make appointments, to direct budgets and to gain influence by use of the scale of the London-wide mandate. Ministers and civil servants were concerned to create a new institution that was different from the GLC. Many of those interviewed for this book stressed the new authority was ‘not the GLC’. The legacy of Ken Livingstone’s

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five years at County Hall was enormously influential in encouraging Nick Raynsford and other ministers to create a new London government that was different from its predecessor. Although the government was alert to the possibility that Livingstone himself might run for mayor, there is no evidence that the legislation was amended particularly with this eventuality in mind. The Greater London Authority Act included many opportunities for central government to intervene in GLA activities (for example, to impose a minimum budget for police or for transport). Where powers were put into the legislation to allow the mayor to introduce congestion charging, there was a debate about the extent to which the government was proposing to take reserve powers to intervene in the scheme or to claw back the resources generated. The creature spawned by this mammoth piece of legislation bears all the markings of New Labour – and more generally, the deep markings of an era of extraordinary confusion as between a desire to devolve and a desire to retain central control. The direct and fiscal powers of the GLA are strictly limited. It has no general revenue-raising powers apart from a relatively small precept on the boroughs’ council tax. The mayor cannot levy income or sales taxes nor issue bonds. The GLA also receives income from government grants, charges for services and from sales of capital assets. The GLA Act allows the mayor to introduce congestion charging or a levy on off-street car parking. The reality is ‘such fiscal autonomy as the GLA will possess will be limited to decisions about viring sums of money within its overall budget from one function to another. Even here, however, the GLA’s discretion will be tightly restrained … As presently conceived, the GLA has no significant degree of budgetary autonomy’ (Loveland, 1999). Moreover, the Act was littered with further references to the continuing powers of the Secretary of State. For example, in regard to the Spatial Development Strategy, the Secretary of State can direct the mayor to undertake a review of the Strategy, to alter or replace it, to have regard to any regional planning guidance, and to ‘any other matters which the Secretary of State may prescribe in regulations’. In the words of the Tom Waits song ‘The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away.’ But it was the future of London Underground that provided the most profound evidence of the limits to devolution in the capital. Labour had decided to use a ‘public–private partnership’ (PPP) to re-invest in the dilapidated London Tube. The system’s capital assets – trains, tracks, tunnels, stations and so on – were separated into three bundles and then subjected to a competitive bidding process. Consortia of private companies (train-makers, construction companies, engineers and other rail-related enterprises) put

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together bids for the bundles of infrastructure on offer. The idea was that risks associated with large public-sector capital projects would be transferred to the private consortia. Moreover, the consortia would provide the up-front investment resources for the Underground. The public sector would then lease the (improved) assets back from the private companies for a 30-year period (London Underground, 2002). But there were major difficulties with the PPP (Wolmar, 2002). First, it was clear during the early stages of the GLA Act that the PPP would not be completed before the first mayor took office in 2000 (at one time, it had been hoped the first election might occur during 1999). Second, as noted above, the amendments to the original Bill made a massive change to the size and intent of the legislation. Third, by delaying the transfer of the Underground among the responsibilities handed over to the mayor, the most important political issue affecting the capital was left in limbo. Fourth, the process of contracting proved vastly more complex and difficult than was originally envisaged. The PPP contracts were still the subject of controversy during 2002–03 when, finally, they were signed at a cost of £500 million (Wolmar, 2002). There was a fifth problem. Ken Livingstone, as mayoral candidate and, from May 2000, as mayor, bitterly opposed the PPP. Despite having originally voted with the government in Parliament, Livingstone became convinced that the PPP offered poor value for money and also that it would compromise safety (Transport for London, 2002). As mayor, he (unsuccessfully) took the government to court during the summer of 2001 and again in 2002. He and his Transport Commissioner, Bob Kiley, proposed an alternative method of re-building the Tube, funded with capital raised by a bond issue. The battle over the financing of the Tube pitted central government against its own creation – a devolved government for London. This struggle was emblematic of the wider uncertainty within the Blair government about their desire (or lack of it) to devolve power from the centre. Nevertheless, the Act represented a radical innovation in the British political system. At the head of the GLA is a mayor, directly elected by an electorate of five million voters. There is a separation of powers between the executive mayor and the assembly. The status of the GLA is unclear. The mayor’s huge electorate and the GLA’s strategic role suggest devolved regional government, like the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, but the financial rules and close continuing central government control make it look more like local government. While it is hard exactly to specify what the GLA is, it is easier to say what it emphatically is not: it is not the top tier in a vertically integrated hierarchical system of metropolitan government. As set out in the legislation, and

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confirmed in practice, the powers of the mayor are largely those of patronage, persuasion and publicity. Patronage, through his or her ability to appoint to the functional bodies; persuasion, using limited control over resources, and position at the centre of what is a continuing system of network and multi-level governance; and publicity through exploiting the mayor’s legitimacy, accountability and democratic claim to ‘speak for London’.

Electing the mayor The innovative and radical nature of the political change represented by creating a directly elected mayor for London was amply demonstrated in the campaign. Jeffrey Archer had spotted early on that mayoral politics would borrow more from the United States – particularly from New York City – than from traditional British local government. Mark D’Arcy and Rory MacLean, two BBC journalists, memorably called their book about the election Nightmare! (2000). Despite the relative weakness of the proposed mayor and assembly, the combination of personality-driven politics and the glamour of the capital city ensured the race for mayor was exciting and unpredictable. During late 1998 and early 1999, potential mayors started to advertise their wares. Conservative peer Jeffrey Archer and potential Labour rival Ken Livingstone became the capital’s best-known double-act since Flanagan and Allen, regularly treading the boards together at meetings and on television (D’Arcy and MacLean, 2000, p. 37). Wherever they went, the paparazzi followed. Mayoral politics was, as Tony Blair had wanted, engaging and modern. It is less obvious that the Prime Minister had envisaged this particular pair of vulgar populists as the leading exponents of modernized local government.

Liberal Democrats In August 1999, the Liberal Democrats selected Susan Kramer as their candidate to be Mayor of London. Simon Hughes, the MP for Bermondsey who had long been considered the front-runner, did not stand because he wished to compete – at virtually the same time – for the national leadership of the Liberal Democrats. Kramer had an impeccable pedigree for a modern centre–left politician, having worked in banking and being married to a former Chicago transport boss (D’Arcy and MacLean, 2000, p. 152).

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She was certainly not a vulgar populist. (She was defeated in a run-off with Hughes to be their party’s 2004 candidate.)

Conservatives Both the other major parties struggled in their choice of candidate. Tories mentioned as potential mayoral runners included Michael Portillo, the former Defence Secretary; Chris Patten, the ex-Governor of Hong Kong; Steven Norris, the former Minister for Transport in London; and Lord (Jeffrey) Archer, the novelist. All had been MPs, though only Norris and Archer were serious contenders. Archer was popular with some activists and with those employed to write newspaper headlines However, he was warned against in private by a number of senior Conservatives and others, including the editor of the Evening Standard, Max Hastings. Hastings mounted a long crusade to stop Archer becoming Tory candidate. The Standard editor was joined by journalist Michael Crick, who had written a damning biography of Archer (Crick, 1995), maintaining a battery of vituperative opposition to a man they saw as flawed and unacceptable. The Conservatives organized a within-party election to choose a candidate. Applicants were considered by a committee of senior London members and reduced to a shortlist. The short-listed individuals then appeared before an electoral college drawn from London constituency officers and members. Four potential candidates: Archer, Norris, Andrew Boff (ex-leader of the borough of Hillingdon) and Bob Blackman (ex-leader of Brent) emerged from this stage to face a hustings meeting in August 1999 at Central Hall, Westminster in which Archer received 868 votes, Norris 595, Boff 156 and Blackman 135 (D’Arcy and MacLean, 2000, p. 81). Archer went on to win the final vote – among all London party members – by two to one. The result was announced on 1 October 1999. Archer then attempted to sign up senior London figures to act as his lieutenants in the proposed mayoral regime. Supported by his chief of staff Stephan Shakespeare, people such as Michael Cassidy (former leader of the Corporation of London), Edward Lister (leader of Wandsworth) and Melvyn Caplan (leader of Westminster City Council) were approached. Cassidy, who was politically independent, declined. Shakespeare believed Archer could ‘win against anyone apart from Ken’. He may well have been correct, though what happened just seven weeks after Archer’s selection meant such a contest would never take place. An old friend of the peer,

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Ted Francis, came forward – using publicist Max Clifford’s good offices – to reveal Archer had asked him to provide a false alibi in a 1986 libel case concerning a prostitute. The News of the World trapped Archer into confessing to the deceit. On 20 November 1999, he resigned as the Conservative mayoral candidate. The Tories then made a hideous drama out of a crisis. Initially, the party leadership decided to hand the candidature to Steve Norris, who had come second to Archer in the original within-party contest. But within 24 hours of the decision to make Norris the party’s candidate, it was decided to re-run the selection process. Unsurprisingly, Norris was furious and there were immediately leaks suggesting he might not stand in the second election. A number of candidates eventually put themselves forward, including Andrew Boff (a veteran of the first election), Baroness (Doreen) Miller, Ivan Massow (who soon decided to back Norris), Baroness (Joan) Hanham and, John Wilkinson, MP. Steven Norris agreed to stand for a second time. Briefly – and exotically – Teresa Gorman, MP, put herself forward, but was rejected by the Tories’ selection committee. The Conservatives’ ‘Mayoral Selection Executive’ then received a letter from a number of senior officers in Norris’s former constituency of Epping Forest suggesting that because of his colourful past (a number of his past relationships had been widely reported and acknowledged) he might, like Archer, taint the party with a sleazy image. The Executive decided to reject Norris as a candidate. Central Office was aghast – their only serious candidate, and certainly the only one with any name-recognition – had been ruled out of the race. After a great deal of discussion between the Executive and senior officers of the national party, Norris eventually went forward as one of four candidates to face a re-assembled electoral college on 15 December 1999 at Holland Park Comprehensive. Norris and Andrew Boff emerged first and second from the electoral college, to face a final vote among the party’s full London membership. Finally, on 17 January 2000, Norris was declared as the Conservatives’ official candidate for mayor at the end of a damaging and chaotic process. The only thing that stopped the Tories looking utterly inept and ill-managed was the even more bizarre theatre-piece that Labour managed to stage during the latter months of 1999 and early in 2000. Labour Of the three big parties, Labour started later than the others in finding a candidate. The Government’s attention had centred on weighty matters such

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as Kosovo and Northern Ireland. No effort had been put into thinking about a mechanism to select Labour’s candidate, still less to drawing up an acceptable shortlist. Suddenly, in the summer of 1999, this issue became of vital importance: a candidate had to be found, yet the Labour Party’s most visible contender was none other than Ken Livingstone, erstwhile leader of the Greater London Council. Although originally an opponent of directly-elected mayors, he had published a personal manifesto in August 1998 outlining his policy proposals for the new London government. As Labour MP for Brent East, he was clearly a – if not the – leading Labour candidate. Yet Ken Livingstone represented just about everything Blair and his Chancellor, Gordon Brown, truly hated about the extremist, unelectable ‘Loony’ Labour party of the 1970s and 1980s. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say Livingstone provoked a splenetic response from just about all sections of the government, whether old or new Labour. Suddenly, during later 1998, all the lights went red – for danger – at the heart of the Labour machine. Candidates more acceptable to the national leadership were pushed forward in an effort to see which ones might be effective in stopping Livingstone. Thus, names were floated such as Mo Mowlam (at this point the Northern Ireland Secretary), Trevor Phillips (author and LWT broadcaster), Tony Banks (ex-GLC Chair and Labour MP), Glenda Jackson (MP for Hampstead and Highgate and former actress), Pauline Green (a London MEP) and Toby Harris (leader of Haringey council). None of these appeared to catch the public’s imagination, though Jackson and Phillips emerged as highprofile within-party candidates. In the event, Nick Raynsford, who as Minister for London had piloted the GLA legislation through Parliament, put his name forward as a candidate. His campaign was launched, with tacit prime ministerial support, on 30 September 1999. Within a fortnight, Frank Dobson, the Health Secretary, announced he would stand to be Labour’s official candidate. Raynsford, who was both a party loyalist and a decent man, stood down and threw his support behind the new big-beast candidate. Mark D’Arcy and Rory MacLean, in their book Nightmare!, suggest Downing Street was as surprised by Dobson’s decision to stand as everyone else had been. After all, although Dobson’s name had been touted as a possible candidate for more than a year, all the previous evidence had been that he did not want the job. Dobson had a good London pedigree. He had been leader of Camden council and was MP for Holborn and St Pancras, right in the centre of the city. He had a relatively high national profile and came from rough, tough

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political stock. His bearded manner and amiable Father Christmas looks belied a clever and astute politician. He was clearly the front-runner to keep Livingstone from the Labour candidacy. Trevor Phillips pulled out of the race and declared for Dobson. Of the earlier possible runners, Glenda Jackson remained in the race to face Dobson and Livingstone. What followed was London politics of a kind reminiscent of the latter days of the London County Council (Rhodes, 1970, pp. 29–34). The Labour Party created a within-party election system which Tory Steve Norris memorably described as being ‘worthy of North Korea’. It had widely been assumed that Labour would hold a one-person-one-vote ballot of all London party members. Indeed, Nick Raynsford (as Minister for London) had promised such a vote in May 1999 (Hansard, 1999). Labour instead created an old-fashioned electoral college, with one-third of the total votes given to London party members, one-third to the trades unions and other Labour-affiliated organizations and one-third to London MPs, MEPs and GLA candidates. But even before this electoral college was allowed to vote, a Labour Party committee screened potential candidates. It would have been open to this body to screen Livingstone out of the list of possible candidates, possibly on the grounds that he had been disloyal to the leadership in the period since the 1997 election victory. On 16 November 1999, the committee met the potential candidates and failed to reach a decision as to whether or not Livingstone should go forward. Frank Dobson made it clear that if Livingstone were blocked, he would not continue in the race. Finally, two days later, the committee accepted that Livingstone could join the race to be Labour’s official candidate. The public–private partnership (PPP) for the Tube had proved a major stumbling block for the panel that had considered the various candidates. Loyalty to the national party line on the PPP was considered vital, yet Livingstone was unwilling to give up on his opposition to the plan. Clive Soley, the veteran MP who chaired the selection panel stated to D’Arcy and MacLean ‘We [the panel] told him [Livingstone] that he didn’t have the power to insist on things or veto them [from the party’s mayoral manifesto].’ The extraordinary contradiction between Labour’s commitment to devolution and the reality of centralized politics in Britain could barely have been more clearly demonstrated. The struggle over the PPP would continue to dog the Livingstone–Labour relationship for years to come. In the weeks following the short-listing, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and other members of the Cabinet launched a relentless campaign of vilification against Ken Livingstone. Blair and Brown appeared at public meetings to

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denounce the ex-GLC leader, arguing he was a throw-back to the bad old days of the left (D’Arcy and MacLean, 2000, p. 139). Dirty tricks, real and imagined, were a major feature of the campaign to become Labour candidate. There were arguments about the way in which the unions’ votes should be distributed between the different candidates. Rancour and recrimination overwhelmed New Labour’s efforts to select a candidate. The party’s famed reputation for organization and control lay in ruins. The result of the election saw Dobson beat Livingstone by 51.5 per cent to 48.5 per cent, following the re-distribution of Glenda Jackson’s votes. Dobson, as expected, had done well in the MPs/MEPs/GLA candidates section. Crucially, Livingstone had triumphed in the membership section by 55 per cent to 35 per cent (with Jackson winning 10 per cent). This latter factor was very important: had Labour allowed a one-person-one-vote election, it is virtually certain Ken Livingstone would have won it. Moreover, there was significant dispute about the way in which some of the union votes had been cast. Dobson was now installed as Labour candidate to face Steve Norris as Conservative candidate. Ken Livingstone then spent over a week of indecision as to whether or not he should leave the Labour Party and stand as an independent candidate for mayor. He was on the record on several occasions stating he would abide by the result of the party’s selection process. However, opinion polls showed Livingstone massively ahead of Dobson, Norris or the Liberal Democrats’ Susan Kramer (D’Arcy and MacLean, 2000, p. 185). After a short period of feverish media speculation, Livingstone finally declared his independent candidacy in the first edition of the Evening Standard on 6 March. Steve Norris’s response summed up the Labour Party’s new position: ‘This effectively wipes out Frank Dobson. Livingstone and Dobson will split Labour from top to bottom and London will have a real choice – between action with me and old-style politics with Livingstone. Dobson is dead in the water’ (Shaw, 2000). Norris was wrong – although not that wrong – about the damage done to the left-of-centre vote in the capital. But he was absolutely spot on about the impact on Frank Dobson. In the eight weeks from early March until the May election, the official Labour candidate never came anywhere close to challenging Livingstone. The election Norris, Dobson and Kramer, along with Green Party candidate Darren Johnson, were all part of an official party slate of candidates. Separately,

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and without mishap, each party had chosen 14 constituency candidates for the Assembly and a number of others who would be drawn off a list to ‘top up’ the overall result so as to achieve a result broadly proportional to the votes cast for each party. The Tories, Labour and the Liberal Democrats had selected a mixture of experienced borough councillors plus a number of less experienced candidates. Only Labour had been successful at putting black or Asian candidates close to the top of their list. It was evident that the election would not produce an assembly that represented London’s rich mosaic of colour. Livingstone ran alone, without assembly colleagues or, crucially, a party machine. His small campaign team was headed by his parliamentary staff, including researchers Simon Fletcher and Mark Watts. There were other candidates not aligned to the major parties, including Ram Gidoomal of the Christian People’s Alliance, whose politesse and obvious decency won him rather greater support than might have been expected for a minor party contender (he beat the Greens on first preference votes). The UK Independence Party stood, as did the British National Party. The Labour machine kept up its battery of opposition to Livingstone throughout the remaining weeks of the campaign. But, like Mrs Thatcher’s abolition of the GLC in the mid-1980s, the sight of a local politician being subjected to relentless attack by powerful national political leaders had the effect of turning the victim into a martyr. Few politicians have been better able to exploit such a position than Ken Livingstone. The fact New Labour had botched every aspect of their approach to the mayoral election simply added to his attractiveness. In one respect, however, Tony Blair had been correct. The mayoral election generated an extraordinary amount of media coverage. The television, radio and press were obsessively interested in every move made by the candidates. Unlike traditional local government elections, there was blanket coverage. This coverage reached its zenith at the all-night election event to be held at the Queen Elizabeth II centre on the night of the election. Unfortunately for Mr Blair, the world’s media wanted to see the all-powerful British prime minister humbled by a mere mayor. Although Livingstone maintained his large lead in the opinion polls, it did start to fall back. Norris overtook Dobson and appeared to be capable of mounting a serious assault by adopting a very liberal political stance. Perhaps more than any other leading Conservative, Steve Norris realized that the capital was no longer a bastion of ‘Middle Britain’. He made a deliberate – and heart-felt – pitch for black and Asian votes, for the gay vote and for other groups with whom many traditional Tories felt uneasy. Left-wing newspapers were completely disarmed by Norris’s stance, while

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those on the right were outraged. He received more editorial endorsements than any other candidate. Liberal Democrat Susan Kramer, who was originally far less well-known than Livingstone or Norris, built up a strong second-choice vote. She was highly visible and effective, visiting high streets throughout the capital in her trademark Doc Martens boots. Less flashy than either of the other two main party candidates, she used the election to turn herself into Britain’s leading female Liberal Democrat. Darren Johnson, as the Green candidate, had declared well before all the others. He and his assembly candidate colleagues were green in every sense. However, they too managed to raise the party’s profile. They were buoyed, as were the Liberal Democrats, by the form of proportional representation used in the election. Both the Greens and Liberal Democrats knew their mayoral candidate could raise the party’s visibility and thus their chance of winning assembly seats. In the event, Ken Livingstone won London’s first-ever city-wide mayoral election held on 4 May 2000. He beat Steven Norris by just 12 percentage points (39 to 27) when the first preference votes were counted. Labour’s official candidate, Frank Dobson came a poor third with 13 per cent, followed by Liberal Democrat Susan Kramer on 12 per cent. Once the second preference votes of other candidates were knocked out, the respective totals for Livingstone and Norris were 58 to 42 – far closer than any opinions polls had suggested. Although the turnout was low (just under 35 per cent), interest in the new mayor of Europe’s biggest city was intense. The full election result is shown in Table 3.1 Livingstone’s first words after the result had been declared, uttered just after midday on 5 May, were ‘As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted fourteen years ago …’ (D’Arcy and MacLean). Rarely can there have been a political comeback of such biblical proportions. Having been evicted – as leader of the GLC – from County Hall by Margaret Thatcher on 1 April 1986, ‘Red Ken’ returned in triumph – as Mayor of London – against the bitter objections of Tony Blair. Even in an increasingly centralized country such as Britain, local politics can occasionally bite. The result proved that an election for Greater London will generally deliver a political majority opposed to the national government of the day – this had happened at the GLC in 1967, 1973, 1977 and 1981. Almost certainly, some Tories voted for Livingstone to embarrass Tony Blair. More generally, by voting for Ken Livingstone, many Londoners were able to reconcile their desire to vote against the Labour government with their reluctance to support the (national) Conservatives.

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The Politics of London Table 3.1 Results of election for Mayor of London, 4 May 2000

Candidate

Ken Livingstone Steve Norris Frank Dobson Susan Kramer Ram Gidoomal Darren Johnson Michael Newland Damian Hockney Geoffrey Ben-Nathan Ashwin Kumar Tanna Geoffrey Clements

Party

Independent Conservative Labour Liberal Democrat Christian People’s Alliance Green British National Party UK Independence Party Pro-Motorist Small Shop Independent Natural Law Party

First pref

Share (%)

Second pref

Share (%)

Final

667,877 464,434 223,452 203,452

39.0 27.1 13.1 11.9

178,809 188,041 228,095 404,815

12.6 13.2 16.0 28.5

776,427 564,137

42,060

2.4

56,489

4.0

38,121 33,569

2.2 2.0

192,764 45,337

13.6 3.2

16,234

1.0

43,672

3.1

9,956

0.6

23,021

1.6

9,015 5,470

0.5 0.3

41,766 18,185

2.9 1.3

Source: The Local Elections and Elections for a London Mayor and Assembly: 4 May 2000 (House of Commons Library Research Paper 00/53, London: House of Commons).

The result was also a triumph for Steve Norris, who had pushed Livingstone far harder than any other Tory could have done. Indeed, it confirmed Norris’s status as one of the few nationally-known Conservatives with real understanding of urban politics. Susan Kramer also did well, though more for garnering second preference votes (which were of no use unless she had come first or second) than any other candidate. By contrast, Frank Dobson’s result was a huge embarrassment for him and, in particular, for the Prime Minister – a candidate manoeuvred into place by a carefullyconstructed electoral college came third (though only just), with less than half of the Conservative’s votes. Fourteen members of the Assembly were elected on a constituency basis, using the ‘first-past-the-post’ system. The remaining eleven were elected on a London-wide basis using the ‘de Hondt’ formula for allocating seats under proportional representation. Under this system, Labour and the Conservatives obtained nine seats each, the Liberal Democrats four and the Greens three, giving the London Assembly, like the Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament, a distinctly un-British, even ‘European’ multiparty look.

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Voting patterns were not traditionally British either. In GLC and borough elections between 1964 and 1981, the two-party share of the vote never fell below 80 per cent. Even in the 1980s, it never fell below 70 per cent. In the mayoral election, the two-party share was only 40 per cent and even in the assembly elections, the share of the two major parties was only 65 per cent. There were some signs of a new politics emerging in London. The votes cast for constituency members and for London-wide members are given in Table 3.2. The introduction of a new electoral system (voters were able to cast up to four votes: a first and a second preference vote for the mayor, plus a constituency and London-wide vote for the assembly) contributed to Table 3.2 Results of elections for London Assembly, 4 May 2000 Constituency Members – London totals Conservative Party Labour Party Liberal Democrats Against Tube Sell-Off Green Party London Socialist Alliance Other Total

526,707 501,296 299,998 162,457 46,530 49,082 1,586,070

Share (%) 33.2 31.6 18.9 10.2 2.9 3.1 100

502,874 481,053 245,555 183,910 55,192 34,054 27,073 22,862 17,401 13,248 13,690 7,559 7,489 1,659,630

Share (%) 30.3 29.0 14.8 11.1 3.3 2.1 1.6 1.4 1.0 0.8 0.8 0.5 0.5 100

London Members – London totals Labour Party Conservative Party Liberal Democrat Against Tube Sell-Off Green Party Christian People’s Alliance British National Party London Socialist Alliance Peter Tatchell Campaign Against Tube Privatization Pro-Motorist & Small Shop Socialist Labour Party (Arthur Scargill) Natural Law Party Communist Party of Great Britain Total

Source: The Local Elections and Elections for a London Mayor and Assembly: 4 May 2000 (House of Commons Library Research Paper 00/53, London: House of Commons).

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a relatively large number of invalid votes. There would clearly be benefits to simpler voting papers and/or voter education in advance of the 2004 London elections. Although the Liberal Democrats and Greens were relatively successful in the assembly elections, other minority parties won no seats. The British National Party managed only 2.1 per cent of the vote in the capital, an area where in the past (in Tower Hamlets) they had won a council by-election. Other fringe parties fared even worse. Proportional representation in the London Assembly contest led to some, though not widespread, fragmentation of traditional voting. Thus, the newly-elected mayor and 25 assembly members were elected for the Greater London Authority. Local democracy had been restored to the British capital city.

Conclusion Creating a new city government for London took three years from Labour’s election in 1997. The process was politically smooth, though within Whitehall there were continuous efforts to ensure the new mayor and assembly were not made too strong. The Government Office for London – at both ministerial and official level – fought hard to achieve the most independent and effective institution possible. However, their political and official counterparts in headquarters departments such as the Home Office and those responsible for transport within the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions attempted to avoid giving the mayor too much power. The process of setting up the Greater London Authority revealed, yet again, that British central governments find the government of London perplexing and confusing. On the one hand, it is clear that a city as large and important as London has self-government needs that manifest themselves continuously. In particular, infrastructure and public services are of vital importance to all large, densely-populated cities. Yet, national government at Westminster is unwilling to cede too much freedom to a city as massive and all-pervasive as London. Thus, despite the clear intention of the post-1997 government to create a new London authority, the process of setting it up provided an opportunity for ministers and civil servants (though not those in the Government Office for London) to assert – generally privately – the arguments for continued central control over, for example, re-investing in the Underground, policing

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and health provision. Scotland and Wales, though having far smaller populations than the capital, were given far greater devolved control. The resulting institution, the Greater London Authority, was not a powerful city government of the kind found in New York, Berlin or Tokyo. Indeed, city councils elsewhere in Britain still have far greater power than the London-wide government created in 2000. However, a new body had been invented. It was the political response to Mrs Thatcher’s abolition of the GLC in 1986 and to the demands of many commentators for a new government for the capital. Time would tell how effective it would be.

4 The Greater London Authority: Creating a New Institution The first year of any new body is important: customs and practices will be adopted that influence its operation for many years. The GLA’s decisions about standing orders, procedures, relations between the assembly and mayor and many other features evolved immediately after May 2000 in ways that will affect it for years to come. Yet many ways of doing things were not set in stone by 2003 and could be radically changed in the longer term. Certainly, another mayor could adopt very different ways of relating to the assembly. The assembly will have evolved their own procedures significantly before the second election in 2004.

The GLA Transition Team The mayor and assembly inherited a GLA Transition Team which had been set up by the government in the months before May 2000. Gradually, from the summer of 2000 onwards the top officials put in place by the government were either replaced or formally re-appointed as permanent GLA staff. The core GLA (based at Romney House in Westminster), worked broadly as the legislation had envisaged. Staff numbers grew from the 150 inherited from various predecessor bodies to over 250 within the GLA by the end of 2000. But most of the work funded from the GLA’s gross budget of over £4 billion were in buildings elsewhere in central London. The police continued to operate from New Scotland Yard, Transport for London from new offices in Victoria Street, the fire authority from Albert Embankment and the London Development Agency staff were mostly based in a building near the Tower of London. Core GLA functions were almost precisely what the legislation and the government had envisaged in the green and white papers. The Mayor’s Office, assembly staff, shared services (such as legal, personnel and finance functions) and teams working on strategies of various kinds were to be 80

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grouped within the core. Planning/spatial development was also located at the centre. Preparations for the GLA had been started within the Government Office for London by a team led by Richard Allen. During 1998, the Institute for Public Policy Research had been sponsored by the Corporation of London to produce a report examining the functions and remit of the proposed Greater London Authority. The City also commissioned KPMG, the international consultancy, to look at the detailed administrative and operational make-up of the new authority. KPMG, more than their competitors, had invested heavily in expertise about London. In the spirit of the New Labour times, KPMG worked closely with IPPR. The KPMG team involved John O’Brien, Jeroen Weimar and David Hargreaves, though the consultancy’s ‘London partners’, first Michael Fowle and later Gerry Asher, provided corporate support for the project. The consultants interviewed senior officials involved with creating the GLA, including Genie Turton (GOL), Pat McFadden (Downing Street) and elsewhere in government. Leading potential mayoral candidates such as Steve Norris, Jeffrey Archer and Simon Hughes were also interviewed. The project was overseen by an advisory group which included borough chief executives Bernard Harty (City of London) and Steve Bundred (Camden), Martin Pilgrim (Chief Executive of the Association of London Government), Gerry Holtham (IPPR) and Government Office for London civil servants Genie Turton and Liz Meek. The outcome of the KPMG study was a report suggesting the GLA might operate with a core staff of 250 to 300 individuals (by 2003 it had broadly double that number) at a cost of about £20 million per year. It proposed a small number of services to be ‘shared’ by the mayor and assembly, with rather larger number of officials working separately for the mayor or the assembly. One of the KPMG team, interviewed for this book, accepted local government people found the proposed lack of [staffing] resources a bit difficult. Our response was that the GLA was a hybrid form of government adding to, not replacing, existing forms of London government. GoL were keen for us not to restrict ourselves by looking too closely to existing local government administration. Later in 1998, GOL put out to tender a project for a consultancy to work up ‘A Study of Options’ to consider specific tasks to be undertaken in the run up to Day One of the GLA, including the kind of staff and resources to

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create a transitional bureaucracy. KPMG won this project. Consultants Ernst and Young won a separate tender to prepare the new authority’s information technology and financial management systems. In parallel with these developing consultancies, GOL had set up its own GLA implementation team, led by Richard Allen, and including Andrew Melville, Geth Williams, Gill Rendall plus (when they had completed their work on taking the Bill through Parliament) Liz Meek and Steve Watts. KPMG became convinced it would be necessary to create a formal ‘transition team’ to finalize preparations for the GLA. It would be essential that this organization had an identity separate from GOL’s implementation team and that it should be able to provide the new mayor and assembly with their initial administrative operating system. GOL officials were not enthusiastic about the creation of a separate and partly independent transitional team. However, Minister for London Nick Raynsford determined the new team should be set up, which it duly was in January 1999. Raynsford also made the decision that the GLA would operate from a new building, to be designed by international architect Norman Foster, on the South Bank of the Thames close to London Bridge. County Hall, the former Greater London Council’s home, had by this time been pressed into use as a bizarre campus consisting of two hotels, an aquarium, a Salvador Dali gallery, a Chinese restaurant, a McDonald’s and the ticket office for the soon-to-open London Eye. The council chamber remained (and remains) empty and unused. Robert Chilton was appointed as Head of the GLA Transition Team (GLATT). Chilton had been a senior official at the Audit Commission and had a reputation as a calm trouble-shooter (he had previously been parachuted into the Local Government Commission to sort out a mess there). Blessed with a weighty intelligence and understated manner, he set about putting together just enough bureaucracy to allow the GLA to work from Day One. Chilton was originally joined by a single Grade 7 civil servant (Anthony Ferguson), but during January, February and into the spring of 1999, others moved into the transition team. A shadow ‘diary secretary’, Richard Brown (seconded from the Audit Commission) joined the tiny original team. During the spring of 1999, others joined on secondment. Jeroen Weimar, who had worked on the KPMG projects (both for the Corporation of London and GOL) was also seconded as was Murzeline Parchment (a solicitor). A number of temporary posts were advertised, to manage human resources, finance and legal services. Officially, the transition team were civil servants up until their transfer to the GLA (that is, after the 2000 elections). GOL and London minister Nick Raynsford decided to transfer the officials working at the London Research Centre, London Planning Advisory Committee and the London Ecology

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Unit into the team during the early months of 2000. Thus, the team built up into two distinct kinds of entity: first, the operating system for the mayor and assembly and, second, a repository for the officers of a number of (previously borough-controlled) committees. As far as possible, Chilton and his small team prepared for every eventuality at the GLA’s temporary home at Romney House in Westminster. He and his colleagues had a far more difficult job than the civil servants in Edinburgh and Cardiff charged with the preparations for the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. GLATT had to prepare a GLA administrative machine that would make it possible for the new authority to operate, while not pre-empting any political decisions by the mayor and assembly. In Scotland and Wales, the Scottish Office and Welsh Office had had years of experience of running a devolved administration. Civil servants simply switched across from one set of political bosses (Ministers) to another (the new elected Parliament or Assembly). Chilton and his senior colleagues had started with virtually nothing. There was clearly some tension between GOL (who wished to retain control of their project) and the increasingly-autonomous transition team. Chilton, for example, was blocked in attempting to create an external advisory group for his team’s work. The transition team brought together civil servants, local government officers, quango officials and private sector secondees. Chilton created different administrative functions within the soon-to-be Greater London Authority, but found it more difficult to shape the precise machinery the mayor and assembly would require. But, by May 2000, a minimalist administration was in place. GLA Transition Team members had built up extensive ring binders of information for the mayor and (and at shorter length) for the assembly members. Contents of these files included practical information about Romney House and the officials working within it, early warnings about the need for particular meetings and appointments and help with getting onto the payroll – all the GLA members were full-time and paid. What it was not possible to provide was a detailed ‘how to be a GLA member’ guide: the new politicians would have to work that out for themselves. In the days that followed, the mayor and assembly members had to start working out for themselves how to operate within the legislation that had set them up.

The early days of the GLA The first few days of the Greater London Authority involved euphoria, practicalities and a touch of farce. Within the first hour of victory,

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Mayor Livingstone travelled from the count (which had finally declared him elected at just after midday on Friday 5 May) to his new office. The crowds of journalists – many from overseas, fascinated to see Prime Minister Blair delivered a lesson in democracy – were so great at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre, that the new mayor had to be driven at high speed by the police to Romney House. The GLA Transition Team of officials was – with an echo of how new prime ministers are greeted when they first arrive at 10, Downing Street – assembled in the hall to welcome the new mayor. Hands were shaken with officials before Livingstone moved to his first floor office. During the rest of Friday and Saturday, the sleep-deprived mayor and assembly members began to get their bearings within their new offices. The Transition Team arranged breakfast for members on the Saturday morning. The Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and Greens all arrived to seek out offices for themselves. The nine Labour members met separately half a mile away in the headquarters of the Association of London Government. On learning that the other parties were laying claim to particular offices, Labour sent over an advance party to ensure they were not denied the best rooms. Later on the Saturday, the mayor toured the centre of London on his opentop campaign bus. Londoners welcomed him as enthusiastically as they had Livingstone the candidate. By the end of the weekend, the mayor and assembly members had oriented themselves just enough to start afresh on Monday morning. A whole new system of government had to be created. Moreover, for virtually all of the individuals involved the system was a curiosity. Executive mayors were new to Britain, as were assemblies with little more than scrutiny powers. For all 26 members of the GLA, the processes and politics for months ahead had to be made up as they went along. From the very first afternoon, Mayor Livingstone’s closest allies started to move into Romney House. A number of his key campaign workers moved into the building and started to look for offices. These top aides had been with the new mayor for some years, and were now to be rewarded with high office in the new regime. Both of Livingstone’s House of Commons researchers – Simon Fletcher and Mark Watts – were to be given roles in the administration. John Ross, who had been the new mayor’s economic adviser for a number of years, was charged with making an immediate start on relations with business. A crisis at Ford’s Dagenham works also needed short-term attention. These advisers and assistants were now in place to form the core of the Mayor’s Office. Fletcher became chief of staff and Ross senior economic adviser to the mayor. Many of the new GLA members had had experience of borough government, in some cases as borough leaders. Some had been leading members of

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city-wide committees between 1986 and 2000. Two assembly members as well as the mayor had been members of the Greater London Council (GLC). Ken Livingstone had been a member of the GLC from 1973 to 1986. He had also been a borough councillor – in Lambeth from 1973 to 1978 and in Camden from 1978 to 1982 (Carvel, 1999). Two Conservative assembly members, Bob Neill and Tony Arbour, had also been on the GLC. Assembly members who had previously been borough leaders were Len Duvall (Greenwich), Lord (Toby) Harris (Haringey), Valerie Shawcross (Croydon) John Biggs (Tower Hamlets) and Lord (Graham) Tope (Sutton). Nicky Gavron and Baroness (Sally) Hamwee had each been borough councillors and each had chaired the London Planning Advisory Committee, while Toby Harris had chaired the Association of London Government. Other ex-borough members were: Tony Arbour (Richmond), Richard Barnes (Hillingdon), Brian Coleman (Barnet), Roger Evans (Redbridge), Lynne Featherstone (Haringey), Samantha Heath (Wandsworth), Meg Hillier (Islington), Elizabeth Howlett (Wandsworth), Bob Neill (Havering), Eric Ollerenshaw (Hackney) and Andrew Pelling (Croydon). In total, thirteen out of fourteen constituency members had previously been borough councillors, compared with five out of eleven London-wide members (this number rose to six when Mike Tuffrey (Lambeth) joined the assembly in 2002). Thus, the overwhelming majority of assembly members had borough experience. Thus there were links both to the GLC and to borough government. The latter were probably more important, first because they were more recent and second because the boroughs continued to provide the bulk of local government services in the capital. The history of London is littered with disputes between upper and lower tiers of government (Davis, 1988). Indeed, the abolition of the GLC had in part been encouraged by one borough’s (Bromley) challenge of the GLC’s cheap public transport fares policy. Having a number of borough members or ex-members (particularly Labour and Liberal Democrat ones who had supported the re-creation of a London-wide authority) ought, it might be imagined, to encourage smooth relations between the GLA and the rest of London government. There were parallels between the first GLA membership, with its links to previous and lower-tier authorities and the first GLC. Of the 100 GLC members elected in 1964, 72 had been members of the London County Council (LCC), Middlesex County Council or one of the other predecessor authorities within the GLC area (Rhodes, 1970, p. 197). Many had also been metropolitan borough (that is, lower-tier) councillors within London. What was profoundly different, however, between the experiences of 1965 and of

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2000 was the extent to which the GLA had been able to prepare for office as compared with the GLC. The latter had had two years or more of preparation to create new administrative and political structures, while the GLA had barely had a year – and then with a skeleton staff. Many GLC senior members moved straight across from equivalent positions in the LCC or Middlesex (Rhodes, 1970, p. 198). The GLA members now had very different jobs to do. The mayor was the sole executive power within the new authority and could appoint a limited number of personal policy staff. Assembly members existed to scrutinize the mayor. The mayor appointed a number of assembly members to the boards running services such as fire, police and economic development. Staff appointments within the GLA were the responsibility of the assembly, though the officers concerned were there to implement the mayor’s policies. This was all very different from the GLC and boroughs on which many members had previously served. The early months of the new authority set up systems of working that reveal much about the new model of London government.

The Mayor’s Office The Greater London Authority Act, 1999 envisaged that the mayor would be able to appoint two political advisers. These appointments would be made personally by the mayor, and need not be subject to advertisement or interview. There would then be a policy unit of ten people, whose jobs would have to be advertised and the appointments made on merit. This personal staff of twelve would then be supplemented by all the other GLA staff, who were, in accordance with Section 67 of the Greater London Authority Act, to be appointed by the assembly ‘after consultation with the mayor’ (Greater London Authority Act, 1999). In the early weeks, the core team of mayoral advisers (Fletcher, Watts and Ross) was joined by a number of additional advisers: Neale Coleman had been politically active as a member of Westminster City Council; Lee Jasper was an expert on race issues and policing; and Kumar Murshid was a Tower Hamlets councillor involved in regeneration in East London. Soon after, John Duffy joined the team to deal with the environment. Redmond O’Neill, who had been involved politically with John Ross, Simon Fletcher and Mark Watts before the election, also joined the core team. In addition to these close advisers, Livingstone appointed Emma St Giles as his press officer and Maureen Charleson, who had, like Simon Fletcher and

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Mark Watts, worked with Livingstone at the House of Commons, to act as a personal secretary. The GLA Transition Team had created a preparatory Mayor’s Office to cope with invitations, letters and all other matters that were received in advance of the election. Richard Brown had fulfilled this role. In the weeks before May 2000, he was joined by David Hayward, who had previously worked in Nick Raynsford’s office. After the election, a mayoral personal assistant (Ruth Phillips) joined Brown and Hayward. Once the mayor was in office there was a need for a significantly more extensive private office. New GLA officials were brought in. Indeed, it was soon clear that the mayor’s office would be bigger than the two-plus-twelve model envisaged in the legislation. Although the original model would doubtless have added assembly-appointed officers to the policy advisers selected by the mayor and, therefore, would have created a Mayor’s Office of more than twelve people, Ken Livingstone chose to approach the issue differently. He struck a deal with the assembly whereby all of his office would, in effect, be assembly-appointed. In exchange, the assembly were given a new budget to appoint more research and support staff. This approach meant that it was possible to create a Mayor’s Office with over 30 people in it. Those appointed were a mixture of Livingstone’s closest advisers and non-political officers of the kind found in any regional or local authority. There appears not to have been a master-plan for creating the Mayor’s Office. People just moved in and started to work at tasks that had to be tackled immediately. The threatened closure of Ford’s Dagenham works preoccupied time in the early days of the new regime. There were very early meetings with representatives of London’s largest businesses. Much time was devoted to forging links with the existing full-time GLA staff and to logistical business such as which offices were used for particular purposes. The central core of the mayor’s operating system grew organically. Later on, in June and July 2000, new appointments were made to create an ‘outer office’ of people who were in the mayor’s immediate circle of officials, but not close advisers and confidants. There was a further increase during the summer of 2002, when functions such as the mayor’s press staff were brought into the Mayor’s Office. The most trusted core of the Mayor’s Office were Simon Fletcher, John Ross, Redmond O’Neill and Neale Coleman who had virtually immediate access to the mayor. Others in the core of the office were also available to see the mayor with ease. For example, personal secretary Maureen Charleson also had access. The extent of such proximity clearly depended upon the

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importance (to the mayor) of the particular subject concerned. Thus, on key transport appointments, the key advisers have been able to gain instant access when necessary. On other issues of lower importance, advisers would deal with issues at more formal meetings. A meeting of the mayor’s core advisers took place each morning. This was either chaired by Livingstone or, in the mayor’s absence, by chief of staff Simon Fletcher. Most or all of the senior advisers attended these meetings. Each Monday afternoon there is a meeting of the mayor’s management board, which involves the mayor, the core advisers, the GLA chief executive and senior GLA directors. The GLA chief executive sees the mayor several times a week, either at the mayor’s instigation or following a request from the chief executive. These arrangements held constant during the early years of the new authority.

Other mayoral appointments The law required the mayor to appoint a deputy mayor from the 25 assembly members. In a world where he had stood (as he had wished to) as the Labour candidate, he would doubtless have nominated one of the Labour potential members of the assembly as a deputy mayoral running-mate. But as an independent, he had not made any statement about who might be his deputy. There had been speculation that Darren Johnson, top of the Green Party ‘list’ might get the job, but no offer had apparently been made. In the immediate aftermath of the May election, the nine Labour assembly members were, in most cases, cautious of a mayor who had left their party in order to run against the official party candidate. Livingstone came up with the idea of four deputy mayors, one for each of the four years of his mayoral term. For the first year, he approached Nicky Gavron, assembly member for Enfield and Haringey, and a previous chair of the London Planning Advisory Committee. In exchange for the Labour group accepting her becoming deputy mayor, Gavron was – the media widely reported – required to convince Livingstone to commit himself to behave moderately towards the government. In particular, he was expected not to fight the public–private partnership for funding the tube. Whatever transpired between Gavron and the Labour group, and between Gavron and Livingstone, she became – and remained for three years – the deputy mayor. Rotation of the post between the parties represented on the assembly did not occur in the years that followed. The mayor had been given statutory responsibility for transport, economic development, police, fire and emergencies, strategic planning and the

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environment. He was required to appoint the full boards of Transport for London (TfL) and the London Development Agency (LDA), plus a majority of the members of the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) and the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA). In the case of the MPA and LFEPA, the mayor was required to appoint only assembly members to the relevant boards. The mayor was also required to appoint the chairs of TfL, the LDA and LFEPA. In the case of TfL, the law allowed the mayor to appoint himself to the post. The MPA were to appoint their own chair. Finally, the mayor was required to appoint the chief executives of TfL and the LDA. Livingstone thus had – potentially – enormous patronage powers in setting up the new boards to run key services. In creating a ‘presidential’ model of government for the capital, ministers had been aware of the need to ensure that the mayor was a powerful figure who would be seen as personally responsible for the standards of public services. Although there was a requirement for senior board and executive posts to be ‘Nolanized’, that is made in accordance with open and fair public procedures, the mayor could, within reason, appoint whom he chose. The question of patronage is considered in more detail below. John Ross, the mayor’s senior economic adviser, worked from early May 2000 on the selection of board members for the LDA. Elsewhere in England, regional development agencies had been set up in 1999. The legislation required that the majority of each RDA Board should have business experience. Ross consulted with the London Chamber of Commerce, the Confederation of British Industry and London First (the three major business organizations in the capital) and asked them, jointly, to put forward possible names for board membership. Other organizations such as the Trades Union Congress were also asked to put forward a named membership proposal. Negotiations took place with the assembly and the boroughs about who should take up the four places for elected members that were, potentially, available. There is no doubt that Ross, with Livingstone’s blessing, sought to be as business-friendly as possible in selecting the LDA membership. The only sticking point came when the mayor came to weigh up the ethnic balance of the proposed LDA membership: he felt the private sector had not tried hard enough to ensure there would be sufficient black and Asian representation on the board. Lists of possible names were sent backwards and forwards until the right balance was achieved. The LDA board, which was to be the first indication (in early June) of Livingstone’s mayoral style, was a skilful balance between on the one hand

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the mayor’s traditional interests in ethnic minority and trades union representation and, on the other hand, a very New Labour concern for full business involvement. The single most visible manifestation of how things would differ from Livingstone’s reign at the GLC was the appointment of Judith Mayhew as a board member. Mayhew was leader (properly titled ‘Chairman of the Policy and Resources Committee’) of the Corporation of London. As such, she had become a key, influential, figure in the complex world of the capital’s governance in the late 1990s. But more important was the fact that the 1980s Livingstone had been strongly committed to the abolition of the City. In 2000, Livingstone appointed the Corporation’s leader to a major role in the LDA. The chair of the LDA was George Barlow, who was also Chairman of the Peabody Trust, the highly successful charitable housing institution. Barlow was well placed to provide a socially responsible approach to development, though one which was not anti-business. Other LDA members included Honor Chapman, a partner at surveyors Jones Lang LaSalle, mayoral adviser Kumar Murshid, and businesspeople Michael Frye and George Kessler. Frye, Kessler, Barlow and Mayhew had all been on the predecessor ‘shadow’ organization, the London Development Partnership. One of the assembly members appointed to the Board was Len Duvall, who was (as will be explained later) to prove a crucially important figure within the new GLA. If the membership of the LDA board was seen as an example of the new, modernized, Livingstone, his appointment of the LDA chief executive proved rather different. Although surprisingly few of the new mayor’s former GLC allies had played any part in his election in 2000, a number were to re-emerge during the summer of that year. Michael Ward, a senior GLC committee chair during Livingstone’s County Hall administration, was the mayor’s choice to be Chief Executive of the LDA. For Livingstone critics, Ward’s appointment was a clear indicator that not everything was different from the GLC days. Ward had been the chief architect of the GLC’s London Industrial Strategy (Greater London Council, 1985). Few documents published by the Livingstone administration at County Hall better sum up the Council’s backward-looking, anti-business, world-view. The Strategy was deeply antipathetic towards many of the capital’s key industries, sought significantly to extend trades union power and urged the then government to consider protectionist policies. It had, to be fair, been produced against the backdrop of the Thatcher government’s assault on the British manufacturing economy during the period from 1979 to 1984. Nevertheless, as

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a road map for economic policy in London in 2000, the 1985 Strategy would have caused the business sector considerable alarm. But the economic strategy emerging from the London’s new leadership would owe little if anything to 1980s dirigisme. Ward himself had radically adapted his views to the new British economy. He had moved to Manchester after 1986, where he had successfully run the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES). CLES had become a leading promoter of post-Heseltine style economic regeneration, including a highly pragmatic approach to business involvement in local economic development. The LDA’s economic strategy, Strength Through Diversity (London Development Agency, 2001) was light years removed from the London Industrial Strategy. If the appointment of the LDA board and chief executive was the mayor’s first major action, there is little doubt that he had singled out transport as his number one priority. The poor condition of London’s Underground and bus services meant opinion polls consistently showed transport as the issue Londoners most wanted to see the mayor tackle. Livingstone had realized that unless he improved public transport, he would be judged a failure. As a sign of the importance he attached to transport, the new mayor decided that he would chair Transport for London. He appointed another ex-GLC colleague, Dave Wetzel, who had chaired the GLC Transport Committee, as vice-chair. In further efforts at a grand-coalition approach to the GLA, he put both his Conservative and Liberal Democrat mayoral opponents (Steve Norris and Susan Kramer) on the board of TfL, though Norris resigned in the autumn of 2001. Further appointments ranged from business people such as David Quarmby, chairman of the British Tourist Authority and also of the Docklands Light Railway, and Mike Hodgkinson, chief executive of BAA, the airports operator. Academics Stephen Glaister (of Imperial College) and Rob Lane (University of Westminster) were put on the board, as were a number of trades unionists, including Jimmy Knapp, the general secretary of the RMT, one of the key unions involved with the Tube. Knapp died during 2001. Quarmby and Glaister had both in the past been members of London Transport. Lane had been an officer who had worked with Livingstone at the GLC. Another ex-GLC member, Paul Moore, was also appointed. During 2002, Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT union was appointed to the TfL board. Given the RMT’s willingness to inflict strikes on London passengers, the latter’s appointment was controversial. TfL was a blatant cobbling-together of ex-GLC style members with New Livingstone ‘Big Tent’ members. Union power was relatively strongly represented, as were ex-GLC Livingstone allies. But there were others, notably

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Norris, Kramer, Quarmby, Hodgkinson and Glaister who were unlikely ever to accede to a radical, left-wing, agenda. Below the main board, a number of ‘business boards’ were briefly set up to deal with detailed issues such as bus services, rail, finance and performance. The mayor’s staff had commissioned consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers to undertake an international head-hunt for the chief executive of TfL. Livingstone was on the record as a bitter critic of the existing management of transport in the capital and in particular of London Underground. The title of the chief officer was aggrandized to ‘Commissioner of Transport’ and the man appointed was as stellar as the new title suggested: Robert R. Kiley, one-time CIA officer who had moved effortlessly between the public and private sectors, and who had been Chairman and Chief Executive of New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority during the 1980s and early 1990s. In this time, he had used resources raised from revenue bonds (a form of borrowing) to push the New York Subway from a nightmare of graffiti and crime into a period of relatively modern, air-conditioned, revival. Once headhunters had advertised internationally and found Bob Kiley, Livingstone and a number of members of his entourage worked hard to ensure he accepted the job. Livingstone decided that a £2 million house in central London should be bought for his new commissioner, in addition to a salary amounting to £2 million over four years. This made the new Transport Commissioner the highest paid public official in Britain. Kiley was universally acclaimed as a brilliant appointment. The Evening Standard welcomed his appointment with the banner headline ‘NEW YORK TOUGH GUY TO RUN THE TUBE’ (Murray, 2000). Kiley got on well with journalists and was widely deemed worth his large salary. The London glitterati treated Kiley and his wife like royalty. Most interestingly, he was precisely the kind of man Prime Minister Tony Blair believed should be running public services in Britain. The other two boards responsible for services in London were rather different from the LDA and TfL. The Metropolitan Police Authority and the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority had, according to the Greater London Authority Act, to have a majority of mayor-appointed members. However, such members had to be appointed from members of the assembly. The assembly members had, by law, to reflect the political strength of the four political parties on the GLA. Livingstone allowed the parties to select their members for the twelve positions he had to fill on the MPA and the seven on the LFEPA. No effort appears to have been made by the mayor to ensure that his appointees would pursue any particular agenda. There did, however, prove to be two matters

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of difficulty, though neither related to assembly member appointments. The first came about because Livingstone wanted his police adviser, Lee Jasper, to sit on the MPA. As Jasper was not an assembly member, the only way he could become a member of the MPA would be either as an appointment of the Home Secretary or as one of a number of independent members selected using a complex system required by law. Jasper failed to be selected. The second difficulty occurred when the Association of London Government (representing the boroughs) put forward a particular individual – Tony Ritchie – as one of their six proposed members of the new fire authority. Ritchie was a long-serving member of Southwark council who had chaired the predecessor London Fire and Civil Defence Authority (LFCDA). Livingstone was powerfully unenthusiastic about accepting the ex-Chair of the LFCDA as one of his appointees of the new LFEPA. After an awkward period of disagreement between the mayor’s office and the ALG, Ritchie was quietly dropped. Livingstone appointed Labour assembly member Val Shawcross as Chair of LFEPA. Soon after, the Chief Fire Officer was, like his transport equivalent, given the new title of ‘Commissioner’. Despite having no power to decide the chair of the MPA, Livingstone simply announced that another leading Labour member, Lord (Toby) Harris would be chair of the MPA. The authority of the mayor’s electoral legitimacy appears to have been sufficient to place Harris in the top job: the MPA voted him chair without opposition. The GLA Act gave the mayor no power to appoint the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. Livingstone inherited Sir John Stevens in this post. The latter had only recently been appointed by the Home Secretary (in fact, technically, by the Queen). During the passage of the GLA Act, the choice of the police commissioner had been jealously retained by the Home Office, who had merely allowed the mayor to be consulted about candidates. This distant link between the mayor and the police commissioner is in marked contrast to the direct power of appointment given to the mayor over the equivalent original transport and economic development posts. A fifth body had, by law, to be appointed by the mayor. The Cultural Strategy Group was purely advisory, though given the importance of the arts and culture to the London economy, it was potentially very influential. Livingstone appointed Yasmin Anwar, a Channel 4 television executive, to chair the Group, plus more than 20 members. These included representatives from a wide range of types of institution, including both established bodies such as London Arts (the regional Arts Council board) and the Tate, as well as a number of more local and multi-cultural representatives. Three assembly members were also appointed.

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The process of appointing the boards and chief officers of the four functional bodies and the Cultural Strategy Group took from 5 May till late autumn. Even then, many of the second-tier officers and the administrative configuration of the institutions concerned were not completed. The process of fully equipping the GLA and what became known as its ‘family’ probably took a full year to complete. The effort of doing so proved draining for the mayor and his closest advisers. Inevitably the GLA and functional body procedures were often less than perfect. More problematically for the mayor, it proved virtually impossible to undertake effective work on strategies, budgets or the operation of key services during the first year of the mayoralty. Boards met in public. The mayor and assembly were agreed that openness should be achieved wherever possible. However, the theoretical efforts to provide the media and public with papers about GLA activities was inevitably undermined by a number of factors. First, many items of business of the boards running services had to be taken in private. Matters to do with employment and some financial items were considered with the public excluded from meetings. Some papers produced during the early months of the GLA were, perhaps inevitably, thin. Documents produced within functional bodies were rarely made public – although the same was true when they were controlled by central government or the boroughs. Moreover, the mayor was willing to claim that some advice was privileged – for example, in the case of legal advice given to TfL about congestion charging (Greater London Authority, 2000). Most importantly, it was clear to a number of board members and staff that the mayor’s closest advisers were preparing positions that were not made public. The balance between public access to papers and the need for an executive to operate with confidential advice and discussion is an inevitable issue in democratic governments. The GLA, as a new authority, was able to provide public access to papers and, in some cases, live coverage of meetings via the internet. But whether the level of information available was any greater than in, say, the Scottish Parliament or Welsh Assembly is not certain. Mr Livingstone’s early commitment to an open GLA appeared to have led to no greater openness or freedom of information than might be found in a traditional council. Indeed, the nature of mayoral government may work against such openness. The advisory cabinet Ministers had always envisaged that the mayor of London might choose to appoint a ‘cabinet’ of, for example, the chairs of the functional boards and

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possibly a number of key advisers (DETR, 1997). Ken Livingstone took this idea very much further and constructed an advisory board or cabinet of over 20 people. Originally it was planned this body would meet every week, though eventually the frequency slipped from once a fortnight to once a month. The so-called cabinet met at Romney House (later City Hall) and was chaired by the mayor. It consisted of all the key individuals who chaired the LDA, MPA, LFEPA, the Cultural Strategy Group, the deputy mayor, leading members from the Liberal Democrats and Greens, plus a range of outsiders. Livingstone’s efforts to be ‘inclusive’ extended to appointing Judith Mayhew (also a member of the LDA) to represent the interests of the City of London. Three members of parliament were initially involved: John McDonnell who had been Livingstone’s deputy at the GLC until they fell out, Diane Abbott, a radical left-winger, and Glenda Jackson, one of Livingstone’s two opponents for the Labour Party mayoral nomination. Later in the summer of 2000, leading architect Lord (Richard) Rogers joined the advisory cabinet to take responsibility for matters of design and architecture. However, the lack of any executive authority meant attendance at the advisory cabinet’s meetings fell away during 2001 and 2002. The purpose of the advisory cabinet was explained in a paper produced as early as 10 May 2000. Members were not to be bound by collective responsibility, as they would be in the prime minister’s cabinet, were encouraged to offer honest advice, and were free to criticize the mayor in public. As such, the cabinet was more akin to an advisory committee and therefore very different in kind from the equivalent cabinet that might have existed under another mayor. As it turned out in the early years of the GLA, the mayor’s closest advisers formed something that was far closer to a prime ministerial cabinet, providing private advice and policy formation at the heart of the Livingstone administration. The advisory cabinet soon found itself effectively redundant.

Mayoral commissions The mayor (like the assembly) has power to set up commissions and committees to consider any issue that appears to require one. Livingstone appointed a Housing Commission chaired by Chris Holmes, then director of the housing charity Shelter, and a Health Commission chaired by Ansel Wong. The latter body had almost 40 members and was clearly a careful attempt to keep a wide range of interests on side. Those represented included key mayoral advisers, health authorities, the boroughs, doctors, nurses, public health

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professionals, the Government Office for London, Transport for London, the assembly and the voluntary sector. The housing commission had a significantly smaller, though similarly representative, membership. A third committee was set up to review the Notting Hill Carnival. The 2000 Carnival had led to violence, murders and subsequent calls for a smaller or dispersed event. The mayor’s response was to create a small review group, chaired by one of his main advisers (Lee Jasper) and including the police, race relations experts, an events specialist and the local assembly member (Angie Bray). The early inquiry committees and commissions set up by Ken Livingstone either resulted from a manifesto commitment (health) or as a response to changing circumstances or events (housing, the Notting Hill Carnival) Later Commissions considered Crime and Community Safety, Equalities Policy and the Environment. It seems likely that mayors will resort to committees of this kind when they see particular political needs. In some cases, as with the carnival, it will be in the attempt to ensure something takes place. On other occasions, such bodies may be more useful as a way of providing a sounding board and a way of ensuring that a wide policy community feels involved in the mayor’s activities.

The assembly The assembly had no route-map to guide them as they set about their work. The GLA Act had outlined limited functions for its 25 members, including a duty to scrutinize the mayor’s budget, policies and actions. The assembly was an entirely new kind of institution. Unlike existing local authority memberships, it did not necessarily involve the appointment of committees to run particular services. For most of the members, particularly those who had had experience of running large London boroughs, it was difficult to think themselves into such a new-style way of operating. The law required the assembly to meet at least ten times a year. The pattern set during 2000–01 was to hold full plenary sessions about once a month at which the mayor was questioned. One-off meetings on particular issues – either with the mayor or other witnesses – were also held. An early session of this kind took place with the senior management of Fords about the future of their Dagenham plant. During 2002, the assembly took the political lead to hold an emergency hearing into a series of strikes affecting the Underground.

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The chair and vice-chair of the assembly were agreed at its first plenary session during May 2000: Trevor Phillips (Labour) became the chair and Baroness (Sally) Hamwee (LibDem) the vice-chair, on the agreement that these positions would rotate annually. That is, Hamwee would become chair in 2001. In July 2000, the assembly agreed to create a number of committees to oversee particular aspects of mayoral responsibility plus other short-term scrutiny review panels. This pattern was changed during 2002, when seven standing scrutiny committees were created, covering: Budget; Culture, Sport and Tourism; Economic and Social Development; Environment; Health; Planning and Spatial Development; and Transport. The assembly’s constituent parties each chose a leader: Labour appointed Toby Harris; the Conservatives, Bob Neill; the Liberal Democrats, Graham Tope; and the Greens, Darren Johnson. In 2002, Bob Neill was replaced by Eric Ollerenshaw as Tory leader. Very early after the May election, Labour and the Liberal Democrats signed a protocol which, in effect, created a centre–left working majority on the assembly (with 13 out of 25 members). Many Labour and Liberal Democrat assembly members had worked together before in the Association of London Government. Moreover, there were few ideological differences between most members of the two groups. It was on the basis of this agreement that the chair and deputy chair were appointed, much to the chagrin of the Conservatives. The Greens made it clear they were broadly supportive of the protocol, though Labour and the Liberal Democrats were not willing to let them formally sign it. The Lab–Lib majority made efforts to ensure that the Conservatives were not excluded from important positions. Early in the life of the new administration, there was a fear that the Tories would resort to outright oppositionism, given the left-leaning of both the mayor and assembly. The Conservatives, as they were keen to point out, had won the largest number of ‘constituency’ votes in the May election. If the party were to be wholly excluded from power on the assembly, they would have had few options but outright, negative, opposition. An agreement between the parties gave the Conservatives a number of the original chair and deputy chair positions. Richard Barnes was made chair of the Standing Orders Committee and, though not an assembly decision, deputy chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority. Tony Arbour chaired Planning and Eric Ollerenshaw the Economic Development Committee. The Liberal Democrats, in addition to the ‘rotating’ chair of the assembly were given the chair of Transport Policy (Lynne Featherstone) and the

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deputy chair of the Environment Committee (Louise Bloom). Sally Hamwee also chaired the Budget Committee. The Greens’ Victor Anderson was made deputy chair of Planning. Labour’s John Biggs became chair of the Transport Performance Committee, while Meg Hillier chaired Housing and Samantha Heath the Environment Committee (these original chair allocations changed somewhat after the 2002 reforms). Most crucially, Len Duvall was made chair of the Appointments Committee. This last position was perhaps the single most important position on the assembly in its early months. It may remain so, depending on the individual holding the chair. Len Duvall, the ex-leader of Greenwich, had been, with Toby Harris, Sally Hamwee, Graham Tope and Nicky Gavron, one of the most influential borough members in London government during the mid-to-late 1990s. He had pioneered co-operative working with Conservative ministers between 1992 and 1997, leading to a large number of regeneration projects in Greenwich. Skilled and likeable, he was a tough traditional London politician, but nevertheless an entirely modernized kind of Labour operator. As chair of the Appointments Committee, Duvall guided the process of appointing all the GLA’s senior staff – including Mayor Livingstone’s original office. This process relied upon Duvall’s skills as a broker: he needed to be able to agree short-lists of candidates with the mayor. On some occasions this was for posts which the mayor himself wanted filled with particular individuals and on some occasions when the assembly was appointing senior GLA officers to service both the mayor and assembly. As the mayor was the executive part of the GLA, it was essential that key officers were acceptable to him. Duvall had to ensure that his four-party Appointments Committee did not leave Livingstone with officers the mayor might have felt were unacceptable. Duvall fulfilled the role of what in Parliament would be called the ‘usual channels’. That is, he personally created a system for the assembly to work with the mayor, at least in the making of key appointments. There is no doubt he was broadly trusted by assembly members of all parties and, of course, he operated with the authority of the Lab–Lib protocol behind him. Although his role was formally limited to appointments (and then as only one member of a ten-strong committee) it is clear his role was pivotal in creating an operating link between the mayor and assembly. The formal arrangement set up to allow the assembly and mayor to communicate was the Bureau of Leaders, a name borrowed from European Union institutions. This institution became the closest to a leadership the

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GLA developed during its early years, having been set up to act as a forum for the key members of the authority to meet and discuss issues. The Bureau consisted of the leaders of the four parties on the assembly, the chair and deputy chair. The mayor was not a member, but was invited to attend. The chair of the Appointments Committee has also attended its meetings, particularly during the period when key appointments were being made during the summer of 2000. Although the Bureau undertakes some mediating activity, for example in determining procedures and operating rules for the mayor–assembly relationship, it was not seen as a key element in the GLA’s operations during the first years of the GLA. Indeed, attendance was often poor. The Bureau originally met once a week, though from the end of 2000 the frequency dropped to once a fortnight. Senior GLA officers, including the Chief Executive and other directors, also attend the meetings. The chair and deputy chair of the assembly meet the senior officers responsible for running authority business in advance of assembly meetings for a ‘call-over’ of business. These meetings are attended by a ‘business manager’ from each party; during the early years of the GLA, these party representatives were: Eric Ollerenshaw (Conservative), Meg Hillier (Labour), Graham Tope (Liberal Democrat) and Victor Anderson (Green). The purpose of these pre-meetings was to ensure that the chair knew what was likely to happen and for parties to have an informal way of alerting each other to potential procedural or political conflicts. The 25-strong assembly was small by the standards of other major city councils overseas and, indeed, compared to other British regional or local authorities. Birmingham City Council has 117 members and the average London borough between 60 and 70 councillors. New York City Council consists of 51 members while Paris City Council has 173. Having such a small number of members had three consequences. First, it gave prominence to a greater proportion of them than would have been possible in a larger body. Most assembly members held one office or another. Insofar as the media publicized the activities of the assembly, a significant number of members were mentioned. The second consequence was that members complained that it was difficult for them to be available for all the different scrutiny committees and functional board meetings that were generated. Thirdly (and related to the second) the small number of members inevitably limited the number of committees and other bodies that the assembly could set up. Neither the assembly nor outside commentators argued the assembly was too small. Another possible benefit from its size (though one that is difficult

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to quantify) is the relatively harmonious working relationship that developed between members in different party groups on the assembly. With only 25 members and no direct executive powers, most members could develop reasonably close working relationships with each other. The chairs of both the police and fire authorities were constituency members, as were the leaders of both the Conservative and Labour groups. The chair of the Appointments Committee (a key role during the early days of the GLA) was also elected to a constituency, as was the deputy mayor. The assembly chair and deputy chair were list members, as was the chair of the budget committee. On balance, however, it does appear that constituency members tended to be appointed to the more senior posts, as compared with their top-up list colleagues.

GLA officers In the first year of the GLA, all the authority’s senior posts had to be filled for the first time. The posts of chief executive, senior directors and, as it turned out, the whole of the Mayor’s Office had to be appointed. Interim chief executive Bob Chilton insisted that jobs were advertised, short-lists were drawn up and the Appointments Committee was involved in the appointments. With more junior positions, Duvall acted on behalf of the committee. In the case of the chief executive, the whole committee was involved. The role of Duvall was pivotal. The Appointments Committee appointed Anthony Mayer as chief executive. Mayer had had an unusual pedigree, in both the public and private sectors. He headed the civil service team that had invented the community charge (better known as the ‘poll tax’) between 1984 and 1985 (Butler et al., 1994). From here he moved to N. M. Rothschild, the merchant bank, and then to run the Housing Corporation, a quango responsible for funding and regulating non-profit housing associations. He had been interim chief executive of Transport for London (appointed by Whitehall) since February 2000. Mayer’s background was hence in central government and the top end of the City. He was a clever, well-connected, larger-than-life, part of the British political establishment. In appointing him and overlooking the wellqualified borough chief executives who had applied, the assembly was undoubtedly, in part, making a statement about the regional rather than local nature of the GLA. Senior GLA staff came from a mixture of backgrounds. Within Mayer’s office, Steve Watts was appointed as ‘Head of Governance’. Watts had been a

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civil servant on the team that had drafted the original green and white papers on London government in 1997 and 1998, had helped write the legislation and had seen it through Parliament. Well-connected, jolly and irreverent, he shared with Mayer an approach to government that was a considerable way removed from that of traditional civil servant or local government officer. Other leading appointments included Mollie Bickerstaff, who was brought in from accountants KPMG to be Director of Administration (in effect, head of all assembly staff). Bickerstaff had been seconded to the Audit Commission and was known to be a no-nonsense manager who could cope with the complex demands of assembly members within the awkward framework of the GLA legislation. Charlotte Rowe, who had worked at the London Tourist Board and was welllinked within the London scene, was briefly brought in as Director of Communications. Other senior managers included Jeff Jacobs, from the civil service, as Director of Strategy, and Greg Lomax (also with a Whitehall background) who was brought in to oversee the completion of the Spatial Development Strategy. The mayor later appointed a senior public relations consultant, Joy Johnson, as his chief press officer. Rowe, Bickerstaff and Lomax all moved on after a relatively short time in their jobs. This eclectic set of backgrounds provided the new institution with strength. On the one hand, the GLA was not just a big county council, staffed by traditional local government professionals. On the other hand, it did not inherit (as the Scottish and Welsh governments had) a central government cadre of civil servants. Whereas the Greater London Council had, in 1964–5, taken virtually all its staff from the London and Middlesex County Councils, the GLA became a distinctly post-modern, public– private, institution. But the calibre of the GLA’s staff was not sufficient to guarantee the institution would be able to deliver effective government. The system itself – and the mayor’s actions – would determine how the new machinery would work in practice. Middle-ranking and lower level GLA staff had either been employed in advance of May 2000 or, in a number of cases, inherited from the three predecessor (borough-controlled) bodies that were enveloped by the new authority. Thus, a number of officers from the London Planning Advisory Committee (LPAC), the London Research Centre (LRC) and the London Ecology Unit (LEU) found themselves within the GLA’s core staff. In the case of LPAC, former chief planner Martin Simmons took initial charge of the GLA’s strategic planning responsibilities. David Goode, ex-Director of the LEU was given officer responsibility for environmental strategy. However, there were difficulties in merging the inherited staff into the new bureaucracy that emerged within Romney House. Senior officers

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within the GLA (many of whom had been in the transition team before 5 May 2000) questioned the appropriateness of some of the staff – inherited from the predecessor, borough, bodies – to fulfil their new duties in the GLA. Equally, a number of the inherited staff resented the changes that were required to their work programmes and conditions. Some of the transferred staff had done jobs within their borough-controlled committees that were not needed within the GLA. Squabbles about pay and conditions from time to time emerged into the media (see, for example, Muir, 2000). But the biggest difficulty the GLA staff had was in providing effective services both for the mayor and assembly. In the new system of London government, the legislation had given the Assembly the power to determine administrative structures and appoint all the GLA staff. The GLA Transition Team had been in place for some months before 5 May 2000, though all its senior officers were on short-term contracts. The assembly had to appoint a permanent chief executive and then agree a longer-term staffing structure. As these senior staff were to be the mayor’s executive arm, there was clearly a need for communication and agreement between the assembly’s appointments committee and the Mayor’s Office. As observed earlier, the chair of the Appointments Committee and the mayor himself formed an informal working agreement which made it possible for the two sides to agree how to proceed. In the first year of the GLA, a serious problem arose. The Mayor’s Office (most notably the coterie of loyalists) appeared unwilling to trust their inherited staff (or even some of the newly-appointed ones) to undertake the most important duties required by the mayor. Thus, tasks which the mayor considered crucial, such as the appointment of the Commissioner for Transport and control of the budgetary process, were undertaken directly by the mayor’s core advisers. At the same time, the assembly commenced their scrutiny of mayoral actions using advice and assistance largely bought in from outside consultants rather than from GLA staff. Key mayoral actions were carefully implemented by the mayor’s closest advisers. Trusted officers, including John Ross, Redmond O’Neill, Simon Fletcher, Neale Coleman and Mark Watts would control access to the mayor and would act on Livingstone’s behalf in dealings with senior staff at Transport for London, the London Development Agency, influential outsiders and even the media. The boards of TfL, the LDA and other functional bodies were often by-passed by mayoral advisers in their dealings with Commissioners and other senior officers. At TfL, the position was made even more complex by the fact that the mayor was also chair of the board. In the preparation of budgets and key policies, the board only found out about key

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decisions after they had been made by the mayor’s office in conjunction with senior officers at TfL. GLA officers were also by-passed by mayoral advisers. The development of the Mayors’s congestion charging policy provides a good case study. A consultation paper was worked up and published by the late summer of 2000 by a small number of GLA and TfL staff tightly controlled by the mayor’s closest advisers. The consultation paper was published before the board of TfL had seen or approved it. Subsequent development work was undertaken within TfL by officials working closely with the mayor. Neither the TfL board nor the overwhelming majority of GLA staff were involved in the propagation and early implementation of congestion charging. Similarly, when the mayor – as chair of TfL – decided to change key TfL staff, such as the original head of street management and the equivalent bus director, he did so operating through his office not via the board. Relations with the LDA were different in part because Livingstone was more relaxed about the potential electoral impact of its policies and in part because its chief executive (Michael Ward) was himself a trusted ally from GLC days. But, as at TfL, the influence of John Ross, the mayor’s economic adviser, on LDA activities was significantly greater than that of core GLA officers. Ross also oversaw – during 2002 – the creation of GLA Economics, an in-house research centre to study the capital’s economy. The assembly, for their part, wished to start their work of scrutiny and policy-shaping. They found two obstacles to progress. First, there were not – in the first year – enough staff for their needs. They required clerks and researchers, neither of which were available in sufficient numbers. Second, it is clear that many assembly members were concerned about the potential conflict facing GLA staff who, rightly or wrongly, were seen as working for the mayor – or, more awkwardly, as likely to communicate with the mayor’s office about assembly activity. The solution to the assembly’s problems was found in the vast number of freelance researchers, consultancies and academics available in the capital. This chattering network provided a ready-made source of expertise for the assembly to tap into for their early scrutinies of the mayor. Researchers were invited to put in bids to assist the assembly for fixed periods to undertake a particular piece of work. GLA staff put in place the tendering process and managed the consultants. But almost all of the research, assembly of witnesses and writing of reports was done by the outsiders. Once again, GLA staff involvement was minimized.

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This is not to say that all GLA staff were excluded from mayoral and assembly work. Some of the ex-Transition Team and other, inherited, staff worked with the mayor on transport and planning policy. They also took the lead in dealing with matters of lower salience to the mayor, such as efforts to organize a New Year’s Eve fireworks party and a struggle to remove pigeons (or at least their food seller) from Trafalgar Square. As it happens, both the examples quoted landed the mayor in farcical situations that led the media to question his power to deliver. A small number of GLA staff worked successfully with the assembly in creating the administration of the scrutiny process. But, overall, the GLA’s staff outside the Mayor’s Office struggled to find a consistent and effective role. This struggle was intensified by the lack of fit (described above) between many of the inherited staff and the needs of the mayor and assembly. During 2001 and 2002, full-time staff were employed to provide a working system for the assembly’s scrutiny responsibilities. Mollie Bickerstaff took responsibility for all GLA officials dealing with scrutiny. She and other colleagues brought in (from Parliament and local government) were able to establish themselves as an independent, insulated, service for the assembly. Thus, the earlier problems of assembly members being concerned about the independence of their staff, was overcome.

Conclusion It is worth remembering that on the day the GLC was abolished in 1986, it had over 10,000 professional staff based at County Hall and other offices. By such standards, the GLA was a modest bureaucracy (by mid-2003 it had between 550 and 600 staff at its core). Mayor Livingstone appeared content to operate the functional bodies at arm’s-length, without creating a vast cadre of officials around him. The component parts of London’s new metropolitan government are analysed in the next chapter. But one immediate observation about the process of setting up the GLA should be made here: that is, the nearimpossibility of setting up a complex bureaucracy and operating major public services at the same time. The first Greater London Council elections took place in May 1964, almost a year before members took over their responsibilities. The GLC administrative machine was set up over a period of two years, with a joint committee of the former councils (the London County Council and others) and new authority during 1964–5 (Rhodes, 1970). Even the abolition of the GLC had occurred with a run-in of about

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a year and a ‘residuary body’ for five years beyond 1986 (Hebbert and Edge, 1994). All the recent reorganizations of local government in Britain – of which there had been many – had involved shadow-running for a year before the new councillors assumed power. In Scotland and Wales there had been no period of shadow-running, but in each case there had been a pre-existing government department which was simply able to switch its political ownership in May 1999. But with the GLA there was virtually no run-in period. The election took place on 4 May 2000, with a full hand-over of responsibilities eight weeks later on 3 July. Once the mayor was elected, he was instantly seen as being in charge and behaved accordingly. Although his budget and staffing had been set in place by Whitehall, he had immediate powers (whether actual or assumed) to spend money, change staff and determine relationships with outside bodies. Ken Livingstone had to move without pause for breath straight from a gruelling electoral campaign to being mayor of London. As a result, a typical day during the early months of the GLA involved the mayor in lengthy meetings about the appointment of board members and key staff; negotiations with key advisers about early policy work; day-today firefighting; dealing with vast media interest and an enormous number of routine public appearances. All of these functions would have faced, say, a new mayor of New York or any other major city. But the need to set up the four functional boards and to appoint senior core staff was a lengthy and laborious process, made more complex by the new requirements about public appointments that stemmed from Lord Nolan’s work on standards in public life. In effect, Livingstone had to run a shadow authority and a real one in parallel. Any future reorganization of London or regional government (and even so soon after the first GLA election, further reform cannot be ruled out) would be well advised to look at the extraordinary pressure put on the GLA Transition Team during late 1999 and early 2000. Similar pressures affected the mayor and his Office during the whole of the first two years of the GLA. A new city-wide authority for a place as big as London was a serious and complex business. Whitehall badly underestimated just how serious and complex.

5 Capital Idea? The GLA in Practice No one could have known how the GLA Act would work in practice. British government institutions, at the national, regional and local level, develop organically within their original legislative framework. The new London arrangements were no exception. By the end of the first year of the GLA’s existence, both the mayor and assembly had (separately) considered their methods of operation. Day-to-day running of the Authority had made clear a number of strengths and weaknesses in the original legislation. In this chapter, we analyse the key institutions of the GLA: the Mayor’s Office, the assembly, the GLA staff and the functional bodies, and the relations between them.

Mayoral government comes to Britain By the middle of 2002, the mayor had appointed an office of about 35 individuals, including his closest advisers, administrative officers and secretarial staff. To these were added a number of others, notably part of the mayor’s press office. Most of these staff were GLA officials, having been subject to the normal appointment procedures involving the assembly’s Appointments Committee. At the centre of the Mayor’s Office was a small core of key individuals who acted as the policy arm for the executive part of the GLA, though some of their activities included more executive-style functions. These officers were and are the mayor’s core operating system. They have immediate access to the mayor and can be relied upon by those outside the central core of the Mayor’s Office accurately to reflect the mayor’s policies and aspirations. Such a core of key, trusted, advisers is an inevitable part of a mayoral system of government. A single individual cannot realistically undertake all the tasks that in a parliamentary or traditional British local government system would be undertaken by a cabinet or collective leadership. The first mayor of London has understandably evolved a Mayor’s Office with a closely-knit loyal, private staff. However, it is hard for those outside the 106

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GLA (or even those inside it) fully to understand the role of these advisers. For the sake of transparency and accountability, the identities and roles of the crucial individuals who give policy directions on the mayor’s behalf should be made clear. It would also be better for the individuals concerned if their importance to the London government system (and, in particular, the fact that they speak with the mayor’s authority) were more widely understood. One way of extending the capacity of the Mayor’s Office would have been for the mayor to use some or all of the twelve political adviser and mayoral appointment posts originally envisaged in the GLA Act. Such posts could be used to create special positions for leading advisers, possibly with new titles and job descriptions. They might also strengthen the mayor’s team with individuals who combined political and executive experience. The considerable demands (see the following paragraphs) on the small number of officials at the core of the existing Mayor’s Office could then be spread more effectively – with the possibility that the mayor could assume greater control over the functional bodies – if their numbers were somewhat increased and the existing individuals were more widely recognized as being of ‘deputy mayor’ or ‘assistant mayor’ status. Livingstone did start to use these direct political adviser-type appointments during his mid-term, appointing several senior officers without assembly appointments committee approval (Livingstone, 2002). Ken Livingstone’s style of government was in some ways highly reminiscent of American presidential or mayoral systems, yet in other ways it borrowed tools from prime ministerial approaches to government. Experience of directly-elected officials in other countries, notably the United States, suggests individuals elected as mayors, governors or presidents tend to accumulate around themselves a group of paid (though occasionally unpaid) officials who can be trusted to provide loyal advice and to give policy directions to the chief officers of the key services for which the elected official is responsible (Ammons and Newell, 1989). Indeed, the office of British Prime Minister has in recent years developed in such a way as to include presidential elements such as ‘kitchen cabinets’, political press officers, policy units and the like (Jones, 1990). A number of commentators have concluded the prime minister needs a separate department of state to operate effectively. The ‘kenocracy’ as it was sometimes known, consisted of a small group of trusted staff who provided a kind of ‘kitchen cabinet’, with an array of more distant players such as the deputy mayor, advisory cabinet members, board appointees, commission appointments and others with access.

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The set-up at 10 Downing Street, with its tiny group of prime ministerial advisers, the policy unit and the rather more distant Cabinet Office is an obvious parallel within British politics. The idea of a group of close and trusted advisers surrounding a directlyelected executive is generally a part of mayoral politics in the United States. New York’s mayor from 1994 to 2001, Rudolph Giuliani, surrounded himself with a small group of loyal advisers and deputy mayors (Kirtzman, 2000). Although the close team changed from time to time, it was consistent in the sense that the mayor demanded, and got, total dedication and discretion from his closest staff. When Michael Bloomberg became Mayor of New York in 2002, he included within his administration several leading members who had not previously worked him. As described above, the mayor’s close advisers operated directly – often bypassing GLA officers and even board members – in their relations with functional bodies or the wider world. This is a pattern of behaviour entirely consistent with the way Giuliani or Bloomberg ran New York. But in two respects, the Livingstone administration was entirely different from the norm in mayoral or presidential systems in the United States. First, the first London mayor moved virtually all his campaign team and previous advisers directly into positions within his office at Romney House. Second, he created a ‘big tent’ of advisory cabinet and board appointees that bore little resemblance to anything within either US or British local government. The direct transfer of the campaign team into the mayor’s office (with very few additions) is not the norm in US cities (Kirtzman, 2000). What is more traditional is that some campaign team members are moved into the mayor’s office while other individuals with additional talents are drafted in. The reason for bringing in such new blood is simple: the people who take part in campaigns may not be the best ones to run the office of an executive with responsibilities to deliver services to a large city. Mayors of cities such as London and New York cannot conceivably do everything themselves. Moreover, they need ‘enforcers’ to ensure that particular goals are achieved and to take day-to-day responsibility for services. To be effective, such individuals need to be knowledgeable about the services or tasks for which they are responsible. Mayors need people on the inside who can give instructions to the senior officers of major functional bodies such as the Commissioners for police or transport. Livingstone’s lieutenants were not enforcers of this kind. They were effective at providing the mayor with a ‘private office’ function and with tactical advice: they attended meetings and controlled the micromanagement of the GLA and its functional bodies. But what they initially

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found difficult was in providing the capacity to deliver complex governmental solutions to the major problems facing the capital. The institutions involved in London government such as the Metropolitan Police, London Transport (now partly embraced within Transport for London), the boroughs, the health service and many other bodies were used to doing things in particular, traditional, ways. For a London mayor to change anything, he or she would need to use all the influence and legitimacy available to them. Livingstone’s office, while intelligent and generally benign, did not always give the impression of a powerful city government machine. This novelty and at times confusion was reflected in the views of external organizations that had to deal with the fledgling GLA in its first years of life. The internal organization, at least in the early days, has been described as shambolic and disorganized. Generally, there is a lot of support and respect from a range of organizations for the energy, visibility and legitimacy of the mayor: ‘I’d give [the mayor] nine-and-a-half for effort, less for attainment. In the first year, he’s barely put a foot wrong.’ (Interview with the Director, economic development agency) ‘If there were no mayor, a lot of things would be delayed and watered down in trying to please all people with all things … given that people are compromising, more people are compromising towards Ken than away from him.’ (Interview with senior civil servant, DETR) But the track record so far on actual achievements is less impressive, and there is a strong concern about the effectiveness, coherence and internal operation of the mayoral machinery at Romney House: ‘It feels like we’re all being invited to lots of meetings, but they’re all different discussions, all about different proposals, and all going nowhere.’ (Interview with the Director, economic development agency) ‘The sheer diversity of voices within the GLA means there is often no single consistent line on many issues from the GLA … external political organisations will take an idea to one part of the GLA and if they do not get positive feedback will just take it to part until they gain some support.’ (Interview with the Chief Executive, regeneration partnership)

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Another respondent referred to the ‘messy territory’ of the GLA, and the fact that in such circumstances, where the mayor is overloaded and there are no clear systems for decision-making and implementation, the role of the mayor’s gatekeepers, his close advisers, is considerably enhanced. ‘Personal governance’ – who you know and who has access, has become more important. This has been enhanced by the fact that the mayor is politically independent, and hence access through the party machine is irrelevant – there isn’t one. So personal contacts, via courtiers and officers is more important than via politicians. At the same time, some external organizations welcomed the fact that the emergent GLA bureaucracy was clearly not a clone either of traditional local government, or of the civil service. This allowed scope for greater flexibility and new ideas. As one respondent put it to us, there was potential for creativity, but also for confusion. Livingstone himself acknowledges many of these points. In an interview for this book, he described the system, with its separation of powers between the executive and the assembly as ‘bizarrely unworkable’, and referred to a lack of expertise among only 500 staff. But he also argued strongly that many of the new staff have learned the new rules of the system very quickly and performed ‘brilliantly’. The GLA Act gave the Mayor of London significant powers of patronage. Two political advisers, a policy unit of ten, the whole membership of the transport, economic development and fire boards and a majority of the police board, plus the Cultural Strategy Group and its chair, were available for appointment. In addition, the mayor had to appoint a deputy mayor, the chair of the fire authority, the chair and chief executive of TfL and of the LDA. The 1998 white paper had also envisaged a ‘cabinet’. Although the staff of the GLA – including its chief executive – were to be determined and appointed by the assembly, the mayor had the right to be consulted on appointments. As has been explained earlier, Livingstone did not initially appoint the two political advisers and policy unit of ten envisaged by the legislation. Instead he created, with assembly approval, a far bigger private office as part of the GLA payroll. There is no doubt he managed to ensure all his key advisers were found jobs within the Mayor’s Office or advisory core. Nevertheless, Ken Livingstone appears to have made only modest use of his powers of patronage while making his first appointments. A small number of key supporters and advisers were appointed to positions within the mayor’s office and to executive or board positions on the functional bodies and other committees. Many other board and second-tier executive

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appointments were made without any effort to ensure loyalty to the mayor. In the case of the chair of the police authority, patronage (perhaps, more accurately, the power that comes with electoral legitimacy) was used to hand the position to an individual who could be mildly antagonistic to the mayor. The one appointment that Livingstone took direct and determined interest in was the Commissioner of Transport. On a number of occasions, the new mayor made it clear that transport was his number one priority. With the appointment of Bob Kiley, described in Chapter 4, it was clear that the mayor was determined to use his powers to appoint a man he believed could act as an ‘enforcer’ to deliver policy results. Given the nature of the office of mayor, patronage was an intended part of how it was supposed to operate. There is no evidence that London’s first mayor abused such powers. Rather, the speed with which appointments were made, coupled with the independent politics of the mayor, ensured that patronage was only weakly used during the early years of the new system. One of the arguments made in favour of creating a powerful, directlyelected, mayor for London was the legitimacy and visibility that would be invested in the office-holder. The election of Ken Livingstone as first mayor had the effect of placing an extremely well-known politician in the job. Many critics of the office had pointed to the lack of real powers and resources available. Critics of Livingstone personally had doubted his capacity to deliver improvements to large and complex public services. There can be no doubt that the Mayor of London was a national political figure in the period after the May 2000 election. Perhaps this was a continuing ‘Livingstone effect’: after all, he had been one of Britain’s best-known politicians well before his election. Only the election of a lower-profile mayor would realistically test the visibility hypothesis. The capacity of the office-holder to use legitimacy to achieve political or service-delivery ends was demonstrated with clarity by Livingstone’s battle against the government’s public–private partnership (PPP) for re-investing in the London Underground. By virtue of a relentless political offensive against the PPP, involving speeches, research into the backgrounds of companies bidding to take over the Tube, opinion polling and manipulation of news stories about disasters on the national railways, Livingstone was able to delay the implementation of the policy. But, after court cases in 2001 and 2002, the Government was still able to press ahead with the PPP. The position of mayor also allowed him to attract a high-profile international figure to become Commissioner for Transport. There is little doubt that the importance of transport in London, the legitimacy of the mayor and

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even the new job title (‘commissioner’ was a title only previously used for the head of the Metropolitan Police) together made it more likely that a person like Bob Kiley would consider such a job. However, Livingstone had conspicuous failures in his use of mayoral power, most obviously in his efforts to organize a New Year’s Eve extravaganza or any other major events for the capital. Following the success of a – government-organized – firework display on the night of the previous New Year, the mayor had inherited the arrangements for 31 December 2000. Concerns about safety, particularly at London Underground and the Metropolitan Police, caused the mayor to have to abandon all efforts at a London New Year’s event. The fact that the mayor was unable to get key agencies and the boroughs to deliver the kind of street celebration common in cities from Sydney and Berlin to Edinburgh was widely seen as a measure of failure of mayoral effectiveness. Similar problems attended efforts to finalize a deal at Wembley Stadium, though this was eventually concluded in 2002. (Culture, Media and Sport Committee, 2001). Plans for new rail lines and an Olympics bid also demonstrated the tight limits of mayoral power. The congestion charge came later. Livingstone achieved little during his first year or so in office. There was no perceptible change to bus services, to the police or to city-wide planning. Future changes were signalled for 2003 and beyond: there would be more buses and police officers, taller buildings and more affordable housing. But little tangible actually happened during 2000–01 or 2001–02. This lack of concrete achievements was apparent to the other organizations within the London governance system: ‘There’s been a lot of paper flying about, but – but where’s the action?’ (Interview with official at a transport agency) ‘[Livingstone’s] natural authority is greater than the real authority – it often seems that Ken has more power and resource than he actually does.’ (Interview with Director, public–private partnership) What the mayor found difficult to do was to identify things where he was able to say ‘we did this – now judge us on this’. On the key issues affecting London in 2000 to 2003 – Wembley, the sale of the Millennium Dome, Heathrow Terminal 5, anti-terrorism, even the Tube – he could never quite get in the driving seat. Partly, this is a result of his limited powers under the legislation, but it also reflects a more deep-seated problem with governing

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London – its huge scale and complexity: ‘London’s sheer size, and the sheer number of people who have an interest in what we [the GLA] do, makes forming alliances for action very difficult.’ (Interview with Senior GLA politician) ‘Ken is the mayor over a city with more people [sic] than New York and a greater land area than Paris. It’s hard to be the mayor of a city that’s thirty miles by thirty miles, that encompasses everything from the entertainment areas to the industrial areas to the suburbs. Now, he doesn’t really represent the suburbs – he represents the “symbols of London” that the rest of the world identifies with. But the suburbs are where the people live.’ (Interview with Former Chief Executive, public–private partnership) In reflecting on how London’s first three years of mayoral government have developed, it is also extremely hard to separate the man from the office. Livingstone’s personality and political style have been immensely important, and a different mayor would have brought different gifts and deficiencies to the office. In addition, the political independence of the mayor has added an extra factor, largely unexpected prior to the campaign and election. This lack of party political affiliation has not proved a major handicap to the mayor in office – in fact, rather the reverse. Possibly the lack of real achievement by the mayor in the first half of his term of office was the result of the need to build an administration from scratch. Judgement on the real power wielded by the mayor of London will only truly be possible at the end of the first term of office in 2004. These issues are considered further in the final chapter.

The London Assembly: 25 members in search of a role? If the job of directly-elected executive mayor was new to British local government, then the role of the 25 London Assembly members was similarly novel. The Assembly was primarily created to scrutinize the mayor, though a number of commentators – and indeed most assembly members – saw the role as being rather wider, embracing work on policy development and also as a democratic forum for the debate of London issues. The 1998 white paper A Mayor and Assembly for London (DETR, 1998a) had

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envisaged a similar range of roles for the London Assembly, including scrutiny, policy-development and representing the views of Londoners. Nomenclature is relevant here: the London members’ collective name – assembly – was the same as that in Wales and Northern Ireland. Yet the London Assembly members were in a very different position from those in Cardiff and Belfast. Members of the assemblies for Wales and Northern Ireland selected – within political party groups – the leadership of the country’s government (and would have to have confidence in them) and thus, indirectly, had a control over the executive of that government. This was the traditional United Kingdom government system. But the London Assembly members’ position was very different. First, the executive (that is, the mayor) and the assembly were separately elected. Second, there were only 25 assembly members, compared with 60 in Wales and 108 in Northern Ireland (the Scottish Parliament has 129 members). Furthermore, the use of proportional representation to elect them had ensured that no party group in the London Assembly consisted of more than nine members. The Conservatives and Labour had nine each, with four for the Liberal Democrats and three Greens. In Scotland, Labour and the Liberal Democrats had forged a coalition, while in Wales there was a Labour minority administration. A key issue of importance in understanding the assembly’s performance is the small size of the party groups. Given the small size of the full assembly, the relatively tiny numbers in individual party groups led to difficult dynamics between individuals who knew each other very, perhaps too, well. Both the Conservative and Labour groups suffered from internal rivalries and some personality clashes. Labour members found working with Ken Livingstone very awkward – some could not resist relentlessly tweaking the mayor’s tail, while others wanted to work closely with him. Even the Tories split between those who saw Livingstone as a reformed, lovable, rogue and others who took a more oppositionist stance. The Liberal Democrats, who had made an early deal with Labour about the division of committee chairs and other positions of power, worked effectively as a group, punching above their weight. The Greens, who were by far the least experienced of the four parties on the assembly, found themselves trapped between seductive offers from the mayor (with whom they were often in political sympathy) and a desire to assert their independence. Although the disproportionate environmentalist tinge to the assembly’s reports might be judged a success for the Greens, it could also be seen as a measure of the distance between the assembly’s centre of gravity and that of the electorate or the media.

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Another crucial factor influencing the new assembly’s working capacity was the fact its role was wholly new. The Blair government’s desire to ‘modernize’ local government included the conviction that councils’ executive and representative/scrutiny functions should be split and run separately (Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, 1998b). Although legislation (included in the annual Local Government Acts) was passed during the 1997–2001 Labour government requiring all larger local authorities in England and Wales to move to a working model that created such a split between councils’ executive and representative/scrutiny activities, the GLA was the first to operate a fully-fledged system of this kind. The 25 London Assembly members were therefore expected to work in a way that was substantially different from that of all previous local authorities. It was also different in crucial respects from the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland systems. London members, in effect, had to make up their job as they went along, but without the stimulus of having to deliver the executive functions of the GLA. Because a number of leading London Assembly members had previously been leaders and/or committee chairs in London boroughs (and thus responsible for budgets of £500 million or more), the change in role was inevitably a significant shock. It was not by accident that several of these political heavyweights became members of the police and fire authorities. Indeed, the first Chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority was (Lord) Toby Harris, who had for many years been leader of Haringey, while the first Chair of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority was Val Shawcross, ex-leader of Croydon. The Chair of the Appointments Committee – the key post in handling the relationship between the mayor and assembly – was Len Duvall, previously leader of Greenwich. Positions on the police and fire authorities were popular with assembly members because such roles were recognisable as being closer to membership of traditional council committees than the ‘scrutiny’ role which made up the other major element in assembly members’ responsibilities. If membership of the police and fire authorities was a recognizable job for elected members, the need to scrutinize the mayor and hold him to account was new and thus, it appears, less attractive. A number of assembly members clearly saw policy development as a more interesting alternative. Members also appear to have found it hard to organize their work programme in such a way as to give priority to those issues that were of most interest to Londoners as opposed to those that they personally found more interesting. Thus, while opinion polls (MORI, 2001) showed clearly that public transport (in particular the Underground), crime and disorder and traffic

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congestion were by far the most important issues among those where the GLA could directly affect change, the assembly’s programme of work and published reports during its first three years only partially touched on such matters. The major reports during 2000 to 2003 were skewed towards the environment (topics included graffiti; the mayor’s waste strategy; the mayor’s green spaces policy; the transportation of nuclear waste; recycling; and the mayor’s air quality strategy) and transport (including: congestion charging (twice); buses in outer London; safer routes home; bus services more generally; and the mayor’s transport strategy). There were also reports on regeneration funding, London weighting, housing for key workers; the GLA elections; future priorities for the Underground and the organization of major events. This issue is further considered in Chapter 8. Clearly some of the assembly’s work was driven by the need to consider mayoral initiatives (such as congestion charging) or policies (such as the strategies). Scrutiny was also possible at question time with the mayor and in other forums. However, there is no doubt the assembly found it difficult to find a role for itself that caught the public imagination. A poll completed at the end of 2001 showed only 13 per cent of Londoners knew ‘a great deal’ or ‘a fair amount’ about the assembly – the remaining 87 per cent knew little or nothing (MORI, 2001). Worthy reports on subjects of little direct interest to the media, who inevitably judge newsworthiness by reference to the public’s willingness to read, listen to or watch stories about particular subjects, simply disappeared without trace. Thus, the environment was given significant attention while crime, law and order received none. On the other hand, assembly output on subjects such as transport and the budget were widely disseminated. The Budget Committee undertook major reviews of the mayor’s 2002–03 and 2003–04 budgets and produced exceptionally good, detailed, analyses of all the GLA’s spending priorities. The London Assembly failed altogether in its early years to undertake a number of functions that would significantly have added to its credibility. For instance, there were no public hearings about mayoral appointments. It would have been possible for the assembly to follow the example of many American legislative bodies and to examine the worthiness of particular individuals to fulfil the jobs given to them by the elected executive. The chairs and commissioners of boards could have been subject to hearings of this kind. The assembly could also have undertaken wider inquiries into controversial issues of public policy affecting the capital. Thus, although the mayor and the government were locked in mortal combat over the future of

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London Underground throughout the first two years of the GLA’s existence, the assembly did not hold an inquiry into the Tube public–private partnership. Equally, there was no scrutiny of London’s policing, despite evidence of worsening violent crime. Assembly members were happy to assume that because twelve of them were members of the Metropolitan Police Authority, there was no need for separate scrutiny of the capital’s policing. Such analysis of policing by the assembly had been envisaged in the GLA white paper. After the first three years of the assembly’s existence, it had still not found an effective role. Privately, members of all parties complained about their collective weakness and about their incapacity to act corporately. There was a widespread view among other players in the London governance world that the London Assembly has proved ineffective. Its role is unclear; for most politicians being a scrutineer, and little more, is not attractive. Politicians want to do things. While some individuals had established a role for themselves – Harris, Duvall, Hamwee, Shawcross, Gavron – as an organization the assembly was not a success. In part these failures were because of the awkwardness of the original GLA legislation. But the collective weakness of the assembly also derived from two self-inflicted problems: an inability to organize themselves effectively and only a slow development of an understanding of how they could gain status by serious analysis of the mayor’s actions and policies. Whipping of party groups was – at best – half-hearted. No formal coalition of a majority of members was put together to give impetus to determining a rigorous programme of action to develop the role of the assembly. Occasionally, the chair of the authority or senior staff members would instigate a review of activity, but no robust and consistent way of working emerged.

Separating the executive and scrutiny functions Earlier sections described the creation and membership of assembly committees. It is worth remembering the GLA was the first authority in Britain designed to separate ‘executive’ and ‘non-executive’ functions. The mayor was invested with executive power, while assembly members were expected to represent Londoners while holding the mayor to account. The first year of the GLA provided the first real-world view of how such a system would operate.

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The white paper A Mayor and Assembly for London (DETR, 1998a) summarized the functions of the mayor and assembly as follows: The Mayor will decide policy and strategic direction for the GLA, set budgets and ensure action. The Assembly will scrutinise the Mayor’s activities, approve budgets and strategies, provide members for the new police and fire authorities and initiate scrutinies on subjects of its choice. The ministers and officials who created the GLA were, without doubt, seeking to split the ‘executive’ functions (which were to be the responsibility of the mayor) from ‘scrutiny’ activities (given to the assembly). Reasons for making this split were outlined in a consultative paper on local government (DETR, 1998b) which described a similar arrangement for councils elsewhere in England and Wales. Broadly, the government believed such a change would strengthen accountability. Even within the original formulation for London there was a potential contradiction in the way the GLA was set up. On the one hand, the assembly was intended to oversee the mayor’s policies and actions. Yet assembly members were also to be appointed to the boards responsible for police and fire. Assembly members were duly appointed to the police and fire authorities (and, as it turned out, to the economic development agency). The assembly itself then set up a series of committees to scrutinize mayoral activity in transport, economic development and other fields, though, no scrutiny committees were created to oversee the police or fire authorities. In the case of the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA), it is easy to see why. Twelve of the twenty-five assembly members – including the deputy mayor – had, by law, to be appointed to the MPA. A leading constituency member of the assembly, Lord (Toby) Harris was its chair. Members appeared to believe that their presence on these bodies was sufficient to secure political accountability. There is no doubt that by giving the mayor the duty to appoint assembly members to the police and fire boards, scrutiny (at least in the sense it applied to transport and economic development) was weakened. Indeed, there is clearly a confusion of roles in the particular model adopted: as far as police and fire (and to some extent, economic development) are concerned, the assembly has both executive and scrutiny functions. In reality, because the GLA was a wholly new authority, having to appoint all its senior staff, determine strategies and provide basic services, the first year or so of the executive–scrutiny split was – like so much at Romney House – probably untypical of what would become the

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longer-term norm. For a start, the mayor had actually done very little, so there was only a modest amount of activity to scrutinize. Because the assembly and the mayor made an unofficial deal about their respective staffing needs (that is, the assembly allowed the mayor to create an office which was far larger than the legislation had envisaged, while the assembly received additional staff support) there was little public scrutiny of key mayoral appointments. Finally, there was clearly a reasonable amount of goodwill within the assembly towards the mayor who clearly had a complex job in setting up the new authority. Scrutiny committees that concentrated on published mayoral policy such as congestion charging and the draft transport policy found it easier to challenge the mayor and his functional bodies than those that undertook more general inquiries. The scrutiny of congestion charging had the advantage of massive expertise in its appointment of external adviser (it chose Martin Richards, who had been managing director of a company that had specialized in official research projects about road pricing). The committee took evidence from TfL and GLA officers, experts in a range of disciplines and, finally, from the mayor. Proceedings were formal. The final report (GLA, 2000) was detailed and challenged the mayor on a number of aspects of the policy. Other inquiries were undertaken. Some examined mayoral draft strategies (such as economic development, spatial development) though many were simply chosen by assembly members on grounds of their policy interest or relevance (for example, affordable housing, the environment). Others were intended to monitor performance within the functional bodies (for example, London’s buses). Consultants were commissioned to advise each new inquiry. The overall picture of scrutiny in the early years of the GLA was one of random and slightly chaotic (though frenetic) activity. Assembly members found themselves with large number of committees to attend and, after a time, with a number of reports being published. The extent to which assembly scrutinies could generate media (and therefore public) attention was variable. Where a particular assembly report was targeted at a particular mayoral policy, it appeared to have a better chance of gaining attention. Scrutiny of more general topics was generally less noticed. This is not to say that the assembly’s scrutiny functions have not produced useful material. Their scrutiny of, for example, the Economic Development Strategy and Spatial Development Strategy clearly brought out strengths and weaknesses in each document as well as inconsistencies between them.

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Mayor’s Question Time provided another opportunity to hold the mayor to account. These occasions take place once a month, offering the assembly a chance to ask (pre-submitted) questions to the mayor, with the possibility of follow-up (unscripted) exchanges. The chair, deputy chair and party leaders sought to find a logical way of arranging questions for the two-hour sessions. Early question times had been wandering and shapeless as the result of difficulties in finding an appropriate format for questioning. Problems included achieving party balance in overall questioning and the time given to particular topics. In 2002 and 2003, question time became a regular – if low key – element in securing accountability. A monthly mayoral press conference was added (by the mayor) to the public outlets available. Like many aspects of the GLA’s activities, it is almost inevitable that the assembly’s scrutiny procedures will change as the new institution settles down. Greater targeting of the assembly’s limited membership (that is, fewer committees) would probably make them more effective, as would concentration on mayoral activity (as opposed to more general policy inquiries). Another issue raised by the assembly’s first two or three years was the need for some kind of research facility of the kind provided to MPs by the House of Commons library. The better briefed members are, the more effective their scrutiny is likely to be.

The deputy mayor The GLA Act required the Mayor of London to appoint a deputy from among the 25 assembly members. It seems certain that those who drafted the legislation imagined the mayor would select an assembly member of the same party to be deputy mayor. In the event, an ‘independent’ mayor had to select a deputy from one of four political parties that were not his own. Regardless of the political affiliation of the mayor and the various parties on the assembly, it was inevitable that the appointment of another elected individual as deputy mayor would create different dynamics to a deputy or deputies who were not elected members. Even where a mayoral candidate named a particular assembly candidate as his or her running mate in advance of an election, the uncertainties of the candidate selection process would make it difficult to be sure that a mayor was able to choose exactly the right person to deliver the kind of executive support an elected mayor requires. Ken Livingstone chose Nicky Gavron, who had been one of a number of GLA members who were active within London-wide borough committees

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during the 1990s. Gavron had impeccable New Labour credentials, and was the kind of politician who enjoyed a consensual, high-order strategic, approach. She was not a delivery machine for particular mayoral policies. Such an office and its first incumbent were very different from the kind of deputy mayors appointed by the mayor of New York. Rudolph Giuliani and his predecessors had typically appointed four deputy mayors. Generally, such individuals were close confidants of the mayor. The New York system envisaged the mayor running services through the deputies, while the London arrangements were designed by ministers to offer a job to the assembly. This is not to say that Nicky Gavron did not assume particular responsibilities. Livingstone put her in charge of strategic planning (now, according to the GLA Act to be called ‘spatial development’) and wider civic design issues. She was instrumental in bringing the leading architect Lord (Richard) Rogers into the advisory cabinet and in employing him to undertake architectural and design policies for the mayor. But her role was more one of facilitator and provocateur than as part of the mayor’s service delivery arrangements. Bob Kiley (the transport commissioner) more closely resembled an American-style, enforcing, deputy than Nicky Gavron. When appointing Gavron, Livingstone had stated his intention to appoint a different deputy mayor (preferably one from each party group) during his four year term. Clearly another mayor could make different arrangements, for example, by having one deputy mayor for the full four-year term. Livingstone’s later decisions about the appointment of his deputy need not create a precedent for future mayors. In fact, Gavron remained deputy mayor for the first three years of Livingstone’s 2000–04 term. Livingstone could, presumably, have styled one or more of his closest officials as second (or third or fourth) deputy mayor and given them responsibilities to deliver particular policy objectives via the functional bodies. Once again, future mayors need not be bound by Livingstone’s way of operating. The roles assumed by deputy mayors in city government systems analogous to the post-2000 London arrangements – notably New York – have made it possible for the mayor to increase the power of the executive. In New York, deputy mayors, who are appointed by the mayor (though not from the city council) take on portfolios of responsibilities and then get on with achieving the mayor’s policy objectives (Kirtzman, 2000). In the existing London Mayor’s Office, a small number of key advisers – probably no more than three or four individuals – fulfil such ‘deputy mayor’ roles. They are far less visible than their importance might suggest. For the sake of transparency and so as to strengthen the delivery capacities of the key

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advisers, the Mayor of London may need to consider the appointment of additional deputy or assistant mayors to increase the overall strength of the Mayor’s Office. The relationship between Gavron and the mayor matured to the point that when, during the summer of 2002, the Labour Party decided to maintain its expulsion of Livingstone (and thus to preclude him from standing to be Labour’s official candidate in the 2004 election), Gavron put herself forward as a potential Labour candidate. Her key message was ‘vote Labour but give your second preference vote to Ken’. She was duly selected to represent Labour in the 2004 mayoral race.

Creating a new regional government The mayor and assembly faced a demanding and unique job during 2000–01 and 2001–02. It was necessary to set up – from scratch – a new administration for London. Unlike the new governments in Scotland and Wales, there was no predecessor department of state to provide an established administrative back-up for the GLA (Hazell, 1996; 2001). As described earlier, a small transition team had been created before May 2000 to provide basic administrative support for the mayor and assembly members once elected. But, rightly, the transition team did not make any permanent senior appointments to the GLA. Nor was it possible before the 2000 election to determine appropriate structures for mayoral or assembly member needs. A great deal of time had to be spent during 2000 and 2001 simply to put in place new officer structures and new appointments. Evidence from Toronto (where a new mayoral government system was introduced in 1996) suggests it can take over two years to make all the new appointments demanded by a new city government. Most – though not all – senior posts were filled by the summer of 2001, within one year of the GLA having been created. Although all elected mayor systems are likely to require a significant turnover of senior staff when a new mayor is elected, the position in London is complicated by at least two distinct features: ● ●

assembly appointment of senior GLA officers; post-Nolan procedures for ensuring probity in public appointments.

The fact the assembly is responsible for the appointment of all of the GLA officials responsible for delivering the mayor’s policy and budget decisions

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creates the need for negotiations between the mayor and assembly about the administrative structure to be adopted. Individual short-lists of potential officers and appointments also have to be subject of informal negotiations between the two parts of the Authority. This process took place during 2000 and 2001, generally involving bilateral discussions between the chair of the Appointments Committee of the assembly and the mayor. Inevitably, a process of this kind will be slower than if – as the logic of the ‘strong mayor’ model suggested – the mayor alone appointed the senior GLA staff. A second issue facing the mayor and assembly is the requirement that many senior positions within the GLA should be subject to full public employment procedures, including oversight by an independent external assessor. There are, of course, good reasons for processes of this kind which are intended to avoid any risk of corruption and/or nepotism. In the years since the Nolan Committee on Standards in Public Life (Nolan, 1995), national and regional government institutions have increasingly been expected to make senior appointments using the full range of protections against improper influences on their decision-making. However, the introduction of directly-elected mayors into the British political system creates a potential inconsistency with the post-Nolan procedures. The Mayor of London and other elected officials who may be adopted elsewhere in the country are part of the government’s efforts to ‘modernize’ local authority practices. The key idea behind the move to directly-elected mayors was to make it clear to the local electorate who, precisely, is responsible for local public services (Blair, 1998). In a system with such transparent personal accountability, the use of lengthy appointments procedures might be thought to be less relevant. If the mayor has been elected to be the visible political executive, there would be a logic to allowing the office-holder to make appointments of individuals who directly reflected their needs and/or who represent particular constituencies of interest. This is certainly how, for example, the President of the United States assembles his cabinet, or how the New York mayor appoints deputies. In short, the post-Nolan requirements of senior official appointments are surely inconsistent with the notion of direct personal responsibility implied by the office of mayor. It would be possible for the assembly to hold hearings to consider key mayoral appointments. The GLA was set up in a different form from all other elected governmental institutions in Britain. Not only does it have a directly-elected chief executive figure, but also it must administer major public services at arm’s

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length. The mayor’s powers over the functional bodies, as set out in the GLA Act, involve a mixture of generalized oversight and direct control. Transport, economic development, the police and fire and emergencies are mayoral responsibilities, though in each case the service must be run indirectly through an appointed board. A number of the difficulties inherent in the relationship between the mayor and the functional bodies are considered in the next section. Another oddity in the GLA arrangements is the fact (described in an earlier section) that the mayor does not appoint the key GLA staff who monitor the performance of the functional bodies. Instead, the assembly makes GLA staff appointments. The decision to give the assembly the duty to appoint GLA officials within a government system where the mayor was the sole executive has had a number of consequences. First and most obviously, the mayor does not make any of the appointments of the GLA staff who are intended to write his strategies, prepare his budgets and oversee the performance of the functional bodies. Ken Livingstone initially chose to use neither the two political adviser posts, nor the ten policy specialists allowed him by the GLA Act. It is evident that building a relationship of trust between GLA senior staff and the Mayor’s Office has proved difficult. There is clearly a difference of approach between, on the one hand, the core of the Mayor’s Office (that is, the mayor’s key advisers) who feel time-limited pressure to get things done for their employer and, on the other hand, GLA officials for whom there are imperatives to work on particular strategies and the day-to-day running of the GLA. The current arrangements require the executive (the mayor) to be held to account by representative members (the assembly). There are some parallels with the respective positions of the UK government and parliament, where the House of Commons and the House of Lords (either the whole house or in committees) subject the executive’s (that is, the government’s) activities to scrutiny and voting. However, under the GLA arrangements, the government (that is, the mayor) finds that the scrutinizing part of the system (the assembly, including the opposition parties) make all the key civil service appointments. Such a system is unlikely to secure harmonious working relations between the parties involved. Second, relationships between the mayor and GLA officials are mirrored to a considerable extent by those between the assembly and those same senior officials. Because senior officers within the GLA largely exist to deliver the mayor’s policies, budgets and services, it is hard for the assembly to see such officers as being in a position to provide loyal and watertight advice to assembly committees and members. This problem is particularly

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acute where the assembly and mayor have widely divergent views on a subject. Third, the systemic difficulties that have resulted from the arrangements put in place for the GLA have not been helped by the need to absorb staff from a number of predecessor bodies. This is a point made strongly by KPMG in their 2001 report Delivering the Mayor’s Policies. Despite their best efforts, these inherited staff – with their particular skills and backgrounds – have not always been seen has having the aptitudes or inclinations required to run the country’s first mayoral government system. Perhaps the most obvious consequence of the difficulties outlined here has been the reliance of both the assembly and the mayor on external consultants. Indeed, the mayor appointed KPMG to report on the internal working of the GLA machinery (KPMG, 2001), while a number of assembly inquiries have also been undertaken with external consultancy assistance. The Mayor’s Office has also used consultants and/or expertise within the functional bodies to produce draft strategies and other pieces of work. It is clear that a number of parties, including the mayor, the chair of the Appointments Committee and the chief executive of the GLA have made considerable efforts to find ways of accommodating the needs of the Mayor’s Office and, separately, of the assembly, within the terms of the GLA Act. As the systemic difficulties of the Act have become clear, efforts have been made to create – as far as is possible – watertight, confidential, officer sections for the mayor and, separately, for the assembly. A brief scan of later job advertisements for GLA posts makes it clear that particular individuals were appointed to work wholly for the mayor or for the assembly. But, the overall structural problem cannot be solved completely within existing legislation. Only time will tell how effective such arrangements will be. However, under the existing law it will never be possible to get away from the legislative requirement that the assembly not the mayor must appoint all the senior GLA officials. In such circumstances, it is likely to continue to be difficult for the Mayor’s Office to work as closely with these officials as would be desirable. Inevitably, the Mayor’s Office will work directly with the functional bodies and their boards, to some extent cutting out GLA staff involvement. The use of external consultants will be a continuing indicator of the extent to which the both parts of the GLA are unwilling fully to rely upon GLA staff for their needs. There could be logic to having a small GLA core, but where both the mayor and assembly contracted out much of their work.

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This might be the best solution, given the existing law. A larger GLA staff, but with less use of consultants, would be an alternative way forward. What would be unacceptable would be the accretion of a large GLA core staff at the same time as the mayor and assembly placed a heavy reliance on consultants. The only way to avoid the difficulties described in this section would be to change the legislation so as to allow the mayor to appoint the GLA staff responsible for delivering mayoral strategies, budgets and services. The assembly, equally, would have to be given the right to set their own budget and make staff appointments needed to fulfil their legal obligations. There is no doubt that – as compared to the existing position – such changes would tip the balance of power within the GLA towards the mayor, requiring a re-balancing of the relationship between the mayor and assembly. For example, the assembly would probably need to be given greater powers to affect the budget and/or policy, possibly by an extension of their veto powers. If, in the event, there is no opportunity for amending legislation during the current mayor’s first term of office, then as a temporary measure, the Mayor’s Office should be strengthened and the executive focused on the delivery of mayoral priorities. This was the subject of the KPMG report which proposed the creation of new links between the Mayor’s Office (and advisers) and the GLA staff. It remains critically important that there is clarity between the directing and policy roles of the Mayor’s Office on the one hand and the implementation role of core GLA officers on the other. This was another point stressed by KPMG. During the spring and summer of 2002, the mayor put forward proposals to give his chief advisers greater executive powers (and, indeed, higher salaries). The assembly were not willing to grant the mayor this particular set of appointments. Both the mayor and assembly sought legal opinions about whether or not the mayor could reasonably expect the assembly to make the appointments he deemed necessary to deliver his policies. In the end, a compromise was struck that gave a very limited number of mayoral advisers some executive functions (Livingstone, 2002). Underlying problems with the structure remain.

The functional bodies Within the UK government, the Scottish and Welsh devolved administrations and local government services are delivered by departments staffed by

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officials. In some cases, such as the National Health Service or the Prisons Service, there may be an ‘executive’ body to provide day-to-day control. Other services are delivered through semi-autonomous boards. Health authorities, regional development agencies, the Higher Education Funding Council for England and Learning and Skills Councils are examples of service delivery by appointed boards. But in all cases, central, regional and local authorities have maintained powerful bureaucracies to ensure control over service provision. The Mayor of London was expected to operate in a very different way. It was envisaged there would be a small core of officials within the GLA, but with virtually all of the service delivery undertaken by the functional bodies (DETR, 1997). These bodies would have boards partly or wholly appointed by the mayor and would have some autonomy. As described above, the precise form of board appointments, chief executive appointments, and accountability varies from functional body to functional body. Table 5.1 summarizes the post-2000 position, as brought into being by the GLA Act. The arrangements for each functional body are different. While the desire for administrative tidiness is doubtless misconceived and fruitless, the system revealed by Table 5.1 has a number of consequences: ●

●

●

●

●

two of the functional bodies (TfL and the LDA) are subject to reasonably direct mayoral control and assembly scrutiny the MPA and LFEPA are subject to more indirect control. Accountability for them is confused because their boards are largely or wholly composed of elected assembly or borough members. Moreover, their chief officers and (in the case of the MPA, the chair) are not, as is the case for TfL and LDA, appointed by the mayor because a majority of MPA and LFEPA board members are drawn from the assembly, no scrutiny committees have been set up by the assembly to monitor MPA or LFEPA in the case of the police, accountability is split four ways – between the mayor (who determines the police budget), the assembly (who provide over half the MPA’s membership – including the Chair – and who are responsible for budgetary scrutiny), the Home Secretary (who, in reality, appoints the Commissioner and who continues to assume some national policing responsibilities) and the Commissioner himself, who remains responsible for police service operational matters TfL and the LDA are subject to strategies determined by the mayor, though in the case of the LDA, the fact that other regional development

Mayor, Assembly, Boroughs

Electorate

Mayor – 17 though Boroughs nominate 8

Elected

London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority GLA (Core)

Mayor, Assembly, Home Secretary

Mayor – 12 Other – 11

Mayor

Mayor

Metropolitan Police Authority

Mayor

Mayor

Transport for London London Development Agency

Accountability of board

Appointment of board/ authority

Functional body/GLA

Assembly1 chair appointed by Assembly

Mayor

MPA Board

Mayor

Mayor

Appointment of chair

Mayor

Mayor

LFEPA Board

Assembly

The Queen (Home Secretary)

Mayor (Assembly determine own activities)

LFEPA Board

Mayor Mayor (largely DTI Allocation) Mayor MPA Board

Mayor – first CE, thereafter Board

Mayor

Policy

Mayor

Budget

Mayor

Appointment of chief executive

Table 5.1 Greater London Authority: functional bodies, appointments, accountability, budgets, policy and scrutiny

None, though some budget scrutiny None, though some budget scrutiny Assembly

Assembly

Assembly

Scrutiny

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●

●

129

agencies in England are government-appointed bodies has produced, in effect, two accountability lines for the LDA – one to Whitehall and one to the mayor the legislation does not require mayoral strategies for police or fire, though the MPA, in common with other police authorities, must produce a Police Plan the arrangements for control and oversight of the functional bodies are almost certainly sufficiently different and complex to inhibit public understanding – it would be difficult for a member of the public fully to grasp the difference between, say, the Mayor’s responsibilities for transport and those for policing.

The particular arrangements for each functional body derive from the different views taken within Whitehall about the new London government at the point the GLA legislation was being drafted. The Home Office evidently demanded – and got – a far lesser degree of mayoral control for the MPA and LFEPA than DETR conceded for transport. There can be little doubt that the Mayor of London will find it hard to implement radical change to either the police or fire services under the existing legislative arrangements. The mayor could realistically only use the control over the budget to bring about policy changes in these services. By contrast, transport could (subject to the final PPP contract terms about control of the Underground) be very directly changed by mayoral demand. The type and scale of the four main functional bodies varied enormously. Transport for London had a turnover budget in 2000–01 of over £500 million. With the Underground transferred to its control this annual figure would be over £2 billion by 2004. The London Development Agency (LDA) spent over £300 million in 2000–01, a figure that increased in subsequent years as the government channelled more resources to development agencies. The Metropolitan Police budget is just over £2 billion and the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA) approaching £400 million. There are thus two ‘billion-plus’ functional bodies and another two spending rather less than £500 million. The core GLA budget, for headquarters functions, has grown to over £50 million per year. For two reasons, however, TfL was far and away the most important to the mayor. First, opinion polls showed transport and congestion preoccupied the London electorate. Second, the mayor has far greater control over transport than any other service.

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TfL was also clearly recognized as a major player by other organizations involved in the governance of transport in London and interviewed for this book: ‘TfL is a great concept – it’s had some teething trouble, but I think that’s inevitable when you’re creating a new organisation. Bringing in Bob Kiley to deal with the Underground was the right thing to do, there’s no doubt about that.’ (Interview with Senior Officer, public–private partnership) ‘With TfL promoting a London-wide transport strategy, the boroughs don’t call the shots in transport any more.’ (Interview with Chief Executive, regeneration agency) The Metropolitan Police, however, costs Londoners a large amount of money but offers little direct control to the mayor. Livingstone met with Home Secretaries Jack Straw and later, David Blunkett, MPA chair Toby Harris and police commissioner Sir John Stevens regularly to discuss spending, crime and other issues. Stevens argued the Met was at least 3000 officers under strength, while Livingstone wanted to get more police back on the streets. Although the mayor set the police budget, the assembly-dominated MPA was the political authority. In reality, the position was even more complex given that the Metropolitan Police Commissioner remained responsible for ‘operational’ matters, while the Home Secretary could, if he chose, impose a budget. The LDA and LFEPA, with their smaller budgets and lower political salience, received less attention than TfL and the Metropolitan Police. Many of our interviewees saw the LDA as a modest player on the London governance stage, which took time to establish itself. In fairness, this in part reflected the level of resources and the (largely pre-ordained) inheritance of the LDA. Moreover, the LDA had to cope with political accountability split between the mayor (who appointed its board) and the Department of Trade and Industry (who founded it and who demanded particular performance targets). The assembly, in its scrutiny of the LDA’s draft Economic Development Strategy was critical, expressing concerns regarding the ‘overall role, presentation, structure, aims and objectives of the Draft Strategy’ (interim response, 26 February 2001). It urged the LDA to be more ambitious in ‘providing vision and leadership for the whole of London’. More specifically, it advocated a more balanced approach to economic development across London, in which the role of suburbs and local employment centres was given greater consideration. Whether in response

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to the assembly’s earlier criticisms or for other reasons, the EDS as it emerged by the end of 2001, took a balanced view of London’s economy and future economic prospects. Both the Economic Development Strategy (EDS) and the Spatial Development Strategy (SDS) took future economic growth in London as their starting points. However, the SDS, reflecting the key influence of ‘globalists’ within and outside the GLA, gave primacy to London’s financial and business services sector. The EDS more strongly supported economic diversity, warning that increasing concentration on finance and business services within London’s economic base would leave the London economy weaker, not stronger, in the face of global economic change and market volatility. In retaining some scepticism about the claims of the ‘global city theorists’ the EDS was perhaps more in line with the real condition of London’s economy at the beginning of the twenty-first century (Buck et al., 2002). The question remains, however, as to the extent to which the LDA, given its resources and complex political remit, could do much to affect the future of London’s economy. Each of the four functional bodies was thus different from the others. Two (TfL and LDA) were closer – by virtue of his freedom to appoint board members – to the mayor’s direct control than the others. LFEPA and the MPA each had boards all or a majority of whom were appointed by the mayor, though such appointments could only be made from among elected assembly or (in the case of the fire authority) borough members. The latter two boards were therefore more distant from mayoral control. The mayor appointed the chief officers of TfL and the LDA. The GLA Act determines that subsequent LDA chiefs will be chosen by the mayorappointed board. The GLA inherited Brian Robinson as Chief Fire Officer (future chief officers would be appointed by the mayor-appointed board of LFEPA). The Commissioner of Police continued to be appointed by the Crown (though in reality by the Home Secretary). To add to the extraordinary differences that made the four functional bodies so unalike, their headquarters arrangements differed wildly. TfL, consisting of the bureaucrats from parts of London Transport, the Highways Agency and other bodies, was based in a newly-acquired building in Victoria Street. London’s historic transport headquarters at 55, Broadway (originally built for the Underground in 1929) was abandoned temporarily to London Underground, though it was taken over by TfL in 2003. TfL board meetings initially took place in Romney House, then at City Hall. The Metropolitan Police remained in their redoubt at New Scotland Yard, just opposite 55, Broadway. However, the new MPA, including its senior

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officers and staff, was initially housed in Romney House, above the GLA itself. The police service and its sponsoring department the Home Office saw considerable benefit in keeping the MPA separate from the police bureaucracy itself. Authority meetings took place at Romney House, then at newly-acquired MPA offices in Dean Farrar Street close to Scotland Yard. Most LDA staff, inherited from the government-appointed English Partnerships, were based in Devon House at St Katherine’s Dock just east of the city, LDA meetings took place there. Finally, LFEPA officials staff were based at the historic headquarters of the fire brigade on Albert Embankment, where authority meetings took place. The Cultural Strategy Group was clerked by GLA staff and met at Romney House and, later, at City Hall. Thus there was no consistency about where the four functional bodies were located, where their top staff were based or where meetings occurred. The GLA inherited the staff and responsibilities of TfL, the Met, the LDA and LFEPA as they stood. No particular effort was made to achieve consistency in their treatment or in the relationship between the core GLA and its service-provision units. Such differences clearly do not matter to those in receipt of services. But the institutional architecture has implications for the capacity of the mayor and assembly both to influence and to make accountable organizations that are (in all four cases) powerful in their own right.

The Budget process The GLA inherited a budget that had been set by central government for 2000–01. Many commentators had complained about the limited financial freedom available to the mayor, given that the GLA only had the power to raise a modest council (domestic property) tax. In addition, the government had taken powers to set upper and lower limits on police and transport spending. In truth, the first year of the new authority proved so arduous that the mayor had little need to make radical changes to his inherited budget. Small commitments were made, for example to complete the refurbishment of Hungerford Bridge and towards the reconstruction of Wembley Stadium. The real question about freedom would come in 2001–02 and beyond. In his first ‘local’ budget, would the mayor be able to make a visible difference to the capital? Would the assembly attempt to use their veto and impose an alternative spending total? Livingstone’s first locally set budget proposed a significant rise in expenditure and precept. During the government’s Spending Review 2000,

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additional resources had been promised for transport in London, and for development agencies and the police nationally. The mayor’s 2001–02 and 2002–03 budgets reflected such increases, plus a significant rise in police spending to buy the services of an additional 2000 or more officers beyond the number that would otherwise have been employed. The first Livingstone budget also included a number of smaller items that provided a reminder of the mayor during his earlier years at the GLC. Resources were earmarked for an ‘equalities unit’, for cultural grants and for a new civil partnerships register. However, politics in 2001 was very different from 1981 and many of these older Livingstone concerns now appeared relatively mainstream. The gross budget of the GLA (including the four functional bodies) was just under £4 billion in 2000–01. By 2003–04, with higher spending programmes and even before the transfer of London Underground to TfL, the gross budget was over £7 billion. This makes the GLA far and away the highest-spending local authority in the United Kingdom (though rather smaller, in budgetary terms, than the Scottish and Welsh governments). In the longer term, the mayor will have greater freedom to control the budget than was possible in 2001–02 to 2003–04. The longer the period since the transfer of control over such bodies as the Metropolitan Police, London Transport (LT) and the Highways Agency, the easier it will be for the GLA to get to grips with their complex finances and traditional lack of accountability. There is little doubt that the three major institutions transferred to the mayor: the Met, LT and the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, were ill-managed, old-fashioned and beset by antiquated labour relations. The mayor, functional bodies and assembly should, in the longer term, be able to make significant service improvements to these services without necessarily increasing their expenditure. However, in the short term, there were significant increases in the GLA precept for 2000–01 (set by Whitehall), 2001–02 (the first set by the mayor) 2002–03 and 2003–04. In 2003–04, a new income stream of £70 million became available from congestion charging. The assembly has an annual opportunity to challenge the mayor’s budget each spring. In 2001–02, 2002–03 and 2003–04 they managed to reduce the mayor’s original proposed budget by negotiation, using the threat of the two-thirds majority to wring changes from the mayor. There is no doubt that discussions between the mayor and assembly about the 2001–02, 2002–03 and 2003–04 budgets were heated and, at times, highly combative. Such a public debate about the Authority’s budget is undoubtedly a sign that the original intentions of those who drafted the

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legislation had been achieved. Discussions were widely reported in the media. The final budget meeting each year was well-attended by the public and press. Far more public attention was given to the mayor’s budget and alternative propositions than would normally have been the case with a conventional local authority budget. Indeed, compared with parliamentary debates about the Chancellor’s Budget and the annual finance bill, the GLA budget process was far more transparent and subject to open debate. In the longer term, there might be merit in even greater openness about the budget process, possibly involving a larger number of public hearings during which the assembly use their own finance experts to question the mayor’s proposals. It is essential that both the mayor and assembly have top-quality expertise to present and scrutinize the budget, roles well undertaken by finance director Anne McMeel. The mayor, in turn, probably needs to have greater freedom from central government controls over revenue-raising, capital finance and virement between budget heads. The fact that the GLA precept represents less than 15 per cent of gross income has the effect of causing small percentage changes in expenditure to have a magnified percentage impact on the overall precept. This effect is known as ‘gearing’. In addition, it is harder for the mayor to move resources from one budget head to another (for example, from TfL to the MPA, or vice versa) than it would be for the government, the Scottish or Welsh administrations and for local authorities. In short, changes are needed that make the mayor more clearly accountable for budget and precept changes, while the assembly must be able fully to scrutinize the mayor’s proposals and outturn spending.

Conclusion Three of the GLA’s 26 members (Ken Livingstone, Bob Neill and Tony Arbour) had been members of the GLC. About half of the assembly had been borough councillors, including several who had been leaders. There was no lack of experience within the Conservative, Labour or Liberal Democrat Parties about the political delights of London government. Despite the hope of some commentators that the GLA would somehow attract new kinds of politicians, both the mayoral race and assembly contests were dominated by traditional London political candidates. Each party included some members who were new to local government, though only the Green group (of three members) consisted solely of individuals who had not been elected to other councils.

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Ken Livingstone had been a borough and GLC member and briefly remained MP for Brent East. However, he had no experience of the office of directly-elected executive mayor. Indeed, no one in Britain had such experience: the office was new to the country and its politicians. For the new mayor and his staff it was necessary to work out as they went along how to run a metropolis from a single office. Although the individuals who surrounded Livingstone included a number with experience of local or national government (either as elected members, officials or advisers) none of them could have known in advance the scale of the job of mayor of London. It will take at least one full term of office to determine how far Livingstone was able to get to grips with the size, complexity and difficulty of running London. Despite the advantage of having been leader of the GLC (and thus having a good idea of the magnitude of the issues involved) even he cannot have known how to enforce his political will directly over so many organizations and individuals. The first years of office suggested (by virtue of the lack of tangible outcomes) that being Mayor of London is going to be a difficult office in which to achieve quick results. Only congestion charging provided a “quick win” For the assembly members, life was also a brand new experience. In the same way that Ken Livingstone was the first mayor of the capital, so the 25 assembly members were the first councillors in Britain to undertake a wholly non-executive function. They had no responsibilities for running the GLA’s services – they did not determine policy or set budgets. However, they did have a duty to scrutinize the mayor and could undertake inquiries on virtually any subject. The political composition of the assembly, coupled with its lack of executive powers, had the effect of removing the pressure to set up a formal operating machinery. On 5 May 2000 there was no custom and practice upon which to fall back. Members wandered the corridors of Romney House chatting with each other and starting the process of working out how the nonexecutive assembly might work. There were, in a sense, no backbenchers in an authority where all 25 assembly members were, in theory, backbenchers. However, as the assembly did not have to create an executive of committee chairs (or a leader for that matter) there was no great pressure on them to create any kind of leadership group or operating system. As outlined earlier, the Bureau of Leaders was the closest to a ‘leadership’ on the GLA. The assembly did not appoint a leader. The original chair, Trevor Phillips, made efforts to enhance the role of the chair in representing the assembly. For example, he negotiated a seat alongside the mayor at the first People’s Question Time. The public was able to

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put questions to the mayor and assembly at these events. Ken Livingstone and Trevor Phillips (or Sally Hamwee, chair in 2001–02 and 2003–04) generally sat together at the front of the stage, with the other assembly members sitting in tiers behind them. The symbolism of the chair being seen to be an equal of the mayor was plain (and had been negotiated by Phillips). Phillips and deputy chair Sally Hamwee shared similar views about the importance of the chair and were set to continue to use it to provide formal visibility to the assembly in the absence of a leader. Having no appropriate precedents and no immediate political pressure to act as a tight and effective body, the assembly had considerable difficulty in making its mark against a well-known mayor who enjoyed all the executive power available to the GLA. The novelty of their situation meant the assembly was always having to invent ways of operating and to seek visibility in the media. As with the mayor, it will take at least a full four-year term in office for the assembly to determine how best to operate.

6 Boroughs, Quangos and Partnerships: The Wider Governance of London The shift from government to governance in London has involved more than just the creation of the mayor and the assembly. First, there has been the impact of New Labour’s modernization programme, which had sought to reduce committee meetings, strengthen leadership, increase probity and separate executive and non-executive functions. Secondly, there have been changes to the governance of the wider London region which have impacted also on the more narrowly defined ‘Greater London’ – in particular, the creation in 1999 of two new Regional Development Agencies in South East England and East England, and the abolition of SERPLAN (a regional planning body) in 2001. SEEDA and EEDA are responsible for economic development and regeneration in Greater London’s immediate hinterland. Thirdly, by 2000, the boroughs had enjoyed 14 years of experience without a metropolitan authority. They had become more used both to acting independently and to working together, either at a pan-London level, or in smaller groupings of ‘sub-regional partnerships’. They were not about to move docilely to a pure service delivery or ‘second tier’ role, abandoning all strategic and higher-level decisions to the newly-minted mayor and assembly. London’s governance – both in terms of strategy and service delivery – would remain messy, complex and at times chaotic. Fourthly, the creation of the mayor/assembly itself produced effects in the rest of the governance system of London. Other agencies had to re-configure their strategies, and in some cases their internal organization, in response to the new kid on the block – a kid moreover who, while he did not own the largest house in the street, certainly lived in the one most centrally placed. There is no doubt the GLA took some staff from the boroughs and also that the new authority pushed up pay rates for senior staff. There are considerable continuities between the pre-2000 and post-2000 systems in London. The boroughs retain a wide variety of powers, particularly in relation to service delivery and local planning, have (in some cases) 137

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become used to greater independence during the period without a metropolitan tier, and so far at least (writing in 2003) have shown themselves to be the effective ‘check and balance’ to the executive mayor, rather than the weaker London Assembly. Moreover, many of the partnerships and networks established during the Long Interregnum of 1986–2000 have survived into the Restoration period, albeit sometimes with new names and logos. In terms of continuities, it is clear that elements such as network governance, overlapping and complex institutional relationships and a partnership mode of delivery remain key to the system. In effect ‘network governance with a relatively weak centre’ has replaced ‘network governance with no centre’. There is a great deal of continuity between the pre-2000 and post-2000 mode of governance in London. At the same time, the nature of that network governance has changed, and the strategies and, in some cases, internal organization, of actors have been altered in response. So network governance and the practice of partnerships, coalition-building and inter-agency working have continued to be important in the immediate period since the creation of the GLA and the mayor. The continuity in network governance reflects: ●

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A rational response: the mayor/assembly and other organizations need each other (functional factors) The effect of practices and habits that grew up in the period without a metropolitan tier 1986–2000 (organizational, institutional factors) The specific impact of the political style of the mayor – this may have been true for any mayor, but is particularly apparent with Ken Livingstone (political/personal factors)

London’s governance: the regional aspect London as an urban economy is far larger than the London central business district, larger even than the administrative boundary of the Greater London Authority, and, on some measures, larger even than the South East Region (Buck et al., 2002, Chapter 2). A further important contextual factor is the general economic dynamism of the London region compared with most other English cities and urban areas: ‘Those [cities] that have done best are generally closer to London … The array of “successful” places suggests that London is, by a degree of magnitude, better placed than any of the other conurbations’ (Robson et al., 2000). The Greater South East contains about 40 per cent of the population of England and Wales and is now London’s

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effective economic region. Between 1987 and 1997 the peak rates of employment growth were in a belt 65–90 miles (100–145 km) from the centre of London. Hence from an economic point of view it is the London metropolitan region, extending well beyond the GLA boundary, or even the ‘100-mile city’ of the Greater South East which should be the focus of analysis. While in theory one could imagine a political and administrative body which corresponded to this economic definition of ‘London’, it is clear that there never has been, nor ever will be a political body corresponding to this economic reality. A sub-national entity containing 40 per cent plus of the population and perhaps 50 per cent of the national GDP would be far too great a threat to national government, and create far too unbalanced a system of sub-national government. In practice, governance in the wider London region (that is, including the outer metropolitan area and the rest of the South East) over the last 25 years has been characterized by the politics of growth, by extreme complexity of relationships, and by spatial issues, particularly inner versus outer and West versus East. Much of the west of the region in particular has been characterized by local political desires to restrain development, protect environmental amenity and property values and to deny the reality of what is effectively a polycentric urban region. Paradoxically, the more successful these strategies are, the more attractive such areas are for development, particularly to high tech companies and research organizations which are fairly free in their locational choice and hence strongly influenced by the locational preferences of their skilled employees (Hall et al., 1987). The western part of the region continues to be characterized by very high levels of development pressures and full or even over-full employment. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, local politicians were actively campaigning for policies of job diversion from the area, arguing that continuing influxes of higher paid employees were squeezing teachers, nurses and other public service workers out of local housing markets, creating problems for service delivery. More generally, in terms of strategic planning, there have been continuing struggles between central government and local authorities (particularly counties and some outer London boroughs) over the scale and extent of new housing and hence population growth. In effect the inner versus outer London struggles over housing provision of earlier periods have been displaced further out, with the M25 as the new frontier. The arena for these struggles is the Secretary of State’s Regional Planning Guidance for the South East (Government Office for the South-East of England, 2001), which

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provides the regional framework for the preparation of local authority development plans outside London and the Mayor’s Spatial Development Strategy in London. The now abolished planning body SERPLAN, comprising the local authorities, proposed a figure of 33,000 new dwellings per year. This was rejected by the government who commissioned an independent panel to conduct a public examination into the draft RPG. The figure proposed by the panel was considerably higher, at 55,000 new dwellings per annum, provoking a furious political response. Ultimately, the government compromised at 43,000 additional houses per year outside London, and 23,000 within London. In terms of the balance between West and East in the wider region, there is no regional government to implement regional and sub-regional strategies, and central government’s influence is indirect rather than direct. Nevertheless, public policy has played, and continues to play, a key role. In the earlier period, the economic development of the western crescent was driven crucially by the public sector. This includes not just the paradoxical effects of negative planning referred to above, but also through the ‘uncoordinated sectoral decisions made by public agencies, which combined spatially to produce and attractive environment for modern industries’ as well as a shift in the attitude of central government towards the promotion of high tech economic growth even at the expense of local amenity (Hall et al., 1987). More recently, starting with Michael Heseltine’s first period as Secretary of State for the Environment, there has been a consistent policy of investing in the eastern part of the region, partly for economic development reasons there, and partly to relieve pressures on the key constituencies of Middle England to the West. From Docklands through to Thames Gateway there has been a series of governance innovations as well as physical developments designed to boost economic growth. Recent governance innovations have not reduced the complexity and fragmentation of the governance system in the London region, and indeed may well have increased it. The economic London region is fragmented across three Government Offices, and consequently three RDAs. So for example the development of the Thames Gateway involves three RDAs, three government regional offices as well as numerous county, district and unitary authorities. Local football matches between Barnet, Wycombe and Watford now imply contests between teams from three different ‘regions’, without as yet generating the passionate regionalism associated with matches between, say, Barcelona and Real Madrid. Local government reform in the 1990s has created a mix across the London region of two-tier (county and district) authorities in some places

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and unitary authorities in others, including several unitaries with populations below 150,000 (such as Bracknell Forest, Slough, Thurrock, Wokingham). The creation of relatively small unitary authorities has increased fragmentation, and made strategic planning for transport, economic development and education more difficult: ‘[creating unitaries] was a mistake. The unitary councils have not got the depth of experience and they’re not able to deliver the service which a County Council does. It’s too small, and to make strategic decisions it is far too small. In terms of what of is required by the government, there is need for a much broader view to be taken by the councillors and by the council. There’s no way in which the six unitaries can work together on a proper basis strategically, certainly in terms of education … I’m afraid we haven’t got the quality of officers that we actually require or the salaries to attract them in, people will come to us and then leave, whereas the County Council [had] got experienced officers who stayed, and that’s in all departments.’ (Interview with Councillor, Wokingham, quoted in Buck et al., 2002) The mayor is clearly a major influence on the economy and governance of the wider London region. But, unlike his position within Greater London, he has no political mandate from the wider region, and no direct powers within it. Particularly in terms of economic strategy, there is no clear boundary in reality between ‘London’ and the South East. So, for example, Heathrow continues to generate economic opportunities and development pressures both within West London and out into the Western Crescent; while to the East, development of the Thames Gateway as a major regeneration strategy affects not only East London, but unitary and two-tier authorities out into Essex and Kent – and indeed as far as the Nord–Pas de Calais region on the other side of the Channel Tunnel. Interviews undertaken suggest that regional organizations, and organizations whose responsibilities crossed the administrative boundaries of the GLA, generally had good relationships with the mayor/assembly but equally saw clear conflicts of interest. This was apparent with transport, for example. For the mayor, the key issues were about improving services and reliability for London residents. However, many of the organizations with and through whom he has to work to secure such improvements – such as Network Rail or the Strategic Rail Authority – have wider regional or national briefs. There are clear conflicts between, for example, more long-distance and more local services, and between inter-city and intra-city services.

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Furthermore, while transport planning is essentially a long-term activity, with time horizons of 20 years or more, the political cycle for the mayor is clearly far shorter, with considerable pressure to deliver something on transport in the first term. Regional development agencies outside London similarly referred to transport issues, the importance of commuting and the wider labour market and economic activity area. Other governance changes – such as the abolition of SERPLAN and the regionalism agenda were given equal importance to the creation of the GLA. Despite the increase in the number of players, there was a view among interviewees that networking now was no more difficult than in the past.

The GLA and central government Since May 2000, just as before May 2000, central government has continued to be of major importance in the governance of London. Whatever else it did, the creation of the Greater London Authority did not mark a serious reversal of the centralist tendency in the British state, nor did it signify a major devolution of political and fiscal authority. Most of the money (typically 70 to 80 per cent or more) spent both by the mayor and by the boroughs in London comes in the form of central government grant. The mayor has to negotiate annually with the Government over the size of the GLA’s grant. He has to work with central government in order to achieve his major strategic goals or to fund new infrastructure. This is particularly clear with regard to transport, where the mayor and central government continued to fail to reach agreement on the future funding and management of the Tube and, indeed, about the major infrastructure projects needed to fulfil the mayor’s London Plan. The Government Office for London has not disappeared. Perhaps more surprisingly, there has not been a substantial reduction in the importance of GOL. Following the creation of the GLA, GOL now has more departments than it did prior to the election of the mayor and assembly, and has taken on additional staff. While some functions were transferred to the GLA, there is clearly a continuing role for GOL. GOL continues to have responsibilities for allocating housing expenditure to the boroughs, some training and enterprise functions, assisting the Secretary of State for the Environment in exercising his strategic planning functions, paying government grants to the mayor and assembly, and co-ordinating central government and the GLA. This latter function – liaison between the GLA and mayor on the one hand and central government on the other – was referred to by one of our interview

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respondents as ‘diplomatic work’. GOL is perceived to be close to the GLA and closely involved with partnerships, due to its continuing funding role. The boroughs and the Association of London Government maintain important relationships with GOL: ‘There is a perception that the boroughs see GOL as a “court of appeal” – it’s not but there’s the perception that it is. So some boroughs or organisations, when they’ve not been happy with a stance of the Mayor or the Assembly, will want to talk to Nick Raynsford, the Minister for London.’ (Interview with Senior civil servant)

‘the Association of London Government (ALG) has been careful to maintain its relationship with GOL … GOL [is] more likely to deal with the boroughs than with the GLA in many cases.’ (Interview with Senior Officer, Association of London Government) The Association of London Government, led by the tough Newham leader (later mayor) Robin Wales, aggressively represented borough views and continued to run a number of city-wide services (grant-giving, parking administration and representation to Whitehall) with limited reference to the GLA. The ALG’s chief executive, Martin Pilgrim, is one of the most experienced and politically sophisticated officers in British local government.

Boroughs and sub-regional partnerships During the 1980s and 1990s there were important common trends affecting most if not all of the London boroughs. First, because of the lack of a metropolitan tier of government, the boroughs became more involved in London-wide governance. Through this, they developed a certain amount of strategic capacity, or at least interest. With the creation of the GLA, it was never going to be a straightforward matter of assigning strategic responsibilities to the upper tier, and service delivery to the lower. In practice, both the mayor/assembly and the boroughs are jointly involved with both strategic and service delivery functions. In doing so, they continue to interact and work with a large number of other organizations. Secondly, in many cases boroughs have become more active on the competitiveness agenda. This has led to a complex pattern of competition and co-operation between boroughs in relation to inward investment,

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grant-chasing and other economic development activities. In addition, the experience of working with bodies such as the London Docklands Development Corporation over a period of 15 years had important catalytic effects on the Docklands boroughs. Thirdly, in terms of their more traditional service-delivery role, they have had to share power, responsibilities and funding with a range of quangos, service providers and partnership organizations. Nevertheless, the boroughs remain key players because of their statutory powers, spending levels and democratic legitimacy. Through their role in providing key public services, they are de facto involved continuously in a social cohesion agenda. Fourthly, the boroughs and the City of London have been affected by institutional change, including the creation of the GLA, regional development agencies, new unitary authorities and by legislative and policy change, including the introduction of Best Value, new forms of inspection, increased target setting and performance management, and by a requirement, under the Local Government Act 2000, to consult their communities and come forward with a new constitution, including consideration of directly elected mayors at this level too. The boroughs retain many powers, particularly in relation to service delivery and local planning, and generally constitute the effective ‘check and balance’ to the power and influence of the directly elected mayor. The mayor is responsible for devising strategies that in the main require the boroughs to implement them. How the mayor can convince the boroughs to implement his strategies and policies is a key question. The mayor needs a partnership with the boroughs to get things done – the objective basis is there for the mayor and the boroughs to work together to achieve policy goals. But at the same time there are considerable tensions. The mayor’s Transport Strategy, for example, required boroughs to do certain things at the mayor’s behest – just at the same time that the newly created Transport for London was – by virtue of higher salaries – taking staff from boroughs. There was some perception that on transport, the power of the boroughs had been weakened. As an interviewee stated: ‘the boroughs don’t call the shots in transport any more’. However, a number of boroughs, notably Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea, made significant efforts – including legal challenges – to halt the introduction of congestion charging. Housing is another specific source of conflict between the mayor and the boroughs. In the view of some, the mayor has given disproportionate emphasis to housing (despite having no direct housing powers) and is seeking to impose what many boroughs regard as unrealistic targets (using the

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London Plan) for the provision of affordable housing. Not surprisingly, this is resisted by a number of town halls. But more generally, the mayor needs partnerships to get things done. He cannot order the boroughs to do things, and he cannot do them himself. So the issue is: how do you influence the agenda of others to deliver your policies? During the abolition period, the boroughs became unitary authorities, and were more responsible for ‘London’ – one of our interviewees said that they ‘grew up’. Boroughs had a higher profile, so now, after 2000, they have to cope with the loss of some powers to the GLA. Nevertheless, boroughs can do things on their own (for example, Croydon Tramlink). Partnerships established between 1986 and 2000 – for example Thames Gateway and the Central London Partnership, have continued into the postGLA era, and developed important working relationships with the mayor and the functional bodies. Partnerships can act as a delivery agent for the mayor/functional bodies. Of course, the creation of the GLA has not been the only, and maybe not the most important, change affecting the boroughs over this period. The future of governance in London is also driven by other central government policies – in particular, service delivery. One respondent referred to the ‘three B’s. Blair, Brown and Blunkett’, relentlessly driving a service improvement agenda focused on health, education, transport and crime. Over the last few years local authorities have been ‘overloaded’ with institutional changes – for example, the whole modernization agenda and the adoption in many cases of the cabinet model. Loss of good staff to the GLA and functional bodies caused additional problems. At the same time, the existence of the sub-regional partnerships and the fact it is difficult for the mayor and the functional bodies to relate to 33 separate authorities has led to an increased awareness of the sub-regional dimension. Some of those interviewed for this book felt that the mayor favours a sub-regional delivery route for initiatives, and the logic of, for example, transport planning and economic development suggests a focus on sub-regions rather than boroughs. There was a widespread view that boroughs were naturally coming together to lobby or to interact with the mayor and bodies like TfL. One respondent argued that borough mergers were a real possibility within the next five years. Another interviewee viewed the issue differently – sub-regional partnerships, until recently, had no resources nor duties, so it was more likely that boroughs would remain important and come together to represent the sub-regions. We found that most of those interviewed were reluctant to give a definitive view of the relationship between the mayor and the boroughs, arguing

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it was still too early to describe the long-term impact of the GLA on the boroughs. Nevertheless, one respondent said that ‘every Labour leader in London hates his guts’. History plays its part in this unending Balkanization of London and in the relationship between lower- and uppertier authorities.

Quangos and other service agencies The GLA was intended to be a strategic institution, removed from the messy business of day-to-day service provision. But in practice that distinction between strategy and provision is blurred, for two reasons. First, because, as discussed above, the success of many of the mayor’s strategies depends on the boroughs and others adapting their service delivery functions in line with the mayor’s priorities. Secondly, because the mayor’s statutory responsibilities include some relating to service provision – particularly the police and transport. Thirdly, because even where such specific statutory responsibilities do not exist, the mayor has become involved in service delivery issues either through a more widely or vaguely defined power (for example, to ‘promote the health of Londoners’) or even in areas where the mayor has very limited responsibility (for example, housing).

Transport In transport planning, one issue identified by some interviewees was that while transport planning worked on very long cycles – 20 years or more – the political cycle for the mayor was necessarily very different. Nevertheless, the strategies of key agencies in the transport field – such as the Strategic Rail Authority – had a considerable influence on the transport strategy adopted by the mayor. But now the GLA, and particularly the mayor, had to be factored into the equation. The mayor/TfL is more than just another player in the system – it is a key influence, because of its statutory strategic responsibilities, because of its democratic mandate and hence accountability, because of the political importance of the issue in London (clearly the No. 1 issue over this time period) and perhaps also because of Livingstone’s association with the issue (notably through the GLC’s 1980s ‘Fares Fair’ policy), including its historic and mythic elements. At the same time, it is important to bear in mind that other key changes in the ‘governance of transport’ were also implemented

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over this period: ‘It’s difficult to distinguish between the creation of the GLA, and the arrival of the SRA (Strategic Rail Authority). Because relationships with the boroughs changed as much due to the arrival of the SRA as they did due to the creation of the GLA, and it can be hard to separate one effect from the other.’ (Interview with Senior Official, transport agency) Part of the reason for the complexity of institutional relationships with regard to transport is the fact that London’s transport network – particularly its commuter network – comprises a geographical area which far exceeds the remit of the GLA, extending out into the surrounding South East Region and beyond. Transport is a good example of the disjunction between political and economic definitions of ‘London’ referred to above: ‘Transport for London is very London-focused, and the London boundaries very much matter to them. However, the rail network doesn’t work like that, and commuters’ journeys don’t work like that. For example, there’s a tradeoff of running more long services … and running more local services, that stop at every station … TfL has put its focus on good local services within London … But that strategy is at variance with both what the market wants, and what the people who live outside of London want and need! So there’s that tension.’ (Interview with Senior Official, transport agency) In addition to the SRA, a new rail infrastructural institution was created (Network Rail) to take over from the failed Railtrack company. Government appointed agencies for roads (the Highways Agency), civil aviation (the Civil Aviation Authority) and transport policing (the British Transport Police) continued as Whitehall-controlled bodies. The mayor’s transport authority (TfL) was only one element in the capital’s massive transit system.

Health The creation of the GLA was associated – indirectly at least – with a reorganization of the National Health Service in London. Previously, London was divided between the two regions of North Thames and South Thames. On 1 January 1999, the NHS London region was created. According to one

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interviewed, this made a huge difference to how the NHS responds to other organizations in London: ‘the NHS was suddenly seen as a player to do business with on the London scene’ [Senior Officer non-governmental organisation]. It made relationships easier, and enabled the NHS to concentrate on key issues. The strategies of have an impact on NHS priorities. The NHS was able to relate to London in a different way, examining the links between social, economic and health impacts. The Director of Public Health for London (Sue Atkinson) was appointed to a number of mayoral committees, though the new NHS London Region was abolished following a further reorganisation in 2002.

Education and housing Education and housing are outside the responsibilities of the mayor. But the mayor’s general duties to devise economic development and spatial development strategies inevitably brought him into policy issues concerning education and training on the one hand and the location and affordability of housing on the other. There were related institutional reforms here – the creation of Learning and Skills Councils and the Small Business Service – but once again, beneath the surface and beyond the changes of acronyms there are also significant continuities: ‘For the LSCs [Learning and Skills Councils] the key is a formation of a partnership with the LDA. We need to make sure that the roles and the strategies of the two entities lead to joint ventures and partnerships … Overall, our relationship with the GLA has been relatively good, and its impact to date on the LSCs has come through the economic development strategy.’ (Interview with Senior Official, Local Learning and Skills Council) Further education (funded by the Learning and Skills Council), higher education (funded by the Higher Education Funding Council) and the Whitehall-sponsored Small Business Service added to the clutter of institutions. In housing, the Housing Corporation and its London regional office are the major funders of subsidy for affordable and social housing. All of these bodies, and many more, work under the aegis of the Government Office for London. During 2002 and 2003, further reforms took place with the appointment (by central government) of a Schools Commissioner and a London Housing Board.

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There would be a clear logic for the mayor to have more control over health and education resources in London, but equally clearly, central government is likely to resist this. Mayor Livingstone told us: ‘Come back in 25 years and I’m certain this organisation will have the health authorities, further education, all those silly little quangos left alive like the London Arts Board, and the South Bank Arts Complex … But how rapidly you go down that road will depend on the Government of the day.’ In the meantime, a bewildering array of Whitehall agencies, regional offices, government departments and the boroughs will compete for political breathing-room. Figure 8.1 in Chapter 8 summarizes this system.

Business in London In London business involvement in economic development, strategic planning and governance generally grew after the abolition of the GLC in 1986 at three levels: London-wide, sub-regionally and locally. This came about, according to Hall (1995), for two main reasons: first, a belief on the part of business that no-one was paying attention to key issues affecting business competitiveness such as the London property market, public transport, road congestion and other infrastructure issues; secondly, the belief of key business leaders of several major UK firms based in London that, as in various US cities, business leadership could turn round the local economy and promote diverse and vigorous economic growth. In the 1990s, as discussed in Chapter 2, there were a number of pan-London institutional innovations, including the creation of London First and the London Pride Partnership. At the sub-regional level, and based to some extent on US experience, business leadership teams were set up in geographical sectors of London to act as leaders of sub-regional partnerships. Both West London Leadership and the East London Partnership predate London First. West London Leadership evolved around the Park Royal industrial estate which had been badly hit by the loss of manufacturing and goods-handling, and now covers a substantial ‘corridor’ of London out to Heathrow Airport (Hall, 1995; Newman and Thornley, 1997). It is active in producing subregional strategies and in lobbying. The East London Partnership was founded in 1989 by twenty or so businesses in the East London area. Other business leadership teams have been established elsewhere in London. For example, the highly-effective Central London Partnership (CLP), led by chief executive

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Patricia Brown, evolved out of London First. CLP became a significant player in the post-2000 London governance scene. In 1997, the Government announced the setting up of Regional Development Agencies in England. In all other regions, these RDAs commenced work in April 1999. In London, however, in order to fit in with the timetable for the GLA, the London Development Agency would not begin work until mid-2000 – more than a year later. Concerned about the relative disadvantage that London might suffer through this delay, a number of organizations therefore set up a ‘London Development Partnership’ in 1998 ‘to help prepare for the LDA’. The Partnership Board was chaired by Lord Marshall of Knightsbridge, Chairman of British Airways, and comprised a mix of business people, politicians and others. The LDP had a small executive team led by Eric Sorensen, formerly Chief Executive of the London Docklands Development Corporation. As well as these new organizations and partnerships there are a number of existing London organizations which continue to represent the business sector. The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) is the main membership-based business organization in the UK, founded in 1965. The London Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has more than 3,000 members ranging from small and medium enterprises to large multinationals, together employing about 500,000 people. The LCCI proposed the creation of a London Business Board to advise the mayor and assembly on all matters of policy, publish an annual audit of the GLA’s contribution to London’s competitiveness, and to nominate the business directors for the LDA. Both the CBI London Region and London First agreed to join the London Business Board. But the most remarkable business-based organization involved in London governance is the Corporation of London. The City Corporation has represented the mercantile and financial interests of the ‘Square Mile’ for more than eight centuries. Despite its mediaeval origins, pre-democratic constitution and a liking for candle-lit ceremony, the City Corporation has shown itself to be an entirely modern organization, alive to the opportunities and threats presented by GLC abolition and astute at making alliances. Hebbert (1998) writes: [after 1986] the Corporation emerged from its shell to take a lead role within the new order. It took over most of the work of representing London overseas and receiving important visitors to the capital … Taking its seat in the various new joint committees of the London boroughs, it used its curious status – venerable, immensely rich, a political eunuch – to broker between the ideological blocs of boroughs controlled by Labour and the Conservatives.

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Two leading members of the Corporation – first Michael Cassidy and, during the period of the creation of the GLA, Judith Mayhew – steered the City into new and potentially trecherous political waters. The political brilliance of Cassidy and Mayhew ensured the Corporation of London a key role in Livingstone’s London. While the two other elements of the modern British constitution that have survived from the Middle Ages – the monarchy and the House of Lords – have been subjected (one gently, the other not so gently) to the force of New Labour’s modernizing crusade, the City Corporation has been spared and allowed to reform itself from within. A modest change to the City’s franchise has resulted from their pressures. The business sector was generally in favour of setting up a Greater London Authority. The LCCI congratulated the Government on its proposals: A city-wide authority will bring a much needed sense of identity to London and enable us better to promote and defend the interests of the capital nationally and internationally. LCCI commends proposals to make decision making in London more transparent, democratic and better co-ordinated. London First was supportive of the idea, and also emphasized that the GLA ‘must enhance London’s international status and role as a key contributor to the nation’s fortunes’. The CBI were more cautious: they saw pitfalls as well as potential in the new plans. Not surprisingly, business organizations were concerned to promote the voice of London business in the new arrangements. London First argued: The GLA’s work must rest on the principle of real partnership. London’s prosperity and competitiveness depends on business. For London to remain competitive, business needs access to decision making, a coherent voice to articulate its needs and the ability to make things happen. The GLA and its agencies must work in close concert with business. The LCCI argued that the role of business went beyond just being consulted on matters directly related to economic development: Business needs to be at the heart of this process not on the sidelines nor restricted to the London Development Agency (LDA). For London activity ultimately rests on the wealth created by business. Proper, meaningful partnership between government and business in the GLA is therefore crucial. More specifically, the LCCI promoted the idea of the London Business Board, which the other organizations agreed to join.

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In summary then, the business lobby generally wanted a metropolitan authority created; they wanted a strong mayor, a small assembly and a minimum of bureaucracy; they wanted the GLA to have clearly limited powers and no independent ability to raise taxes. As far as these main issues are concerned, the structure and functions of the GLA as set out in the Greater London Authority Act conformed to these wishes. London business broadly got what it wanted. Since becoming mayor, Ken Livingstone has stressed the international nature of the London economy and the need to promote and enhance its ‘competitiveness’. Hence, in his first State of London report: If London is to maintain and expand its prosperity in this new economy it must build globalisation into the very foundations of the city and our thinking. London is already the most internationalised city in the world … the prosperity of every Londoner is completely tied up with the city’s role in the international economy. For this very reason it is impossible to combine the economy of the greatest international city in the world with narrow mindedness and Little Englander attitudes. From here, Livingstone went on to argue that London must maintain its attractiveness to inward investment; must push for the UK to join the euro; promote tourism; maximize the talents of all its inhabitants by tackling inequality, poverty and discrimination and promoting diversity: in other words, a modernization agenda. Overall, then, the mayor has been keen to promote a strong partnership with business. This has gone beyond generalities to embrace specific policy positions – for example in support of Britain joining the euro; and in support of new high-rise property development, such as the proposed Baltic Exchange and Heron Tower developments in the City of London. The relationship between Mayor Livingstone and business has therefore been mainly positive. In September 2000, a poll suggested 63 per cent of firms thought Livingstone would ‘work well’ with the business community, a rise from 39 per cent in April 2000, just prior to the election. On the euro, 54 per cent of businesses in September 2000 supported the mayor, with 26 per cent against. Even on congestion charging – polling suggested 61 per cent were in favour, 24 per cent opposed. This was not through any misreading of Ken Livingstone’s political stance: 90 per cent of businesses surveyed thought that Livingstone is ‘very’ or ‘slightly’ left-wing. The mayor consulted with the business sector in a number of ways, including through his adviser John Ross and advisory cabinet member Judith Mayhew. The high degree of organization of the business

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sector – effectively into four organizations: London First, London CBI, London Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the City Corporation – meant that the mayor and his advisers could rapidly get to know the views of the business community. Advisers from the business and finance world were used by the mayor to ‘test’ the mayor’s policies for their business and finance effects. Business, particularly the City, continues to have a major effect on the mayor’s strategies and ways of thinking. For some private–public partnerships, the two-way relationship with the mayor was seen as crucial as the following representative quotes suggest: ‘[creation of mayor/GLA has] given us a focus for our work, giving us someone to relate to who is a bigger entity than a local authority. We have good relationships with the Mayor and the functional bodies, and they/he/it see CLP as a delivery agent for some of the things they can’t do, which they need the local authorities to be galvanised to do.’ Business has not retreated from involvement in partnership governance but continued to be involved in the post-GLA world: ‘The Mayor favours a sub-regional delivery route for his initiatives … Many of those [public–private] organisations came into existence to fill the gap left by the abolition of the GLC, and now they’re strengthened because people recognise the need for them.’ However, there are different views on the importance of the mayor and the GLA for the profitability of business in London. For some, the potential is there for the mayor to have a major impact: ‘the Mayor and the strategies of the organisation, will potentially have the single most important effect on the operating environment that businesses are working in – ever. If they get it right. And that’s the “if”.’ Some business representatives were more sceptical, reflecting a more traditional view about the relative strength of political and structural influences on business: ‘[the Mayor and GLA is] mainly irrelevant to most business people. We have spent quite a lot of time having to explain what the GLA is … for much of what they do … [the Mayor] is irrelevant, because if he were relevant, he would be on the radar screen … the main issue facing business in London is the global economic situation, number one. And two, three and four.’

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Another general issue was the lack of implementation capacity, not only within the GLA but within the public sector generally in London: ‘There are very few people in the whole system in London who know how to deliver … who know really basic things about project management, skills, time management … That’s sort of true pre- and post-mayor.’ Within the GLA, delivery and implementation of the business agenda are still seen to be weak. There was some criticism that the mayor was not attuned to the views of the bigger companies in London. One view was that ‘they [the mayor and his staff] are a long way form the movers and shakers in the economy’. Conclusion The wider dimension to the new London governance is important. In particular: ●

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it remains a complex and fragmented system, which requires working together between different public and private bodies in order to function (generally known as ‘network governance’) central government retains a major interventionist and controlling role the lower-tier authorities, particularly the London boroughs, continue to exercise a key role many of the partnerships and other forms of inter-agency working which developed in the 1986–2000 period have survived into the new era, sometimes in a changed form metropolitan governance in London remains weak compared with many other examples of major cities worldwide. This point is explained further in the next chapter.

The lack of region-wide capability and the continuing complexity of London government remain defining characteristics of the post-2000 system. ‘Governance’ rather than ‘government’ is a helpful word to describe the multi-agency, often opaque, weak arrangements that surround the mayor and assembly. These issues will be further considered in Chapter 8.

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A Very British Mayor?

The search for an effective and acceptable form of metropolitan government is far from unique to London. Across Europe and North America other cities have struggled to define institutions and systems which balance the competing goals of economic growth, social cohesion and democratic accountability. In this chapter London’s new governance is put in comparative context. It looks first at the general issues of metropolitan governance in different cities across the developed world, and then goes on to look in more detail at some specific comparisons between London’s mayor and those in some other major cities.

Who needs metropolitan government? Metropolitan government first came to London more than a hundred years ago. For many decades, indeed, London was seen as a pioneer of what was generally acknowledged to be a progressive and enlightened trend towards metropolitan – as opposed to ‘parochial’ or truly local government. More recently, however, with the triumph of market economies and a general increase in distrust of government, the supposed advantages of metropolitan government have come increasingly under attack. Before looking at recent developments in metropolitan government in other countries, it is important to summarize the key arguments for and against metropolitanism. First, it has been argued that larger government units are better able to deliver public goods and services efficiently and effectively, as they can make use of greater economies of scale (Newton, 1982; Keating, 1995; Lefevre, 1998; Swanstrom, 2001). These arguments were particularly important in the period from the 1950s to the 1970s: ‘Critics of fragmented local governments argued that they were too small to achieve economies of scale’ (Swanstrom, 2001, p. 481). So smaller authorities would provide some services uneconomically, while others – ‘local public goods’ – would not be provided at all. This latter would happen in the case of facilities such as libraries and parks, which entail classic ‘free rider’ problems – the facility must be paid for by local citizens, while benefits are enjoyed by those in the whole metropolitan region. 155

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Secondly, it can be argued that metropolitan government can better promote redistribution between rich and poor areas, reduce social segregation and promote solidarity between all citizens. Smaller government units will tend to separate and segregate themselves into rich and poor jurisdictions, creating a cyclical pattern of social separation. Metropolitan authorities, whose legitimacy derives from the whole population can take strategic decisions to balance development across the whole city area as well as (explicitly or implicitly) redistribute incomes and/or resources through their taxation and spending policies. Thirdly, metropolitan institutions more closely conform to economic and social realities. Administrative boundaries of central cities are largely historical, ignoring the fact that such places are now merely a part of a much larger economic and geographical reality. Similarly, suburbs and other outlying areas are no longer self-contained semi-rural communities but part of a densely-connected labour market and travel-to-work area. Hence, it is argued, historical boundaries should be replaced by new authorities which more accurately reflect the present reality. Moreover, metropolitan authorities themselves can play a role in creating and sustaining cultural identity and political solidarity: Residents of cities and economic clusters within cities undertaking similar functions may see themselves as having more in common with residents of cities in other countries than they do with others of the same nationality. This may weaken governance based on regional characteristics or geographical areas. Hence the need to create, through good governance, stronger local solidarity and a ‘feeling of belonging’ at the level of the city-region. This is a major task of metropolitan governance. (OECD, 2001, p. 30) Fourthly, metropolitan government is often advocated as a solution to excessive fragmentation and lack of co-ordination between a range of competing and parochial lower tier authorities: For the American reformers, and later, for supporters of the modernization of the institutional structure of the territory, fragmentation was the key problem. The term ‘fragmentation’ implies that there are too many local government units. Their number therefore had to be reduced, either by merger or by consolidation. (Lefevre, 1998, p. 12) As we saw earlier, this was one of the arguments deployed in favour of the re-creation of a metropolitan tier in London.

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Finally, and more recently, metropolitan or city-region government has been advocated on grounds of economic growth and development. Here it is argued that major cities are engaged in a process of global competition to attract investment, residents and events. In order to develop competitive advantage and to prepare and implement effective urban strategies, government – or rather governance – is needed at the metropolitan or regional scale, corresponding with the geographical reality over which the city economy functions. Once again, fragmentation and excessive localism are the enemies. In response to the metropolitan case, a number of arguments have been deployed, often from the ‘public choice’ school of political theory. First of all, the empirical evidence for economies of scale in the provision of public services is lacking the evidence that less fragmented policymaking would improve regional economic performance is weak and contradictory. The factors that influence economic development are so many and so intertwined that it is difficult, if not impossible, to separate out one factor from the mix. (Swanstrom, 2001, p. 488) A study of consolidated city government in nine US case studies found no evidence of impacts on economic growth (Carr and Feiock, 1999). London’s economy and population turned round during the period when it lacked metropolitan government. Secondly, public choice theorists have pointed out that smaller authorities can obtain the benefits of economies of scale by contracting with upper-tier authorities or special-purpose districts for provision of services – that is, it is possible to separate the funding and the provision of urban public services (Swanstrom, 2001). Moreover, in this viewpoint, having a large number of small authorities brings positive benefits: ‘for the supporters of public choice, institutional fragmentation and smallness are essential elements in maintaining competition; they alone permit individual choice’ (Lefevre, 1998, p. 11). Large jurisdictions render government remote from the individual, undermining democracy and allowing vested interests to capture and colonize large governmental bureaucracies. Thirdly, even if the arguments about the need for economic strategy and city competition are accepted, in the current era, the effective economic space is simply far too big to merit serious consideration as the basis of an acceptable political and administrative unit. In the case of London, the ‘economic city’ is not even Greater London, but the truly leviathan Greater

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South East. Hence, governance and not metropolitan government is required, and the argument for a single metropolitan tier falls. Two solutions present themselves to the ‘problem’ of metropolitan government – supra-municipality and inter-municipality (Lefevre, 1998). That is, there can either be an upper tier authority with defined functions, powers and revenue or there can be some kind of arrangement or grouping of existing municipalities which by and large retain these powers. True supramunicipality requires direct political legitimacy, definite financial autonomy and clear multiple powers exercised over a defined territory (Lefevre, 1998, p. 13). In the period from the 1960s to the 1980s England stood out as one of the very few examples where true supra-municipal metropolitan government was created: the GLC in 1965 and the English metropolitan authorities in 1974. By contrast, Greater Rotterdam was abolished in 1985 and the Metropolitan Corporation of Barcelona in 1987. Generally, intra-municipality was more common. Metro Toronto was created in 1954 as an inter-municipal arrangement which has evolved towards supra-municipality (see below); four French cities (Bordeaux, Lille, Lyon and Strasbourg) set up Communautés Urbaines with indirectly elected representatives (Lefevre, 1998). However, in the 1990s, there has been something of a renaissance of metropolitan government. Various experiments have been tried in Italy, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands. In Canada, Toronto has evolved towards a full metropolitan government. But these have generally been limited successes. In part, there is a problem of moving from the ‘technocratic’ solution of metropolitan reform to a political structure which enjoys democratic legitimacy – especially difficult in an era when all forms of deference to expert authority are in decline and distrust of government on the increase. So metropolitan reform attempts in Amsterdam and Rotterdam foundered when put to referenda. The older municipal boundaries could no longer claim economic legitimacy but they still conveyed representational and political meaning to their resident. Metropolitan government is not just about efficiency and competition – it also involves the politics of identity, as indeed recognized by earlier reformers and theorists who spoke about the creation of a ‘metropolitan community’. Hence in comparative context, the creation (or re-creation) of metropolitan government in London is seen to be a highly unusual event. Given the limitations and restrictions which the mayor and his metropolitan government must work under, this naturally raises the question as to whether one should consider the mayor/GLA to be genuinely metropolitan government at all.

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Foreign influences? London came late to the idea of a mayor for the whole city. Previous British political tradition had always involved a number of members elected to a political body (either Parliament or a local authority), with a leader emerging, generally from a political group formed in advance of the election of the members. Neither of the official inquiries that had examined London government during the twentieth century had given serious consideration to the idea of a mayor for London (Ullswater, 1923; Herbert, 1960). In each case, it had been accepted without question that some kind of traditional authority would be appropriate for London (as for all other cities in Britain). There is no evidence that Blair or his advisers had considered overseas experience as the basis of their decision to support a mayor for London. The personalized politics of the United States – city mayors, state governors and, ultimately, the President – had always been a subject of interest within the United Kingdom, though generally it produced a mixture of fascination and distaste among both the British public and the country’s political elite. There were very few examples of directly-elected executives within European political systems. The President of France was perhaps the bestknown such figure in Britain, though the apparently weak, bi-polar, nature of French politics had never made it an exemplar of democratic good practice in Britain. By the mid-1990s, there was a small number of directlyelected mayors in Germany and Italy, though there is no evidence that their existence had been logged by Tony Blair and his policy-makers. Political commentator Simon Jenkins (who had encouraged Tony Blair to adopt elected mayors) appears to have had more influence on London government than the systems in use in the rest of the world. US-style directly-elected executives have often been dismissed in Britain for leading to ‘the politics of personality’ and/or to a concentration on individuals rather than ‘issues’. The British political elite – particularly the leadership of the main political parties – has remained touchingly faithful to the collective-leadership model within which a ‘leader’ or Prime Minister must retain the confidence of his or her elected colleagues to stay in power. While massive efforts have been applied over many years to press for reforms such as proportional representation or open government, there has been no equivalent lobby for experimentation with US-style directlyelected officials. Once Blair’s leadership decided to propagate a policy of elected mayors for first London and then other authorities, the forces of opposition to directly-elected executives emerged strongly. In a poll of member authorities

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conducted by the Local Government Association in 1999, 98 per cent of all local councils stated they would prefer a ‘cabinet-style’ leadership (relatively close to traditional British practice) to a directly-elected mayor (Local Government Association, 1999). Few authorities embraced with enthusiasm the chance of holding a referendum about the possibility of moving to a mayoral system of local government. Only one organization emerged which powerfully supported the move to directly-elected executive mayors in British local government. The New Local Government Network (NLGN), an all-party-organization set up in 1998 to encourage the modernization of local government, strongly supported the Blair government’s policy of executive mayors. Leading figures in the NLGN, notably Professor Gerry Stoker, Geoffrey (now Lord) Filkin and Professor Paul Corrigan pushed the case for mayors against overwhelming opposition within much of the political establishment. The NLGN certainly did look overseas for evidence of how executive mayors might work in Britain. Gerry Stoker had long been active and respected on the international academic scene, and had written about the lessons Britain’s increasingly moribund local government might learn from other countries (Stoker, 1999, 2000). John Williams, the Network’s early director, undertook further research on mayoral systems overseas. But all such evidence tended to meet head-on opposition within many local authorities to the idea of reforming the way in which executive power was handled. Once Labour had won the 1997 general election and civil servants started to put together the green paper about the proposed London reform (DETR, 1997), ministers and civil servants did look at overseas systems of city government for guidance about how London should develop. Minister for London Nick Raynsford and his civil servants visited New York, Boston, Washington, Cologne and Barcelona seeking evidence from politicians, officials and academics about the strengths and weaknesses of particular arrangements. For example, at a seminar held at Columbia University in New York, Raynsford (according to an interview conducted for this book) was impressed by the views put forward by Professor Ester Fuchs that, based in the evidence of New York City Council, a smaller council would be better than a larger one. Fuchs had expressed concerns at the parochial nature of some New York councillors and argued that London had an opportunity to create a system where a city-wide view was more likely. British ministers and officials were fascinated at the extent and creative use of political patronage by mayors, particularly in Boston. In Europe, the minister and officials saw very different systems from those in use in Boston and New York. Patronage was less obviously a part of

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the city government arrangements, while the relationship between mayors and other councillors were more recognizable to British observers than had been the case in the United States. In Barcelona and Cologne (the former having an indirectly-elected and the latter a directly-elected mayor) there appeared to be far closer involvement between mayors and city councillors than in the US where the division of powers was clearer. This collegiate, European, model appealed to the minister and his civil servants rather more than the adversarial American one. But, overall, the scope for international research by ministers and officials in 1997 and 1998 was limited: large amounts of time were to be needed to draft the GLA Bill. British governments are always under pressure to avoid accusations of overseas ‘junketing’. Despite the revolutionary nature of the introduction of elected executive mayors to Britain, it was always inevitable that legislation would be created largely on the basis of British democratic practice, with only a limited understanding of the experience of systems that had already matured in other countries.

How does London compare? In comparing the experience of London with other European and North American cities, certain general differences in the roles of city and other sub-national governments in Britain compared with either the US or Europe are important. First, economic and political power are highly centralized in UK central government and as a result independent corporate power bases in Britain’s cities, much less true urban ‘growth coalitions’, are extremely rare. There are few if any real regional growth coalitions in Britain on the US model, with independent regional sources of finance and political support: The more decentralised pattern in the United States means that its cities contain key private economic interests for which urban fortunes are still important to business success … They also provide fertile environments for strong business social networks … [which] act as organisational platforms from which business interests contribute to discussions about the form and context of urban redevelopment programmes. (Harding, 1994, p. 365) Similarly, in many European countries, it is common practice for national politicians to have a strong local and regional power base, and for local

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chambers of commerce, for example, to be key players in local and regional politics. Secondly, fiscal arrangements in Britain are very different from the US and also from many European countries. In the US local government spending is very dependent on protecting and enhancing the local tax base, by encouraging firms to move to, or expand in, the local area. In Britain, by contrast, the local government grant regime seeks to equalize needs and resources across local areas. Moreover, since the nationalization of the business rate by the Thatcher government in 1990, there are no direct fiscal advantages to local governments in attracting new investment. In addition, both local spending and local taxation are controlled. Hence the scope for fiscal gains at local level from pro-development policies (and conversely, the fiscal disincentive to slow growth or anti-growth policies) is practically zero. Thirdly, British local government is weak politically as well as fiscally. Within the unitary UK state, local government has always been a creature of central government, but during the Thatcher and Major governments its position deteriorated considerably. This position can be contrasted not only with the US but also with most European countries. In federal systems such as Germany, there are clearly defined rights, responsibilities and powers at each tier of government. Even in a unitary state such as France there has been considerable devolution of power to the lower levels. Indeed, many of the current governance questions in France arise from some of the enthusiasm for decentralization in the 1980s which created a fragmented system. Charles de Gaulle is supposed to have asked how it could be possible to govern a nation with hundreds of different cheeses. (The exact number is variously quoted between 275 and 1,000.) He might well have asked how it were possible to govern a nation with 36,000 communes, each with its own mayor. More recently, the devolution programme of New Labour has changed this picture somewhat with the introduction of meso (that is, intermediate or regional) levels of government, with varying powers, in Scotland, Wales and London. But the general picture of a highly centralized British state remains true. Fourthly, the extent and legitimacy of the British welfare state makes it very different from the US – but the inadequacies of Britain’s welfare state render it different again from the more extensive welfare states of northern Europe. In making comparisons of urban governance arrangements across countries it is important to bear in mind these continuing structural differences. Finally, Britain’s cultural position – in terms of its civic and governmental culture – is ambiguous. There are some shared Anglo-Saxon attitudes

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between the US and the UK: scepticism towards the state; common law tradition; pragmatism; liberty over equality. But there are also shared ‘European’ attitudes: a commitment to welfare; a strong belief in the ameliorative role of the state; as well as pooled sovereignty (and perhaps, eventually, a common currency?) within the EU. More directly, the sheer scale of London – seven and a half million people concentrated in 1,500 square kilometres – is an important consideration in examining overseas city government systems. Arrangements that work well in a city of 250,000 may provide few clues for a city of the size of London. London is also unusual, if not quite unique, in that it is the capital city not only politically, but financially, economically and culturally as well. This contrasts not only with the clear separation of functions between, say, New York and Washington but also with the more complex positioning between, say, Rome and Milan, Barcelona and Madrid. Nevertheless, and bearing in mind these structural differences, a comparison with governmental arrangements in other major cities will be useful. Paris and Berlin are obvious comparators for London. Each is the capital of a country with broadly the same population as the UK, though Germany has a significantly more decentralized system of government than either France or Britain. The Paris agglomeration has a population of over nine million, though the city government itself covers just the two million at the centre of the built-up area. Berlin’s agglomeration is fairly closely defined by the city government’s boundaries, and contains three and a half million people. By any standards, both Paris and Berlin are large world cities and offer potential lessons for London, though their mayoral arrangements are significantly different from those adopted for London. Barcelona, however, is far smaller. It is a regional capital – of Catalonia – with a city population of one and a half million. The wider regional population is about four and a half million. However, Barcelona is often seen in Britain as a model of good city government. Moreover, the city’s mayors have led a hugely successful renaissance which has been cited again and again by British urban experts as an example for British cities to follow (Urban Task Force, 1999). Barcelona will be considered, as will Madrid, the national capital. Rome, Naples and several other Italian cities have also successfully introduced mayors within recent years. Indeed, there is widespread agreement that mayors have been one of Italy’s most successful democratic reforms in recent years. In the Netherlands in the 1990s, the central government encouraged the creation of city-provinces in the seven largest metropolitan regions. The chapter will also look more briefly at experiences in Rome and Amsterdam.

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North America offers many possible comparisons for London (and, indeed, other British cities), though differences in political culture must be taken into account. Toronto underwent a major reform of its government system in 1998, introducing a directly-elected mayor for its metropolitan area of 2.5 million people. The relative proximity of this reform is important from London’s point of view. New York City, with a diverse population of eight million and an industrial structure that is virtually a mirror-image of London’s, offers an excellent possibility for comparisons (Travers and Stoker, 1998). New York has had a directly-elected mayor for over 200 years and offers an extraordinary example of stable mayoral government over a long period.

City government overseas Paris Running Paris involves four tiers of government – the central state, the Ile de France region, the city of Paris and the historic arrondissements – one more level than in London. The city of Paris itself is both a commune (municipality) and one of eight départements (counties) that make up the Ile de France region. The region comprises over 11 million inhabitants and 1,281 communes. The tiers of government are very differently arranged in London and Paris, with significantly different responsibilities attributed to each. Perhaps the most obvious difference between Paris and London is the relatively small size (by population and area) of the city of Paris. With a population of just over two million, the modern administrative unit of ‘Paris’ is of broadly the scale of ‘inner London’, though it covers a significantly smaller area. Paris is therefore the same city as that re-built by Baron Haussmann during the mid-nineteenth century, and is widely understood within and outside its boundaries. The City of Paris lies within ancient city walls and also within the more modern Boulevard Périphérique. There is a directly-elected city council of 173 members who generally fight elections as members of one of the main political parties. Each of the parties nominates one of its candidates as its leader and therefore as its candidate for mayor. Thus, although elections are fought on the basis of ward-by-ward contests and there is no directly-elected mayor, it is clear that if a particular party wins, its mayoral candidate – assuming he or she is personally elected – will be the city’s elected leader.

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This system has operated since 1977 – previously there was a council but no mayor. From that date until 1995, there was a single mayor – Jacques Chirac – who achieved three mandates as leader of the RPR (Rassemblement pour la République) party. Because of the normal practice in French politics of accumulating more than one mandate (that is, to be elected to different levels of government simultaneously), Chirac managed on occasion to be both mayor of Paris and Prime Minister at the same time. There is no doubt that because of Paris’s overwhelming dominance of France, the office of mayor of the capital is of immense symbolic and political importance within French politics. In 2001, Chirac’s successor, Jean Tiberi was de-selected by the RPR following allegations of impropriety during his (and possibly Chirac’s) period as mayor. A Socialist – Bertrand Delanoë – was elected mayor of the right-leaning French capital on the back of an apparent desire within the Parisian electorate to clean up their city’s politics. The first citizen of Paris is by no means a ‘strong mayor’ in the terms normally used in American studies of mayoral systems. Although Paris is both a ‘commune’ and a ‘department’ (that is, combining two tiers of local government), the French state remains very powerful in the provision of public services in the city. Most education, health and personal social services are provided by national government. Transport (including the city’s fabled Métro and its RER suburban rail systems) is the responsibility of government-appointed boards. Social security is a state responsibility, while the police answer to a government-appointed prefect. Many major planning decisions affecting Paris are made by the state. However, where the mayor and city council are responsible, they are highly effective. They run street services such as roads, cleansing, refuse collection, lighting and general environmental management. The new mayor took a highly-controversial decision during the summer of 2001 to close a major section of the main road between the Louvre and the Seine – evidence of the city’s control over a major element of the public realm, and designed to show a new environmental consciousness in local politics. The city is also responsible for low-cost social housing, for leisure facilities and for local planning, licensing and enforcement. Some capital works for education are handled by Paris itself. In short, the mayor and city council are broadly responsible for what in Britain would be seen as district council services. However, the extent and obvious quality of the services provided, coupled with the dignity and importance of mayor of Paris make the office a powerful one. The mayor appoints a ‘cabinet’ of portfolio-holders to take particular responsibilities

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for services and other needs. The Hotel de Ville (city hall) is immensely important within and outside Paris. There have been few serious proposals to reform the current system of Paris city government. There is clearly a difficulty in governing the sprawling suburbs beyond the Périphérique, where there are over 1,000 communes of different sizes within the Ile de France region which surrounds the capital. In 1981, a system of limited regional devolution was put in place under the Mitterrand presidency, creating an elected regional government for the Ile de France. But regions have only modest powers, notably over planning and transport. The regional tier is the weakest, although recently there has been some movement towards greater empowerment at that level, through functional, piecemeal and informal, rather than legislative change (Lefevre, 2001). The mayor and city council (and, indeed, the state) are far more important to the lives of Parisians. The fourth tier of government in the city of Paris consists of 20 arrondissements. These districts each has its own mayor and council, elected in much the same way as for the city. They are responsible for a number of minor aspects of public provision such as some care for small children, or consultation with the Hotel de Ville over major planning matters. In reality, this lowest tier of city government is more for representative than service-delivery purposes. Finance for local services is derived from four different taxes including ones on property and employees which collectively make up about half of the city’s income. Because of its immense wealth, Paris is in the happy position of having relatively low local tax rates and high levels of local public expenditure. There is only limited equalization between local authorities in France, so poorer communes in the city’s suburbs find themselves with high tax rates and low spending levels. Although Paris and London are cities which superficially have much in common, their systems of government are sufficiently different to limit the possibility of much direct read-across from one to the other. The dominant role of the French state in Paris’s government and development certainly exceeds anything witnessed in London, though there is little doubt that in the years after the Greater London Council was abolished in 1986, the United Kingdom’s central government assumed increasingly prefect-like responsibilities for the British capital. Even today, the financial control exercised by Whitehall over both tiers of London government is at least as powerful a constraint as anything imposed on Paris or the Ile de France region. Paris, though an urban agglomeration of equivalent scale to London, is governed so differently as to give few real clues as to either how the GLA

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might develop or, indeed, how changes might be made to the existing London system so that it might function more effectively. However, the Paris model probably gives some clues as to the potential importance and leadership capabilities of the mayor of a major capital city – even a mayor who is relatively weak in terms of formal powers and, as in Paris, indirectly elected. Paris shows that the importance of a city – London is surely almost as pivotal within the UK as Paris is within France – can vest its leader with power that exceeds formal legislative capacities. However, even this conclusion must be tempered by the reality that the mayor of Paris has little competition from either the regional or arrondissement levels of government above or below him, whereas the mayor of London must compete for political power and influence with the far more powerful borough councils.

Berlin After the fall of the Wall in 1989 Berlin inherited the system of government that had previously operated in West Berlin. There is now a two-tier city government system, involving a city parliament headed by a governing mayor, plus a second tier of boroughs. A third level is the federal government, which has limited service responsibilities within the city, but whose importance has increased since the designation of Berlin as the capital in 1998. With a population of just under three and a half million, Berlin is a single, continuous, urban area. Unlike Paris, it is not surrounded by a ring of suburbs. Indeed, the area immediately outside Berlin – Brandenburg – is surprisingly rural. The administrative city of ‘Berlin’ covers virtually the entire built-up area. During the years of the Wall, West Berlin was largely hemmed in and hence there was no opportunity for sprawl. Since 1989, there has been some evidence of loss of population from the central areas of Berlin to the outskirts and, indeed, into Brandenburg. Berlin is both a land, or region, and a local authority. That is, it has all the powers of a German regional government plus those of local government. This means the 165 member Berlin parliament is virtually a city-state. The executive of the parliament is a group of ‘senators’ who are appointed by the governing party or coalition (elections are fought using a proportional representation system, on the basis of party candidates and lists). One of the executive appointments is the ‘Governing Mayor’, who is the city’s first citizen. However, it is important to understand that the mayor is indirectlyelected and has relatively few executive functions, acting as de facto chair

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of the appointed senators. All the senators, including the governing mayor, are of broadly equal status. For many years Berlin was governed by a ‘Black–Red’ coalition of Christian Democrats (CDU) and Social Democrats (SPD). During 2001, the coalition broke down following revelations about links between CDU politicians and a failing bank. While the CDU–SPD coalition had operated with a Christian Democrat mayor (Eberhard Diepgen), the SPD-led administration that took over was headed by a Social Democrat Governing Mayor (Klaus Wowereit). The Berlin state/city government has more local autonomy than virtually any other city administration in the developed world. The parliament legislates for the full range of domestic policy and has – by the standards of European cities – very considerable financial freedom. Of course, with this freedom has come immense responsibility during the past decade as the near-bankrupt city administration has fought to reduce financial deficits caused by post-1989 reunification and reconstruction of East and West Berlin. Funding is derived from constitutionally-guaranteed local shares of income and other major taxes, plus some (voluntary) inter-regional transfers. Berlin is currently a major beneficiary of these subventions from richer regions within Germany. Berlin city government is directly responsible for provision such as health, education, personal social services, transport (run jointly with neighbouring Brandenburg), social housing, planning, regeneration, the environment and local government. Even elements of social security are a city responsibility. Some powers are devolved to twelve borough councils which themselves operate within legislation passed by the Berlin parliament. In 2000, the number of boroughs was reduced to twelve from the previous total of 23. (This is a precedent that will send a chill down the spines of London borough leaders.) The extent of local autonomy enjoyed by Berlin city government appears almost fantastic to British eyes. Ironically, the constitutional arrangements under which the current system operates were put in place by the Allies – including Britain – in the years immediately after 1945. As part of the post-war settlement in Germany, a highly decentralized system of government was introduced. Because of this history, modern Berlin enjoys vastly greater local freedom than London. Berliners have – like Londoners – a genuine two-tier system of government. That is, there is a second tier that is itself directly elected and which has discretion over the provision of local services. The twelve Berlin boroughs have, on average, larger populations than their London counterparts

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and are very large by the standards of local government units anywhere in the world (apart from Britain, of course). Although the financing of the boroughs depends entirely on allocations from the Berlin government (that is, there are no tax-raising powers available to the boroughs), they do have real powers and duties to provide services. Thus the boroughs are responsible for street maintenance and lighting, refuse collection, and environmental, planning and licensing matters. Federal government plays a very limited role in the lives of Berliners. Virtually all aspects of domestic politics are the responsibility of the city’s parliament, not of federal government. However, the return of the capital to Berlin in 1989 has undoubtedly changed things. The arrival of federal government institutions has led to a major demand for government buildings, generally in the areas of the city they occupied until 1945. The presence of national politicians, bureaucrats and their apparatus in Berlin will inevitably put pressures on the city’s administration that would not otherwise have existed. Berlin’s finances are in a ruinous condition. Federal government will, quite simply, take more interest in Berlin as its seat of government and home town than it did in Berlin as just one (albeit a curious one) of a number of regional capitals. The Berlin system of government is very different from those of London and Paris. The extent of self-government is the pre-eminent difference. But the ‘Governing Mayor’ role is also very different from the mayors of either the British or the French capitals. For, while the city of Berlin may enjoy virtual city-state autonomy, its first citizen is not a powerful executive, nor is the position directly elected. Other German cities, for example Frankfurt and Cologne, do have directly-elected executive mayors of the kind now operating in London. On the other hand, Berlin’s two-tier system of local government is highly reminiscent of London’s. Indeed, the recent reduction in numbers – by combining a number of previous boroughs – is a classic London-style reform. London’s first city-wide mayor, Ken Livingstone, has on a number of occasions expressed a desire to reduce the number of boroughs in his city. Berlin might just give him heart that this can be achieved without bloodshed. Perhaps the key message from the Berlin experience is the fact that it is possible for a major European capital city, with a population of three-anda-half million, to have very considerable political and financial autonomy and to operate successfully. The period since 1989 has been a major test for such a system: Berlin has had to re-build large parts of its central area and, indeed, to attempt to create a functioning economy. Berlin politicians have led this process effectively without the federal government having to make

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all the major decisions. A simple comparison of Berlin’s excellent public transport system, run by the city’s own politicians, with London’s dire Underground and commuter railways, the responsibility of central government, demonstrates how competent local government can be. Moreover, this has been accomplished despite the fact that Berlin has a far lower GDP per head than London.

Barcelona and Madrid Barcelona is internationally acknowledged as a success story for municipal leadership in modern Europe. In the years since the end of the Franco regime, three mayors have visibly used their office to guide the city from its historic position as a regional capital – albeit an important one – within an underdeveloped country to its current status as perhaps Europe’s most dazzling example of urban re-invention. Using, in particular, the Olympic Games of 1992, Barcelona transformed itself physically and in terms of its international reputation. However, by London standards, Barcelona is relatively small. The population within the administrative area of the city is one-and-a-half million, though the wider built-up area is closer to four-and-a-quarter million. Nevertheless, this is still a city of significant scale, which has faced many of the kind of problems, such as elderly infrastructure, disused industrial areas and, more recently, immigration, seen in London, Paris or Berlin. Moreover, the city had, in terms of its government, started from scratch in 1977, with new democratic machinery and new local politicians. Given this background, the city’s achievements during the past 25 years are even more impressive (Stoker and Travers, 1999). The system of government in Barcelona is a three-tier arrangement, including the city itself, the regional government of Catalonia and national government in Madrid. In addition, there is a recently developed lower-tier of community boards within Barcelona. The Spanish constitution has had to accommodate complex regional differences and different levels of devolution from the centre to individual regional governments. The process of devolution within Spain is a complex and highly sensitive political process: At the end of the Franco regime, which had imposed a great repression on the different nationalities and different cultures existing in Spain, it was very clear that the re-establishment of a democratic system would only be possible in the context of a decentralized state. (Alvarez, 2002)

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Democracy and decentralization are closely linked. But conflicts exist not only between the national state and sub-national government, but between lower tiers themselves. Within Catalonia, there is an apparent struggle between the regional government and Barcelona, its capital. The regional and local governments have their headquarters in the same neighbourhood of the city. In the Franco period, there was a metropolitan government for Greater Barcelona; this was abolished in 1985. The mayor of Barcelona has become an office of rather greater importance than the formal powers might suggest (Stoker and Travers, 1999). The mayor appoints a ‘cabinet’ of members from his or her own party, with portfolios for particular responsibilities. Barcelona has been controlled by the Socialists continuously since 1977, though the margin over the opposition is now relatively small. All three mayors have thus been Socialists, though they have operated in a consensual manner. Pasqual Maragall, the second mayor, used the word ‘complicity’ to describe the kind of civic engagement that had been achieved as the result of efforts that had been made by himself and his two colleagues to bring various interests – such as business, local communities and even the regional government – together. Barcelona city government has powers over local roads, street management and cleansing, refuse collection, social housing, regeneration, planning, licensing and enforcement. The region provides health, education, social services and transport, while central government has responsibilities for social security. Of course, as in most systems there are overlapping responsibilities, notably between the city and the region for planning and transport. Finance is derived in part from local taxation and in part from grants received from the Catalan government. The city council consists of 41 members, one of whom becomes the indirectly-elected mayor. As in Paris, candidates fight elections on the basis of political parties, with each party nominating one of its members as ‘head of list’ to be executive mayor. Although the mayor is not elected by the whole city electorate, the candidate’s name is known in advance by all electors. Nevertheless, despite the fact the mayor is not directly elected and the city council’s responsibilities are relatively limited, there is little doubt that Barcelona’s city government has provided highly effective leadership over a number of years. The key achievement of the post-1977 period was the staging of the Olympic Games. The mayor used the event as a way of stimulating massive investment (with funding from all three levels of government) in Barcelona, as well as re-inforcing the civic community that had been created. A new tier of local community boards has been created by the city to provide a neighbourhood expression of civic identity. These boards include

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local individuals appointed by the mayor plus two members of the city council. The city councillors are appointed to represent local interests in service provision and to act as the voice of the area. However, these more localized units are not directly elected and do not, as such, constitute a true tier of local government in the way that London or Berlin’s boroughs do. The Barcelona system of government is similar to that in Paris. As in the French capital, the leadership role of the mayor is very important. The three mayors who have run the city since 1977 – Narcis Serra, Pasqual Maragall and Joan Clos – have used the position to lead improvements within Barcelona while promoting the city overseas. The operation of the Mayor’s Office and administration has been consensual and successful. Civic leadership has been shown to work effectively in rapidly developing and regenerating a city. Barcelona’s image has also been radically altered by these mayors: it is now seen as a modern, international, city with an exciting cultural and social make-up. It is useful also to compare the contrasting experiences of Barcelona and Madrid. In Madrid, unlike the rest of Spain, there is a relatively powerful metropolitan regional government, the Autonomous Community of Madrid. This covers a population of 5.2 million people. There is a parliamentary political system, with a directly-elected assembly of 102 members. A president is elected by the assembly. The budget of the Community is around eight billion euros. Within the Madrid region, there are 179 lowertier municipalities, including the City of Madrid, with a population of 2.9 million. The reason for the Community of Madrid’s existence lies not in a specific desire to create metropolitan government, but rather in the nature of Spain’s decentralization process, and in particular, the wish of the surrounding Castille–La Mancha region to avoid having to incorporate the former province of Madrid (Alvarez, 2002). In recent years, Madrid has been able to strengthen its position within the Spanish and European system of cities. Indeed it is doing rather better now than when Spain was a more centralized country. Not only has Madrid strengthened its position as Spain’s financial capital, and as a European and global centre of finance, but it has also overtaken Barcelona as a cultural centre, a fact acknowledged by Pasqual Maragall: ‘Madrid lost in 1992 [the year of Barcelona’s Olympic Games] and Barcelona won … It provoked a very interesting third phase where the Madrid of [Presidents] Leguina and Ruiz Gallardon reacts and wins. Madrid gives real lessons to Barcelona about how take advantage of its situation’ (quoted in Alvarez, 2002). Moreover, as shown in the quotation

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above, it is not the City of Madrid but rather the metropolitan Community under two successful Presidents – the Socialist Joaquin Leguina (1983–95) and then the People’s Party Alberto Ruiz Gallardon (1995–2002) – that has provided urban leadership.

Rome and Amsterdam Two further European examples demonstrate some of the difficulties in creating new forms of metropolitan governance. In Rome, there is a five-tier system, comprising the state, the region, the province, the city and (recently strengthened) boroughs. A 1990 Act provided new powers for cities to set up metropolitan governments. However, in Rome, as in other Italian cities, metropolitan reform has not taken place. Since 1993, mayors of a number of Italian cities have been directly elected. In Rome, Francesco Rutelli was elected in 1993 and again in 1997. Starting on the left, as a member of the Green Party he moved adeptly to a more centrist and pro-growth position (McNeill, 2001). Inspired by Pasqual Maragall in Barcelona with whom he developed close ties, he strongly supported city marketing initiatives such as Rome’s bid for the 2004 Olympics and the Jubilee 2000 initiative. His forceful personality, command of the media and relative youth led him to make the transition from city to national politics and an unsuccessful bid for the presidency in 2001 as the candidate of the left. The focus on style and image rather than substance led to comparisons with Clinton and Blair; in his confident use of media techniques, ability to transcend traditional boundaries of left politics and re-positioning away from the fringes there are clear parallels with Livingstone. In the Netherlands, the central government in the 1990s proposed the creation of city-provinces in the seven largest cities. This would involve the breaking up of the existing central city authorities into smaller lower-tier municipalities. It was left to the existing authorities – cities and suburbs – to determine the details in each case. In 1995, Amsterdam and its suburbs agreed to create a city-province. All the key interest groups, with the exception of the environmental lobby, agreed (Terhorst, 2002). However, the plan foundered on the opposition of the grass roots – ordinary citizens – to the breaking up of the traditional government for the City of Amsterdam. For the ordinary voter, bureaucratic (ir)rationality conflicted with his or her identification with the city and the reform plan was defeated in a referendum.

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Toronto Toronto, like London, has undergone a major structural reform of its city government in the recent past. The changes took place as the result of legislation passed in the Ontario legislature, which enacted the policies of a new and radical provincial government. In 1998, six previous municipalities were brought together into a new, Greater, Toronto with a directly-elected executive mayor and city council. Although the new, larger administrative unit is significantly larger than the old city of Toronto, it does not cover the whole of the built-up area surrounding the city. The new Toronto municipality has a population of two-and-a-half million. Like London, New York and Paris, Toronto is a city of extraordinary ethnic and linguistic diversity and has successfully welcomed large number of new immigrants in recent decades. Although significantly smaller than London, Toronto does operate within a Canadian governmental system based on the Westminster model. It has also witnessed a continuing debate about how the metropolitan area and its region should be governed: should there be a ‘Greater Toronto’ government? How should the wider built-up area be dealt with? What about the region sprawling well beyond the continuous built-up area? Reform, when it took place in 1998 was imposed by the provincial government, in the teeth of opposition from many of the existing local authorities. Moreover, the reform imposed created a new directly-elected mayor for the whole of the new ‘Toronto’ area. The new Toronto authority has a relatively limited range of duties, with the Ontario government having many significant service responsibilities. The model created is one where, though the mayor is directly elected, the office is relatively weak as compared with those on many other North American cities. There are three levels of government for Torontonians: the city, the province and federal government in Ottawa. The provincial government (which has its own capital in Toronto) is significant as a service provider in the city, being responsible for education, health, public transport and personal social services. The city government is responsible for planning, local roads, cleansing and lighting, refuse collection, environmental provision, local licensing and enforcement. As in London, funding for local services comes from a locally-set property tax and subventions from the province. There is no lower tier of borough or community government within the city: the previous six municipalities were abolished when the new city government came into being. Nothing has been proposed to allow a within-city voice to local politics. However, the city can delegate some of its functions to community councils (OECD, 2001, p. 146).

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The decision to create a directly-elected mayor of Toronto generated a highly visible new public office within Canada. Toronto, after all, is the largest city in the country. The city’s revenue budget is over CA$6 billion per annum. The mayor of such a place would inevitably be an important political role. However, the difficulties of building up the new Toronto administration (it took up to two years to make some of the senior appointments) and the relatively limited extent of service provision have restricted the mayor’s capacity for effectiveness. Although directly elected, the mayor must also get key propositions approved by the 44 member city council, which further limits his power. One aspect of the Toronto government arrangements is significantly different from Britain. There are no party politics in Canadian local government. Thus the first mayor of Toronto, Mel Lastman, was – in common with city council members – an independent. Those fighting for political office in the city do not, therefore, enjoy the support of the political machines that would be available in Paris, Berlin, Barcelona or most other cities in the world. Nor does the mayor face a city council which has political groups on it. Oddly, this major difference between Canadian and British local politics, coupled with the need to build the city’s new administration from scratch in 1989 and 1990, makes Toronto an important place to compare with the government of London after 2000. The mayor of Toronto, as a directly-elected executive, faced creating an administration without the comforts or difficulties of a political party to assist him. London’s first mayor, Ken Livingstone, faced precisely the same challenge. Both new mayors had, in effect, to build a city administration from zero. The time and effort needed to do this clearly made it more difficult to generate detailed policy and, inevitably, to improve the quality of local services. The introduction of a directly-elected mayor for a new, larger, administrative district in Toronto suggests that it takes some time for a new officeholder and city government system to become effective. This is a key lesson for London as its mayor seeks to grapple with the vast inherited problems of transport, policing and urban regeneration. Arguably the London mayor is in a more difficult position because of the existence of a second tier of elected boroughs within the city. Anyone in Britain who expected sudden and radical changes in the government of London might well infer from the Toronto experience that it will take a number of years before any such effects can be seen. More positively, Toronto shows London is not alone in attempting big city government reform. The regular convulsions in London’s public

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administration can often suggest that the British capital uniquely faces radical changes of the kind not experienced elsewhere. In fact, recent changes in Toronto have been rather greater than in London (involving a major territorial change, plus the abolition of pre-existing municipalities and the election of a new mayor). The need to re-unify Berlin after 1989 was also a massive change for a city government. London is not alone in facing radical upheavals and reforms.

New York New York is, in many ways, London’s twin. The population and economic structures of the two cities are virtually identical. Each is spectacularly ethnically diverse and must rely on a day-to-day basis on elderly, underinvested, infrastructure. As might be expected, New York’s population lives at a higher density than London’s: Greater London is exactly twice the physical size of New York City. The regions surrounding the two cities are also very similar in size and area: the 17-county New York–New Jersey region, and the South East of England each has a population of about 18 million living within geographical areas of a very similar size. New York and London’s city and regional populations make them far larger than any of the other cities considered here. The modern New York city was created in 1898, bringing together what are today the boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island. Manhattan was the original ‘New York City’, while Brooklyn was a large, separate, city with its own civic culture and traditions. There had been a system of mayors and a city council in New York since lower Manhattan became a trading centre in the seventeenth century. Indeed, the system of government in New York was originally imported from the City of London, itself a model of local self-government at the time. However, similarities of history and contemporary scale cannot obscure the considerable differences in the government systems used by the two cities in the modern era. While London has been run in six different ways since 1888, New York has been governed, with extraordinary consistency, by a virtually unchanged model of government for over a century (indeed, for longer, if pre-1898 New York is considered). The city has developed a unique ‘strong mayor’ model, with a relatively weak city council. City government operates under a charter set by the New York State legislature in Albany. A limited number of services are provided by the state and a few, such as elements of the justice system, by the federal government.

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But for New Yorkers the mayor is, to use the title of a book written about Rudy Giuliani elected for two terms from 1993 to 2001, the ‘Emperor of the City’ (Kirtzman, 2000). The city government, with the mayor as powerful, directly-elected, executive, is responsible for police, fire, hospitals, personal social services, social housing, refuse collection, local streets and lighting, cleansing, sport, planning and some of the many bridges and tunnels that link Manhattan to the outer boroughs. Education is funded by the city and, from July 2002, directly controlled by the mayor. The state government is responsible for public transport, major roads, the Port Authority (jointly with New Jersey) and for oversight of the city’s finances. City funding comes from a range of locally-set taxes on incomes, sales and property: in total about 70 per cent of all New York’s expenditure is funded from local taxation. In contrast with the all-powerful mayor, New York’s city council is a 51 member institution with limited powers to check the executive. It can overturn the mayor’s budget (with a two-thirds majority) and must vote on any city legislation proposed by the mayor. The city council calls witnesses, takes evidence and publishes reports. Its leader, the Speaker, is an important figure who must work with the mayor to manage the city’s business. For the eight years that Giuliani was mayor (representing the Republicans), the city council was, as always, strongly Democrat-controlled. Nevertheless, despite many key differences between the mayor and the majority of city council members, there were few occasions when the mayor was troubled by the council. There is a lower tier of government in New York. The five borough councils each has an elected Borough President who is, in effect, a local mayor. But the boroughs are relatively weak units of government, with limited powers over minor capital works, the right to be consulted by the city on planning and other issues and the duty to make a number of key appointments. New York boroughs are pale shadows of their London counterparts: although there are only five of them, the budget of, say, Brooklyn is far smaller than, say, Lambeth. Nevertheless, Borough Presidents are generally treated seriously and are clearly deemed to represent the more local interests of their areas. New York is also split into 59 Community Boards. These micro-institutions have memberships appointed by the mayor from each neighbourhood and are intended to allow debate about issues of concern to these areas. They are not, however, executive bodies and are not as such a tier of government. The mayor of New York is thus the directly-elected executive of a powerful city government with little competition either from the city

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council or the boroughs. Nor, of course, is federal government based in the city, so there is no competition from national politicians. The mayor is, without doubt, one of the most powerful politicians in the United States, rivalled only by the governors of larger states such as California, Texas and New York, and of course by the President and Vice-President. London’s mayor, by contrast, must co-exist with an array of central government departments which provide health services, universities, colleges and training, transport resources and other funding. This central government is, of course, located in London. The mayor of London also works alongside 32 borough councils and the city of London which are responsible for schools, personal social services, local roads and lighting, refuse collection, cleansing and social housing. New York raises 70 per cent of its resources from local taxes, compared with about 15 per cent in London. So, compared with the mayor of New York, the mayor of London is weaker and must operate in effective competition with other institutions of city government. Nevertheless, the system of government that started to operate in London in May 2000 is similar in many ways to the long-established one in New York. In both cities, there is a directly-elected mayor for around eight million people. The mayors are both powerful within the city-wide part of the system of government, while their respective city councils (in London, the assembly) have few powers to limit them. The two cities are similarly complex in terms of everything from their decaying infrastructure to the sheer complexity of their multi-ethnic populations. London has developed a mayor’s office that has many of the characteristics of the tightly-knit mayor’s office in New York’s City Hall. There is no doubt that of all the cities considered in this chapter, New York offers by far the best read-across for understanding how the London system was and is likely to develop. Thus, for example, the New York system would have suggested that the mayor of London would create an all-powerful mayor’s office through which all policy and implementation work would have to pass. Ken Livingstone has built just such an office, though it is rather less formally described than the various office-holders in New York’s City Hall. New York would have made it clear how powerless the London assembly would feel – city councillors in New York often complain about their incapacity to affect the mayor’s behaviour. New York would also have predicted the importance of the budget process in giving the assembly/city council an annual opportunity to put real pressure on the mayor. The city government of New York also suggests ways in which the London arrangements might be improved. The operation of the New York mayoralty over many years makes it clear just how important are the

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mayor’s powers to appoint commissioners and other key office-holders. The clumsy arrangements put in place in London, where the mayor must run services through boards and where some boards are largely or wholly composed of assembly members has proved a recipe for confused accountability. In New York, for example, everyone knows the mayor is responsible for policing. Yet in London, the mayor’s capacity to affect the police is limited to setting the budget and the use of his democratic legitimacy to encourage change on the Metropolitan Police (the mayor of New York historically faced a similar difficulty with the Board of Education). The operation of the New York system suggests that London should in future move towards making it far more clear that the mayor is directly responsible for the appointment of senior officers, for policy and for the budgets of each of the services within the GLA’s control. Similarly, the relative transparency of the City Hall arrangements in New York where the mayor appoints a number of deputy mayors and other office-holders with particular responsibilities suggests the mayor of London would be well advised to create a similarly transparent and comprehensible control centre. There is little doubt that such a system exists in London, though as the arrangements came into being during 2000 and 2001 they were not formalized. Moreover, as we saw in Chapter 4, the London mayor generally chose not to appoint his closest advisers using the personal appointments available to him. Instead they were appointed as GLA staff by the assembly and thus their accountability is muddled. New York’s city government provides an important lesson for London – and other cities – in a further way. When Rudolph Giuliani became mayor in 1993, the city was being written off as ungovernable. Respected commentators argued the Big Apple was in a state of terminal decline, bloated, dangerous and a warning to the rest of urban civilization. Yet within two years of taking office, Giuliani had cut crime and cleaned up the city. The abrasive attorney was re-elected in 1997 and by the time he left office at the end of 2001 the murder rate had declined from over 2000 a year to under 600. The city is now so much improved that London is regularly cited as being both dirtier and more dangerous than its competing ‘global city’. The results of the 2000 United States census showed that for the first time New York’s population had risen above eight million, suggesting public confidence in a city that only seven years previously had been left for dead. The experience of New York City under Mayor Giuliani does not prove the inherent superiority of the strong mayor model of government. The same system has produced conspicuously less successful officeholders within recent decades in both New York and elsewhere. The city’s

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finances were driven near to disaster during the 1970s under much the same governmental arrangements (Fuchs, 1992). But the Giuliani years surely make a more general point about the potential for city government to act as an agent for change. A city that had been considered ungovernable in 1993 was, by the early 2000s, occasionally accused of having been ‘over-sanitized’. There is no doubt that Giuliani’s zealous support for tough policing, the targeting of nuisance crime and general ruthlessness had been effective (if often accused by liberals for being repressive) and popular (Kirtzman, 2000). Giuliani’s successor, Michael Bloomberg, has retained the tough policing policy. In short, directly-elected executive mayors can, if they are effective and if they have sufficient powers, make radical changes to a city.

Conclusion City government systems, like those of nation-states, vary considerably. Comparing the arrangements for governing London with those in a number of other leading world cities suggests conclusions that are important in understanding the first three years of the Greater London Authority. It is also possible to draw lessons from the experience of governing major cities in other countries in such a way as to make observations about the government of London, despite different political and cultural traditions. No model of city government is inherently superior to any other. Each has developed in context and continues to do so. Indeed, the range of different systems in use – in the cities considered above and others – is great. Some have tightly-drawn central city authorities (such as Paris), while others have sprawling governments for much of their built-up area (such as London). Some cities are largely autonomous (for example, Berlin), yet others have relatively little freedom from upper-tier control (for example, London). In most, there is the problem of how the city authority relates to its wider region. Some have a powerful lower tier of governmental units (such as London), others operate with only modest within-city units (for instance, Paris, Barcelona), while in other cases the regional tier gives leadership (Madrid). However, there are a number of common or predominant features which are worth observing: ● ●

most city government systems elsewhere are relatively stable visible civic leadership is the norm

A Very British Mayor? ●

● ● ●

●

●

●

181

mayors in European cities are often also national politicians, either at the same time or subsequently direct elections of mayors are on the increase highly autonomous, competent, city government is possible the relationship with the surrounding region is everywhere complex; there are a variety of private and public actors – that is, a system of urban governance London’s new system is a hybrid of American and British governmental arrangements the quality of politicians is probably the most important determinant of good urban government in most other cities, attempts at metropolitan reform through creating new institutions have generally failed. This suggests that the relative weakness of the GLA, and in particular, its lack of perceived and actual threat to other tiers of government was a key factor in explaining why this reform attempt came to fruition.

Reform has been far more common in London than elsewhere. No city has a record like the British capital, with four systems of metropolitan government between 1965 and 2000. It is clear that by 2003 proposals were already being put forward to reform the London system instituted in 2000. Generally, these proposals are concerned with improving the way the Greater London Authority operates. However, proposals for more radical change are never far away.

8 Is London Ungovernable? The creation of a mayor and assembly for London in 2000 was undertaken, in good faith, by a government that believed the city needed a new, elected, city-wide administration. There had been clear evidence from opinion polls that Londoners supported such an institution. The abolition of the Greater London Council (GLC) in 1986 was still seen by many Labour and Liberal Democrat politicians as a spiteful intervention by an ideologically-driven government. Moreover, all London’s international competitor cities had a mayor, or a city council, or both. Why should the British capital be different? The first three years of the Greater London Authority suggest that London’s government remains balkanized and weak. London’s history up to 1965, the creation and abolition of the GLC, the ‘interregnum’ years from 1986 to 2000 and the first administration of the Mayor of London point determinedly in one direction: the largest city in Europe simply defies all efforts at giving it an effective and consistent system of government. The best that could be said of this fragmentation and change is that the atomized and constantly reformed system of government had much in common with the habits of individualism recognised by urbanists in London’s social development (Sennett, 2002, ch. 10)

The protean city Of course, any big city will pose enormous difficulties in terms of planning, infrastructure and management. All, without exception, struggle to find a government system that can reconcile the competing needs of the built-up area and its surrounding region. But the continuing problems inherent in the London system of government are a recipe for sub-optimal public services, inadequate infrastructure and, increasingly, damage to the city’s capacity to function. To put it simply, London might suffer lasting damage if the present multi-level, competitive and incoherent arrangements are not subject to major reform. 182

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What is remarkable, given its chaotic governmental history, is how successful London has been and continues to be. It has survived the transitions from an Imperial city to a post-industrial, global, city. At the same time, it has remained – by and large – a liveable city too. London is the protean city. According to Ovid, Proteus was a ‘creature of the encircling seas, who sometimes seemed a lad, sometimes a lion, sometimes a snake men feared to touch, sometimes a charging boar, or else a sharp-horned bull; often he was a stone, often a tree, or feigning flowing water seemed a river or water’s opposite a flame of fire’ (Metamorphoses 8.730f ). London’s protean nature is a key competitive advantage: it has been able to adapt, to transform itself, to change its shape to meet the needs of successive eras. But politically and administratively, this is at best a mixed blessing. None of the earlier models for metropolitan government seem to fit London – neither the technocratic GLC of the 1960s and 1970s, nor the rainbow politics of the 1980s, nor the laissez-faire of the 1990s. Does the post-2000 system fare any better?

An effective system? After three years of the post-2000 system, it is reasonable to consider how far the new arrangements are an effective system of government for London. However, this consideration must be put in the context of the need to create a brand new administration. It is also appropriate to examine how far the first Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, used his powers effectively. Moreover, what are the wider lessons of the London reforms for British government and public administration. Finally, what are the longer-term implications for London if the present system of government remains unchanged? The remainder of this chapter will address these issues in turn. Any fair analysis of the mayor and assembly elected in 2000 must take account of the fact the GLA had to create an administration virtually from scratch. Whereas the new Scottish and Welsh devolved administrations had existing bureaucracies ready and waiting when they were first elected in 1999, the Mayor of London had only a skeletal machine in the weeks after his election. It was necessary to appoint the boards (and, in some cases, senior executives) of the functional bodies for transport, economic development, police and the fire service. Ken Livingstone – who, after all, was an independent, not aligned to any of the parties represented on the GLA – had to work with the new assembly to appoint his deputy mayor, the GLA’s chief executive and to determine the senior staff structure. It took more than eighteen months

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to get close to a full complement of senior staff. Given the need to adhere to fair and open appointments procedures, this length of time cannot be criticized. The mayor and the Mayor’s Office – running the GLA The earlier chapters argued the GLA was set up in such a way as to be seriously hamstrung. Its transport powers were significantly undermined by the much-delayed London Underground public–private partnership, which left central government in charge of the Tube. Responsibilities for economic development and planning are shared with Whitehall and the boroughs (a major development such as a tall building is likely to need permission from the borough, the mayor and the secretary of state). Policing in the capital has accountability arrangements that effectively sideline the mayor and assembly. Even fire and emergency planning services leave central government, the mayor and assembly with separate responsibilities. This analysis suggests that in terms of formal powers, any mayor would be rendered largely powerless by the arrangements put in place by the Greater London Authority Act. If we turn to the financial arrangements, the capacity of the Mayor to affect change in London appears even weaker. The GLA’s 2002–03 budget was about £4.4 billion. In 2003–04, the figure will exceed £5 billion. The gross (turnover) budget was over £7 billion. But this sum must be seen in the context of overall public sector expenditure (by Whitehall, the GLA, the boroughs and quangos) in Greater London of about £45 billion. That is, the mayor’s net spending is about 10 per cent of total public sector activity in the capital. Even this calculation overstates the mayor’s power. Although he formally sets the spending of the Metropolitan Police and the London Development Agency, the mayor has little freedom to determine how they use their budgets. By contrast, the Mayor of New York, for a similar population, has an annual budget of £25 billion. Expenditure in London on the National Health Service, higher education, further education, training, the arts, housing and social security are all determined by central government. In other major world cities, notably New York and Berlin, most of these services are run and funded by the city government. On the other hand, schools, social care, local transport, environmental services and some social housing are responsibilities of the boroughs. The mayor is squeezed between these two blocs of longestablished financial and political power. Whitehall and the borough councils remain as important as ever in the government of London. The Government Office for London (GOL) now embraces no fewer than seven Whitehall departments and has a full range

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of officials responsible for co-ordination and oversight of economic regeneration, planning, transport, crime, emergencies, arts and culture, voluntary organizations, business support, housing, local government, research and finance. There are more civil servants in GOL in 2003–04 than there were before the GLA was created. The boroughs, for their part, have strengthened the Association of London Government. It is clear that both collectively and individually the boroughs have continued to act as the dominant element in the capital’s local government. The GLA has simply intruded more complication into an already complex and fragmented system. Figure 8.1 shows – in a simplified form – London government as it operates towards the end of the 2000–04 mayoral term of office. There is a rococo layering of government departments, regional offices, appointed boards (and their London sub-divisions), city-wide elected government, joint committees, the 32 boroughs and the City of London. This extraordinary muddle of overlapping and often competitive institutions is every bit as bad as the chaos of London’s Victorian administration. Slow decisionmaking and weak government are the inevitable consequence. Far from creating a new, clear, accountable figurehead for the city, the 2000 reforms have made a bad situation worse. People understandably ask ‘what has the mayor done?’ about road works or the Tube or violent crime or the redevelopment of the South Bank or street homelessness or any number of other issues. The truth is, the mayor can at best try to use the legitimacy of his mandate to encourage other institutions to act. He can deploy his powers of patronage, persuasion and publicity – but they are no substitute for real fiscal and administrative authority. Even the capacity to deliver the services that were given to the mayor is severely challenged by the way the Greater London Authority was set up. Once elected, Ken Livingstone adapted quickly to the ‘presidential’ demands of the new London arrangements. The Mayor’s Office became the focus of executive power. As in American cities, all political decisions emanated from this political core. But, because the Greater London Authority Act had given the assembly the power to appoint virtually all the authority’s staff, senior GLA officials have found themselves divorced from the core of power. Indeed, it is clear that the mayor and his advisors give policy directions directly to officers such as the Transport Commissioner, the Chief Executive and the chair of the London Development Agency. The Mayor’s Office also has open access to the Commissioner of Police and the Fire Commissioner. Such vital links are rarely mediated by senior GLA executives. Indeed, the GLA’s senior officers are peripheral to much of the executive power wielded by the mayor.

186 Figure 8.1 London’s Government: key statutory bodies

Cabinet Cabinet Department for Environment and Rural Affairs

Department of State

Department for Culture Media & Sport

Department for Work and Pensions

Office of the Deputy Prime Minister

Cab

Department of Trade and Industry

Minister for London

Govern fo Environment British Commission for Arts English Royal Parks Sport English Housing Waterways Architecture and the Council Heritage Agency England Partnerships Corporation Agency Built Environment

London Region

London Region

London Arts

Film Council

London Region

Royal Parks Constabulary

London Region

Bus ine Link Londo

London Region

London Film

Appointed Bodies and Agencies

London North

London Central

London West

London East

N

London South

Learning and Skills Councils

London Housing Board Lord Lieutenant of Greater London

Greater London Authority

Metropolitan Police Authority

Transport for London

London Pensions Fund Authority

Bexley

Asso of L Gove

Barnet

Barking and Dagenham

Waltham Forest

Southwark

Newham

Metropolitan Police Service

Merton

Lambeth

Islington

Hounslow

London Tourist Board

Haringey

London Fire Brigade

Hackney

London Development Agency

Mayor of London

Brent

London Assembly

London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority

Hammersmith and Fulham

Greenwich

Boroughs

Camden

Londonwide Government

London Transport Users Committee

Lewisham

Pan-Regional Planning Forum

187

Political control, resources Consultation, appointments Cabinet ent of e ustry

Department of Education and Skills

Department for Transport

Department of Health

Home Office

Department of Constitutional Affairs

Regional Co-ordination Unit

Government Office for London Business Link London

Learning Schools and Skills Commissioner Council

Higher Civil Office of the Port of Highways Strategic Education Aviation Rail Authority Rail Regulator London Agency Funding Council Authority Authority

British Transport Police

Directorate of Health and Social Care (London)

London London Network Modernisation Ambulance Service Rail Board

Strategic Health Authorities

Primary Care Trusts

North West London

North Central London Barnet Camden Enfield

Brent Ealing Hammersmith and Fulham Harrow Hillingdon Hounslow

South East London

North East London

Bexley Bromley Greenwich Lewisham

Barking & Dagenham City & Hackney Havering Newham Tower Hamlets Redbridge

Haringey Islington

Kensington & Chelsea Westminster

Greater London Magistrates Courts Authority

South West London Croydon Kingston Richmond & Twickenham Sutton and Merton

Lambeth Southwark

Wandsworth

London Traffic Board

n Fund ity

Westminster

Wandsworth

London Metropolitan Archives

Tower Hamlets

City of London

Sutton

Richmond

Redbridge

Kingston

Hillingdon

Kensington and Chelsea

Havering

Harrow

Enfield

Ealing

Croydon

Bromley

Brent

Bexley

Lee Valley Regional Park Authority

Greater London Enterprise

Association of London Government

City of London Police

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There was a profound fault in the original legislation. By not allowing the mayor to appoint the GLA’s senior officials (and, indeed by giving this duty to the assembly) it is unlikely there will ever be an effective bond of trust between the mayor and the GLA’s executives, who must also serve the assembly. This weakness, in turn, makes heavy demands on the Mayor’s Office. As has been explained, a deal was struck which allowed the mayor to appoint – via the assembly’s Appointments Committee – all his closest advisors to the Mayor’s Office. However, only a handful of trusted and loyal individuals bore key responsibilities. By the third year of the mayor’s term, this arrangement appeared only just capable of delivering much of what the mayor was seeking to achieve. During 2002 the mayor proposed to give his closest advisors new positions that would fuse together their ‘political’ activities within his office with the traditional ‘civil service’ executive functions. The assembly felt that this attempt to bring together political and executive functions in officials other than the mayor himself was inappropriate. The working arrangements that the mayor and assembly had originally created during the summer of 2000 were finally exposed as little more than a stop-gap to cope with the limitations of the original legislation. The half-British, halfAmerican city government was, it turned out, only half effective. The mayor and assembly reached a compromise that inevitably left the Mayor’s Office without the direct control over most GLA officials the mayor wanted. It appears likely this difficulty will remain in future, though it might be lessened if a future mayor were a member of a political party that was strongly represented on the assembly.

The mayor and the Mayor’s Office – what did the GLA achieve? A straightforward – if crude – way of assessing the issues that concerned Ken Livingstone and his administration is an analysis of the press activity generated by the mayor. Table 8.1 shows the number of press notices issued by the Mayor’s Office about the ten most frequently mentioned topics during the nine months from January to September 2002 (out of a total of 299). This analysis is revealing. Three of the public services within the Mayor’s ambit – transport, the police and economic development – were the subject of media activity though, even if added together, they were referred to only about as frequently as ‘equalities’ issues. There were almost three times as many press notices on the environment as about the economy. Fire and emergencies was not mentioned once in nine months. By way of

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contrast, the top 10 press notice mentions by the Mayor of New York in the same period (out of a total of 212) suggest rather different priorities (see Table 8.2). The two cities are very similar in terms of their economic and demographic diversity.

Table 8.1 Subject matter of press notices issued by the Mayor of London, January–September 2002 Subject

Number

Equalities, immigration, race Environment, public space Transport Planning, architecture Police, law and order Culture Housing, homelessness Economic development, economy Budget Sport Source:

53 33 28 27 16 15 15 13 11 10

GLA Website: www.london.gov.uk.

Table 8.2 Subject matter of press notices issued by the Mayor of New York, February*–September 2002 Subject World Trade Center, 9/11 Economic development Transport, streets Sport Culture Education Budget, finance Emergencies Fire Health Environment, parks

Number 25 23 17 14 14 12 11 10 10 10 10

*January was the first month after inauguration – most press notices concerned appointments. Source: New York City Website: http://home.nyc.gov.

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The overall rate of press notices per month from City Hall in London is very similar to that of City Hall, New York. But there is a huge difference in subject matter. Allowing for the one-off issue of the World Trade Center site, the next ten subjects covered by Mayor Bloomberg’s press office concern economic development, transport, sport and culture. Ken Livingstone’s concerns (and those of his advisors) were very different with “equalities” and “environment” topping the list. In the first two or three years of the new authority, Livingstone’s measurable successes were strictly limited. The key achievements can be summarized as follows: ●

● ●

●

●

●

a rise in bus passengers in 2001 and 2002, as compared with a fall in the rest of England and Wales reductions in bus fares an increase – though difficult to measure – in night-time taxi availability as a result of a steep increase in fares an additional 1,000 police officers in 2001–02 and a further 1,000 in 2002–03 a number of well-received reports highlighting London’s rapid growth and consequent need for new investment Congestion Charging, introduced without major mishap, in early 2003.

Congestion charging was the single most radical policy introduced by Ken Livingstone in his post-2000 administration. The policy had been included in the new mayor’s manifesto, suggesting a mandate for change from a congested city. It was subject to consultation and implementation for over two years, before being introduced on 17 February 2003. The scheme was to cover the area within the inner ring road (about eight square miles, bounded by the Euston/Marylebone Roads, City Road, Tower Bridge, Elephant and Castle, Kennington Lane, Vauxhall Bridge and Grosvenor Place/Park Lane) and would operate from 7.00 am to 6.30 pm, Monday to Friday. The charge would be £5 for all vehicles, though there were to be discounts or exemptions for some drivers, including buses, taxis, emergency vehicles, residents within the charging zone and the disabled. Transport for London forecasts suggested the annual yield would be about £200 million, of which £70 million would be spent on administration, leaving £130 million for re-investment in public transport. It was expected that traffic within the zone would be reduced by 10 to 15 per cent. In the event, traffic was cut far more, reducing the overall yield. London’s congestion charging scheme would rely on a system of digital cameras on all roads at the boundary of the zone. Vehicles entering the zone

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during charging hours would need to pay a daily, weekly, monthly or annual charge. If the cameras recorded the number of a vehicle that had not paid a charge by midnight on a particular day, a penalty notice would be sent to the owner. Repeated failure to pay penalties could lead to a vehicle being impounded. A crescendo of opposition to congestion charging built up in the months prior to February 2003. Residents’ groups, car users, the Conservative Party, Smithfield meat traders and sections of the media became increasingly active in highlighting alleged unfairnesses, inconsistencies or, in some cases, potential evasion techniques. The charge got off to a peaceful start. There were no mass evasions, no gridlock and no computer failures. The Mayor of London had, it appeared, managed to introduce a major transport policy on time and on budget. Compared with national government’s transport policy failures, this was potentially a huge success for Ken Livingstone and his Transport Commissioner Bob Kiley. (Though most of the liability for a success or failure would in truth be attributed to Derek Turner, the TfL director responsible for implementation.) If the charge proves effective in the longer term (it will take at least a year to assess its effect fully) and if there are no damaging side-effects there is little doubt it will be widely analysed in cities elsewhere in Britain and overseas. There were also other, less tangible, achievements. For example, a number of strategies and draft strategies had been published, covering economic regeneration, spatial development, the environment and transport. The Spatial Development Strategy – the draft London Plan – articulated a clear vision of a strategy for London which was designed to accommodate, and support, further growth in both population and jobs. Nevertheless, these documents were largely aspirational and their outcomes – if any – will take some years to become clear. The key decisions which might lead to the achievement of these strategies will mainly be taken by actors other than the mayor – particularly central government. Few Londoners could point to any aspect of their lives affected by the new mayor. A marginal rise in bus use might, after all, have resulted from the deteriorating quality of the Underground rather than any improvements to bus services. Cuts in bus fares were real enough. Indeed, they represented a link to the ‘Fares Fair’ Livingstone regime at County Hall between 1981 and 1986. However, fare cuts came at a price: subsidies to the buses – funded by council tax precept increases – rose sharply in 2001 and 2002. The additional police numbers were also real, though there was little evidence of additional officers on the streets of the capital. Actually witnessing

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public service improvements proved virtually impossible. The long-term impact of congestion charging will, perhaps, be Ken Livingstone’s most visible intervention into modern London. Less obviously successful was Mayor Livingstone’s battle against the public–private partnership for London Underground. The struggle delayed the completion of the PPP and undoubtedly drove the government to add protections for the companies taking over the contracts. These protections had the effect of reducing what was likely to be delivered. By the time the contracts were finally signed, no one seriously believed the PPP (which had cost £500 million to negotiate) was a rational way to re-build the Tube. The annual service charge for the contracts – to be inherited by the mayor – would exceed £1.1 billion per year. The limits of the mayor’s freedom to decide how to invest in London’s transport was all too clearly laid bare. The modest level of achievement in the first three years of the new system was in part because of the weakness of the office of Mayor of London and in part because of Ken Livingstone’s approach to running the machinery of government. As discussed in earlier chapters, both the size of the GLA permanent staff and the limited powers given to the mayor by the Act imposed structural weaknesses on the system. But these were compounded by the mode of working – described in earlier chapters – chosen by London’s first mayor. To be fair to Ken Livingstone, his efforts – also described above – to fuse the ‘advisor’ role with executive positions within the GLA could be seen as an attempt to increase the capacity of his office to deliver. What is certain is that if a mayor of London is to be as effective as possible in the delivery of the limited responsibilities given to him or her, it will be necessary to arrange the Mayor’s Office (by agreement with the assembly) so that the mayor can rely on individuals other than him or herself to deliver policy objectives. Otherwise, even the limited powers given to the GLA will overwhelm the mayor. One of the main arguments for the re-creation of a London-wide government was a widely-perceived need for a ‘voice’ for the capital. There can be no doubt that Mayor Livingstone was effective in publishing a number of policy documents and factual reports that raised a number of important issues about the capital’s future. The rapid growth of London’s population – from 6.7 million in the mid-1980s to 7.3 million by 2003 – and the pressures created by mass international immigration were highlighted by such reports. The dire state of the capital’s physical infrastructure, notably the Underground and the commuter railways, was also made clear by mayoral publications. However, early indications about the effectiveness of the

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mayor’s efforts to provide his city with a ‘voice’ were not encouraging: in 2000–01, London’s share of identifiable public expenditure fell to 16.5 per cent from 17.0 per cent in the previous year. As the population increases, so London’s share of public spending actually fell. More generally, it is at the very least debatable as to whether one person can actually ‘represent’ seven or eight million people. A relatively generous assessment of Livingstone was made by Ben Pimlott and Nirmala Rao (Pimlott and Rao, 2002) in their summing-up of the first year of the GLA: His [Livingstone’s] over-riding concern seemed to be to make friends rather than enemies, to choose small wins, and to avoid big issues. Nevertheless, the opening months demonstrated Livingstone’s capacity for setting the political agenda, with a distinct vision and flair for publicising it. Simon Jenkins, who had argued powerfully for a Mayor of London, analysed the office and Ken Livingstone personally rather more critically in the Evening Standard on 12 September 2002: Ken Livingstone deserves credit for putting the mayoralty on the map. He has staged a passable parody of New York’s earthy former Mayor Ed Koch. It is inconceivable that a government will ever again strip the capital of its elected ruler. But the Mayor has not been able to convert popularity into influence and influence into making a difference. Other commentators, notably Paul Barker, also writing in the Evening Standard, were less generous to Livingstone. There is little doubt that as time passed, commentators and the public became far more critical of the mayor. For all Livingstone’s whimsical populist charm, Simon Jenkins’s oft-repeated jibe ‘where’s the mayor?’ cut deep. Only the success of congestion charging bucked this trend.

The assembly The assembly itself has not found anything like an effective role. There were a number of reasons for this failure. First, its powers are too limited. Apart from the annual possibility of voting down the mayor’s budget (by a two-thirds majority), the assembly has very little capacity to make decisions that directly affect the operation of the GLA. Members who sit on the

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Metropolitan Police Authority and the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority have powers that are similar to those of members on a traditional local authority committee, and thus offer some indirect control. But, in the day-to-day business of holding the mayor to account, the powers given to the assembly were so limited that the mayor can, for the most part, simply ignore the assembly. Second, the powers that were given to the assembly have, for the most part, not been used effectively. Members evidently enjoy some aspects of their job more than others. High-profile activities such as mayor’s question time, or membership of the police and fire authorities, have offered greater job satisfaction than the often slow and painstaking business of holding inquiries and writing reports on aspects of London government. As has been stated, there was virtually no scrutiny of services such as police or fire and emergencies during the early years of the new authority. Using an analysis similar to that shown earlier for the mayor, an examination of the assembly’s press activity during the first three quarters of 2002 shows the environment as its main preoccupation (see Table 8.3). An analysis of the assembly’s published reports and scrutinies during 2000, 2001 and 2002 reveals a similar pattern (see Table 8.4). Transport and the environment are dominant, while other issues of importance to the electorate, for example crime or emergency planning, were not considered. The topics about which the assembly undertook inquiries or approached the media are very different from those revealed by opinion polling about Londoners’ interests. The number of reports published (30) in the GLA’s first 32 months

Table 8.3 Subject matter of press notices issued by the London Assembly, January–September 2002 Subject Environment Transport Mayor’s style, appointments Planning Economic development, economy Health Culture City management

Number 15 11 9 7 7 5 2 2

Source: GLA Website: www.london.gov.uk.

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Table 8.4 Subject matter of assembly reports published during 2000, 2001 and 2002 Subject

Number

Transport Environment Economic development Planning Public services Budget Culture, sport, tourism Health

10 9 4 2 2 1 1 1

Source: GLA london.gov.uk.

www.

Website:

looks, at best, stately for a city-wide assembly of full-time members. The mayor was far more active. As a result of concentrating inquiries and scrutiny on topics selected to appeal to members’ personal concerns, rather than the stated preferences of the electorate, the assembly made life very hard for itself. The media were unwilling to pay the assembly much attention, given that transport, crime, health and education (that is, the key public concerns) did not feature high on the list of scrutiny topics. This lack of attention led to immense soulsearching within the assembly about how better to do their job. The brightest spots for the assembly in the period from 2000 to 2003 were inquiries into congestion charging, economic development and the budget scrutiny. This last activity, undertaken annually by a committee chaired by Sally Hamwee, provided a comprehensive overall analysis of the mayor’s budget and also of performance over the preceding year. The appointment of expert financial and ex-parliamentary staff to service the budget committee was a major element in its success. Finally, what of the assembly’s leading and most visible members? Did future mayoral candidates emerge from the first two years of the GLA’s operation? Arguably the most important assembly member in the GLA’s early period was Labour’s Len Duvall. As chairman of the Appointments Committee, he provided the vital link between Mayor Livingstone and the assembly. He did the deals necessary to allow the GLA to function at all. As a member of the London Development Agency and a powerful exponent of modern Labour politics at its most realistic, Duvall subtly made the most of his time on the assembly.

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Lord (Toby) Harris, as leader of the Labour group and chair of the police authority, provided a constantly powerful presence within the assembly. He was prepared to give the mayor a rough time on occasion, whether over the budget or police leadership. Trevor Phillips, who (unlike Duvall and Harris) was relatively new to day-to-day London politics, provided Ken Livingstone with polite but not entirely friendly scrutiny during his periods as chair of the assembly. Philips’s position as the capital’s leading black politician (as a ‘list’ member, he had a city-wide remit) gave him an important significance within London politics, although he stepped down early in 2003 to become Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality. He was regularly tipped by the media as a possible future Labour mayoral candidate. Val Shawcross took a commonsensical and effective approach to chairing the fire authority, though during particular political events such as the response to terrorist attacks in the United States and coping with a national firefighters fight, there was little political room for her. John Biggs, who shared the chairing of transport committees, adopted a questioning and gritty attitude to the mayor. The Conservative leader (until 2002), Bob Neill, was one of the two assembly members who had also served on the Greater London Council. His approach to the mayor fell half way between outright opposition and a friendliness born of their shared experience at the GLC. Courteous and urbane, he was prepared to give Livingstone a hard time (for example over the latter’s decision to leave his chief of staff in charge during a holiday absence from London), though he undoubtedly shared some of the mayor’s softer views on social policy. Eric Ollerenshaw (the Tory leader from 2002) was a highly effective chair of the assembly’s economic development committee, producing some of the assembly’s most constructive reports. Angie Bray, charged by Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith to advise the party leadership about London, brought bracing, traditional, opposition to the socialist Livingstone. For the Liberal Democrats, Baroness (Sally) Hamwee and Lord (Graham) Tope provided experience and weight born of many years toiling in both the House of Lords and London boroughs. Quintessential Liberal Democrats, both were serious, polite, sensible and overwhelmingly decent. However, neither appeared interested in making further advances in their political careers. The Greens’ leader, Darren Johnson, having made something of a splash to become his party’s London mayoral candidate, worked assiduously on the assembly to give it an environmental flavour. What impact such efforts will have on the capital remains to be seen.

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In summing up the activities of leading assembly members, it is clear that many worked hard during the GLA’s first two or three years to assist in making the new institution work. But they achieved far less than the sum of their collective efforts. In part this was because of the way the GLA was set up – the assembly simply does not have sufficient power to act as an effective counter-balance to the mayor. But it is also because assembly members have not focused their activities. In particular, they have neglected to: ●

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concentrate scrutiny on GLA-funded services, including police and fire, in ways that take direct account of public concerns and expectations; hold hearings into mayoral appointments and the work of the Mayor’s Office; build the reputations of individual assembly members as policy and scrutiny experts (in the way parliamentary select committee chairs have built such reputations).

Unless the Assembly can demonstrate it has a purpose and can effectively hold the mayor to account there is a risk a future government will question its very existence. The Conservatives, it should be remembered, originally wanted the assembly to consist solely of borough council leaders. Because assembly members are full-time and paid politicians, they are particularly exposed to the question of what benefit they bring to London democracy. By the end of 2003, such a question was not easy to answer.

Implications for British government Were the government’s objectives achieved? The government had a number of objectives for the Greater London Authority. Paragraph 1.02 of the original green paper New Leadership for London had stated these objectives as follows: There is a democratic deficit in London. Since the abolition of the Greater London Council in 1986, there has been no democratically elected city-wide authority, able to provide firm leadership and to promote and enhance the prosperity of its people and deal with its problems. Few now doubt that London needs democratic city-wide government and a voice to speak up for the interests of Londoners.

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The so-called ‘democratic deficit’ was marginally reduced by the GLA. Some of the capital’s transport services, notably the buses and taxis, were brought within the mayor’s direct responsibility. However, the suburban railways and the Underground remained within central government control for the early years of the GLA. The board of the regional development agency for London – the London Development Agency – was appointed by the mayor, though control over its finances and outputs was still closely determined by the Department of Trade and Industry. Responsibility for the Metropolitan Police was split between the mayor, the Metropolitan Police Authority, the Home Secretary and the Commissioner – it is hard to see how the democratic deficit was much affected as far as policing was concerned. The fire brigade had, since the abolition of the GLC in 1986, been the responsibility of the directly-elected boroughs, so the scope for an improvement in democratic accountability was limited. The mayor’s powers to set a city-wide planning strategy may, in the longer term, demonstrate greater local control over land use and the environment. But, the government still has the capacity to overturn major planning decisions. Even the Mayor of London himself from time to time publicly questioned the extent of his powers. The possibility of providing ‘firm leadership’ was rendered impossible from the start by the fact the mayor’s powers (a) were very limited in the context of the overall public sector responsibilities for London and (b) were generally mediated through boards which, in two cases, consisted of a majority of members with their own electoral legitimacy. Put simply, Whitehall and the boroughs are each more powerful than the GLA, while the police and fire boards operate independently from the mayor. Neither the boroughs nor central government departments show much desire to be ‘led’ by the Mayor of London. In some cases, the opposite was evidently the case. The third objective set for the GLA was ‘to promote and enhance the prosperity of its people’. This concern to bolster the capital’s economy is similar to the objective set for new regional governments in England in the 2002 white paper Your Region Your Choice. The idea that a reorganization of government structures can lead to improved public services and/or economic performance is common to such reforms in Britain. In truth, even if the creation of a mayor and assembly for London were to have an impact on the economy of the capital, it would take very much longer than two or three years for such an impact to manifest itself. The government’s final objective was to give London a ‘voice’. Voice is different from ‘leadership’, in that the former could be provided by an individual or institution that did not, for example, have a democratic mandate.

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London First – the business organization – has provided such a voice in the years since 1992. As was made clear in the section above, the Livingstone administration has proved effective at making the case for London. Research-based publications drawing attention to the capital’s needs and international position have been vigorously promoted. The government’s objective to provide a legitimate voice was thus achieved. Overall, the GLA can be counted as only a limited success in terms of the government’s original objectives. The reason for this heavy qualification is that the objectives set in 1997 and 1998 were simply too ambitious for a government that was unwilling to cede much power to the new London government. The extent of devolution to Scotland and Wales was significantly greater than to London. A significant inroad into the democratic deficit was made by the transfer of power to Edinburgh and Cardiff – symbolized by the transfer of civil servants and bureaucratic capacity from the Scottish and Welsh Offices to the new parliament and assembly. The reason for such clarity is because control over most aspects of government – central and local – was vested in the new administrations for those countries. This was not so in London. London government reform in 2000 was only partly successful – in the government’s own terms – because the government itself was unsure just how far it was prepared to trust the people of London to govern themselves.

Presidential and parliamentary government systems The creation of the Mayor of London brought to office Britain’s first-ever directly-elected executive politician. There is, of course, an extensive literature on the extent to which prime ministers and cabinets in Britain have been more, or less, presidential. But the office of prime minister remains, essentially, a political and representative one. The implementation of government policy is undertaken by a non-political civil service. Local government has also traditionally operated with separate representative and executive functions: non-political officers have been responsible for the administration of services within policies determined by councillors. It was no accident that Tony Blair changed Labour policy from support for a traditional London-wide authority (with a collective, non-executive, leadership) to the institution of a directly-elected executive mayor. Few modern prime ministers have been criticized more than Blair for turning his government into a presidency. Armed with a massive parliamentary majority and largely-quiescent backbenchers, it is argued he strengthened

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the central institutions of government (the No 10 Policy Unit, the Cabinet Office and a range of new organizations at the heart of Whitehall) while reducing the importance of Parliament. In 1998, Blair published a pamphlet which outlined his arguments. In this document, he claimed ‘most people do not know the name of the leader of their council’ and that ‘the committee system takes up an enormous amount of time’. Local government was acceptable in theory, though its current practical applications were unsuccessful. Directly-elected mayors, who would both be visible and would sweep away the cobwebs of the Victorian committee system, were the simple, presidential solution to the key problems of local government (Blair, 1998). It is easy to see why Tony Blair found the US-style mayor attractive. It was local politics in his own image. This personal commitment to a particular reform of local government probably explains his opposition to having Ken Livingstone either as Labour’s candidate for mayor or as Mayor of London. (Paradoxically, Livingstone himself was opposed to the idea of a directlyelected executive mayor for the capital.) The actual operation of the first years of the new London government demonstrates a number of consequences resulting from the import of an American concept into British government. First, the idea worked relatively well. Despite the curiosity of having a politician with the kind of powers that would normally, in Britain, be vested with civil servants or council officials, there was no suggestion that such a system could not be made to work. During 2002, number of accusations of secrecy and/or of operating without reference to the assembly were made against the mayor. Such criticisms derived at least in part from assembly members who failed fully to understand that in a mayoral or presidential system decisions will, inevitably, be made by one individual behind closed doors. Such is the logic of one-person government. Second, in a mayoral (or presidential) system of government, patronage is an inevitable part of the way the administration is appointed. Mayor Livingstone was from time to time criticized for wanting to put in place individuals who were either seen as ‘cronies’ or for seeking to bolster the power of the Mayor’s Office. Again, it is hardly surprising that politicians who have been used to the traditional parliamentary or local government way of operation found the use of patronage so awkward. A further consequence of this kind of system was the side-lining of senior officials within the GLA administration. More power for the mayor means less for conventional bureaucrats. Finally, there was a blurring of traditional politician and officer roles. During 2001 and 2002, while Tony Blair was being accused of ‘politicizing’

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the civil service, Ken Livingstone was locked in a struggle with the assembly about seeking to give his senior advisors new jobs that would allow them to assume line management responsibility for GLA staff. In a presidential/ mayoral system, loyalty to the first citizen and a willingness to deliver particular policies are paramount considerations to the elected office holder. The dispassionate and objective approach of British civil servants and council officers will inevitably be put under pressure in such a system. The only way round this problem is to allow the mayor to appoint all the key staff in his administration.

Devolution in England The previous section hinted at implications for other English regions of the London experience in the years immediately after 2000. First, it took a year longer for the government to create the GLA than it had the Scottish Parliament or Welsh Assembly. There was – and remains – less urgency about English devolution than about that to Scotland, Wales or (for different reasons) Northern Ireland. But there are other important implications for the rest of England to be drawn from the London experience. First, the GLA was an awkward compromise between a grandiose county council and a proper regional government. The legislation creating the GLA was deemed ‘constitutional’, though the powers of the Authority were minimal compared with those of the Scottish or Welsh administrations. Parliament evidently accepted that an English region with a population of approaching eight million should have less power devolved to it than the smaller country-regions with populations of five million and three million. The GLA is unique – it is neither a local authority nor a regional government. Moreover, it is led by a mayor who has great legitimacy and high visibility, yet is able to raise only a very limited local tax, and who is closely fettered by what central government will permit him. Second, the behaviour of ministers and officials within central government towards the creation of an English region – the GLA – was very different from that of ministers and civil servants in Scotland and Wales. Research undertaken for this book made it clear that the Home Office and the transport department made considerable efforts to limit and constrain the Mayor of London. For example, the complex arrangements put in place for police accountability were undoubtedly intended to ensure the GLA

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could not assume too much control over the Metropolitan Police. Ministers were given the power to impose minimum budgets for policing and transport in London. More generally, references abound in the Greater London Authority Act to the reserve powers of the Secretary of State in regard to London. Yet in Scotland and Wales, the new regional administrations were given enormously greater freedom to govern. The reason for this variation must derive from the different long-term impacts of the London reform on the core of Whitehall as compared with those on the civil servants in Edinburgh and Cardiff. In Scotland and Wales, the officials responsible for devolution knew they would inherit the powers given to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly because they would become the civil service for the new institutions. In the case of London, any power given to the GLA was power lost by the Home Office, the Department for Transport (or its predecessors), the Department of Trade Industry or the Government Office for London. The GLA is responsible for about 10 per cent of all public expenditure within its area, whereas the Scottish executive has control of about 65 per cent of all such spending within Scotland. English regional governments would, on the basis of the 2002 white paper, be responsible for just three per cent of all public expenditure in their areas. Regional government in England will find itself with the same problem the GLA faced: how to wrest power from ministers and civil servants in the core Whitehall departments. History suggests this will be difficult unless there is a wider commitment by the government to reorganize the machinery of government. A third implication for the future of regional government in England is the unwillingness of central government to cede more than very limited taxation powers. The GLA was given access to a council tax precept, which in 2002–03 raised about £500 million out of the total GLA net budget of £4.5 billion. Oddly, the Welsh Assembly was given no tax-raising power at all, while the Scottish Parliament was given the – awkward and contentious – power to vary the basic rate of income tax. This latter power was not used in the early years of devolution. The GLA was also given the power to set a congestion charge and/or a levy on off-street parking. But, given the political difficulties of introducing these new taxes, the degree of fiscal autonomy given to the mayor was severely limited. The 2002 white paper Your Region Your Choice proposed to give English regions a capped precept to cover administrative costs and debt interest charges. The GLA, like other regional and local governments in Britain, remains heavily dependent on central government grants.

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Given this degree of central financial control, the extent of genuine regional or local government will inevitably be restricted. The fourth consequence of the London reform for the rest of England is that whatever kind of regional government is created, it will only be seen as a very limited first step towards a more powerful form of regional government. The Welsh Assembly initiated a review of its powers and responsibilities during 2002. There is little doubt that Wales will argue to move towards the Scottish model while London will also argue that its devolved powers should be more like those in Wales. The weak proposals for regional government in England make it almost inevitable that pressure will soon be brought to make them more powerful. There is one, final, implication for the country as a whole of the decision to create a city-wide government for London. In the context of the wider debate about ‘regional’ devolution, London has been treated as a region by both Conservative and Labour governments. In 1994, the Tories created a regional office for London and the other regions of England. The 2000 reform of London government was variously described as creating a ‘regional’ or ‘city-wide’ government for the capital. Yet London is not truly a region in the way that, say, the North West or the West Midlands are large geographically-varied areas including both urban and rural populations. Greater London is a continuously built-up agglomeration at the centre of the South East (or Greater South East) region of England. A number of reasons, including administrative tidiness and a fear of the economic power of the South East, have conspired to deem the London metropolis a ‘region’. But a true ‘London region’ would include at least the whole of the South East; the administrative arrangements within central government need to reflect this.

Implementing major projects One, unintended, consequence of the creation of the GLA was to demonstrate a major defect in British government more generally. Because the Treasury is responsible for determining almost 96 per cent of all taxation collected in the UK, central government involvement is required in virtually all major projects. A city the size of London has a continuous need for large public investments. The success of the Conservative government’s policies in Docklands in the years after 1981 shows how a significant commitment of resources and institutional power can deliver results.

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The Mayor of London was supposed to provide the capital with leadership, a ‘voice’ and also the capacity to improve and redevelop its economy. Yet because the GLA depends on central government for almost all its resources, the mayor has very little capacity to deliver major projects. The long-running problems associated with redeveloping Wembley Stadium, the South Bank arts complex and King’s Cross railway lands all attest to London’s incapacity to deliver major projects. The World Athletics Championships, due to take place in London in 2005, had to be abandoned by Britain because it proved impossible to arrange the construction of a stadium at Picketts Lock in Enfield. Even more importantly for the city’s future, efforts to build CrossRail (an east–west suburban express rail line), a new Underground line from Hackney to southwest London or even new tram services in outer borough centres proved to be as laborious and uncertain in the early years of the GLA as they were during the period of network governance that preceded it. Similarly, the capital needs a major convention centre. The new authority, like the GLC before it, was far weaker than the London County Council had been (Glancey, 2001, p. 128) and thus incapable of delivering such projects. The fact that London’s new mayor was incapable of co-ordinating the institutions and resources necessary to ensure the city’s capacity to develop is not simply a measure of the weakness of the institution created (nor, indeed, of Ken Livingstone as mayor). Rather, it is a demonstration of the extent of centralization in modern Britain. To undertake a major project such as a railway line or a sports stadium requires the creation of a complex partnership, generally involving public and private sector institutions. Despite the centralization of taxation and financial control, Whitehall itself is unwilling to lead key projects because it fears the political consequences of failure. As a result, public or private bodies – such as CrossRail, a joint company set up by the mayor and the Strategic Rail Authority, or, at Wembley, the Football League – must attempt to lead partnerships set up to deliver the project. Even where the mayor plays a role in such a partnership, or, as at Wembley, provides additional finance, the overall scale of resources needed is far too great for any institution other than central government to provide. Worse still, it is difficult to hold – possibly large numbers of – partners together where there is no certainty about sufficient funding. Political riskaversion keeps Whitehall at a distance, yet unless the Treasury is completely convinced about a project, it is unlikely to provide resources to complete the project. This Catch 22-type problem inevitably means major projects are likely to take many years to move forward (Culture, Media and Sport

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Committee, 2003). Delays cause some partners to lose interest and/or a recession intervenes. An awkward asymmetry ensures that while virtually any partner can stop a project, none – including the mayor – is powerful enough to ensure its completion. The weakness of the Mayor of London is not a London-only problem. Even the Scottish and Welsh administrations would be incapable of funding or leading very major projects. The proposed English regions will be far too weak to do so. Only if central government devolved financial and political power to London (or other regions) would there be any real chance that Britain’s abject record of developing major projects could be put to an end.

Further reform? Many books have been written about the difficulty of providing London with a rational and effective system of government. For much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries governments struggled with pressures for reform. The creation of the Greater London Authority in 2000 was simply the most recent effort to provide the capital with workable government arrangements. Already there are demands for further reform: the mayor is ‘too weak’; the assembly is ‘irrelevant’; London is ‘in crisis’; other cities run themselves better. Each of these arguments – and many others – has been made with regularity in the brief period since the GLA came into existence. An abolitionist party will (as it did for the GLC) doubtless emerge. A number of long-term realities about the government of London have been spectacularly reinforced by the creation and operation of the new authority. These key eternal truths include: ●

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Westminster and Whitehall are unwilling to devolve extensive powers to a London-wide government the London-wide government and lower-tier boroughs – each with their own legitimacy – inevitably become locked in dispute outer London, though part of the continuous urban area, is often less connected to ‘London-wide’ government issues – inner London dominates the capital’s political agenda fragmentation and weak leadership are the defining characteristics of London’s planning and government further reform is inevitable.

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To a greater or lesser degree, these points would have been as relevant in 1830, 1890 or 1970 as they are today. But the implication is clear: the reform of 2000 did not deliver a long-term solution to the problems of London government. What it may have done, however, is to provide a framework within which further reforms could be pursued. Such reforms would need to achieve a number of objectives: ●

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a proper devolution of power from central government to the Londonwide tier (that is, the GLA) a re-balancing of power between the GLA and the boroughs reforms to the GLA to ensure greater freedom for the mayor to appoint staff and deliver services, coupled with moves to reinforce the assembly’s powers to hold the mayor to account a cull of centrally-appointed quangos and other governmental undergrowth fiscal and financial devolution stronger powers for the Mayor of London.

Each of these points will be considered in turn.

Devolution of power from Whitehall to the GLA Few powers were transferred from central government to the GLA. As earlier chapters made clear, transport was the most significant responsibility given to the mayor, though even this transfer was limited. Control over the railways and Underground were, initially at least, retained by the centre. Even when the Underground transfers to the mayor, his freedom to determine services and investment will have been largely removed. Powers over the police were so confusingly devolved to the GLA that during 2002 the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary took action to launch major police initiatives to cut street crime in London. The mayor and chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority were largely irrelevant to key decisions about policing in the city. Thus, the first priority should be to effect a full transfer of transport, police, economic development, fire and planning services to the mayor. To give policing the legitimacy and immediacy it currently lacks, the mayor should be given a role in operational policing decisions (currently, operational policing decisions are, in theory at least, in the hands of the unelected Commissioner). Within transport, the mayor should take over all

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responsibilities for commuter railways as well as the Underground. All major roads (certainly those upon which buses operate) should become mayoral responsibilities. Whitehall’s power as planning authority of last resort should also be removed. Beyond existing GLA responsibilities, there are strong arguments for devolving responsibilities for the NHS, Learning and Skills Councils, higher education, and, indeed, most of the other duties that have been devolved to Wales and Scotland. City governments in Berlin and New York manage a far wider range of services than those run by the GLA. If the British government has a policy to decentralize power, but feels inhibited from doing so to a city with a population of almost eight million, the commitment to the policy will inevitably be open to doubt. There is nothing new about such inhibition. Governments have for centuries been concerned about the power of London if given too much autonomy. Of all regions and cities in the United Kingdom, London has the potential to become utterly dominant. It could challenge Parliament and the Government. For this reason, it seems unlikely any government would give the capital true self-government.

Re-balancing power between the GLA and the boroughs Unless London-wide government is given greater power than the GLA to command resources and direct public service provision, it will inevitably be weak and ineffective. The post-2000 set-up left the 32 boroughs and the City of London collectively spending almost £15 billion per year, about three times the GLA’s net budget. Moreover, the GLA was given few powers to direct borough decision-making, even where there were overlapping responsibilities (for example, roads and planning). In a city as massive as Greater London, there will always be a tension between neighbourhood or borough interests and those of the whole metropolis. A train service necessary for London’s wider economy may damage the environment in a small part of the capital. History is on the side of the fragmented lower-tier. Even central London is chopped up between several boroughs. As a result, problems such as rough sleeping, illegal public drug dealing, crime and road digging are not tackled consistently or effectively. The capital’s central area is little better than a war of all against all, with authorities often seeking to displace problems from one area to another. Even with the limited powers now available to the GLA, it would be possible to give the mayor greater capacity for leadership. The possibility of

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reducing the number of boroughs has been put forward by a number of commentators, including Mayor Ken Livingstone. Giving the mayor greater discretion over resource distribution and increased powers to direct the boroughs (particularly over matters where co-ordination is needed) could significantly improve the quality of London government. Such a solution might remove the need for an expensive re-organization of the boroughs.

Reforms to the GLA’s internal processes Chapter 5 explained the tortured internal working arrangements within the GLA. Because the assembly appoints virtually all the authority’s staff and also because the original legislation envisaged the mayor directly appointing no more than policy advisors, the mayor is cut off from the direct appointment of the GLA officials who might otherwise be expected to run services on the mayor’s behalf. Instead, the mayor has attempted to use his private office advisors and the chief executives of Transport for London and the London Development Agency as his ‘operating system’. For its part, the assembly has become complicit in the appointment of virtually all GLA staff, which has made effective scrutiny of them very difficult. At the same time, the assembly has failed to create an effective way of holding the mayor to account or to scrutinize his activities. New legislation is needed to sort out this mess. The mayor should be given the power to appoint all the senior GLA staff, and the fire and police commissioners. The assembly should then be given an explicit duty to hold evidentiary hearings about all senior commissioner and GLA staff appointments, with the possibility of recommending rejection (though not a veto). Finally, the assembly should be given greater powers to veto mayoral policy (in the same way they may veto the budget – with a two-thirds majority for an alternative proposition). In this way, the assembly would become significantly more capable of influencing the mayor’s policies and appointments, though without removing the key responsibility from the mayor. The budget scrutiny process, which is one of the assembly’s most effective annual activities, could be replicated for each GLA policy topic. The mayor, on the other hand, would appoint his own senior staff and could more closely operate the administrative machine of the GLA. Appointments would be more clearly the mayor’s, but subject to high-profile scrutiny. Both the mayor and assembly would be more powerful.

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A cull of quangos and other centrally appointed bodies The government of London is difficult enough with the three levels of elected government involved. Complexity is made vastly worse by the enormous number of quangos and other appointed bodies which play a part. These include bodies such as health authorities (reformed yet again during 2002), the Strategic Rail Authority, Learning and Skills Councils, English Heritage, the Port of London Authority and the Housing Corporation. All of these – and many others shown in Figure 8.1 – play an important role in the government of London. The responsibilities of many of them (or at least their London activities) could and should be transferred to the mayor. Local democratic accountability, transparency and simplicity would be improved.

The power of the mayor A reform agenda such as this would make the mayor a more powerful figure. This is as it should be. Cities need leadership; and great cities need great leadership. If central government is concerned about the dangers of abuse of power by a strong mayor, the solution is not to weaken the office of mayor but rather to strengthen the office – to make it more relevant to the lives of Londoners, more important and more fought over, so that a strong democratic culture can be established and clear lines of accountability and responsibility created. A strong mayor needs stronger countervailing powers. The checks and balances on the mayor include not only the assembly, but crucially the boroughs. Some devolution of control from central government to these institutions would not go amiss. But the most effective check on potential abuse of executive power would be a vigorously contested mayoralty, with high turnout, informed debate and a strong range of candidates both for mayor and assembly. Devolution of tax-raising power to the mayor would be an important element in increasing interest in the office.

The London elections of 2004 The second GLA election, in June 2004, will be an important test of the public’s attitude to the system of city-wide/regional government initiated in 2000. Will turnout rise above the 35 per cent level achieved at the first election? Will new, powerful, candidates offer themselves for election? Will the electorate state their belief that something good has been put in place?

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The Politics of London

Ken Livingstone’s four years in office will lead to the most critical judgement ever made of a London politician. His achievements are likely to have been limited in a city that desperately needs someone to sort out its railways, roads, housing, schools, hospitals and bankrupt cultural institutions. If his opponents can pin the blame on him for a range of the city’s ills, he will surely be defrated. For his part, London’s first elected mayor will argue that he never had the powers to deliver (this begs the question: then why stand for the office?). Congestion changing will be his key achievement. The credibility of the GLA will be tested again and again in the years ahead. London government’s tortured history provides all the warnings needed. If a central government convinces itself a particular form of London-wide administration is inappropriate, or wasteful, and the public does not overwhelmingly care, then reform will surely come. London is littered with the wreckage of abolished public authorities. To secure its long-term future, London government will certainly need further reform. The mayor will need more powers and greater financial autonomy. The assembly will have to be given greater capacity to hold the mayor to account. There should be a transfer of power from Whitehall to the GLA. The relationship between the GLA and the boroughs (and the total number of boroughs) will have to be reviewed. The continuous revolution in London government is, without doubt, continuing. Amid all this reform and scrutiny, it would be easy to forget why London – and all city – government was invented. It exists to make life in the metropolis possible – to provide water, sewers, railways, roads, schools, hospitals, parks, street lights and to take away the rubbish. Without it, the great city could not exist. London, more than many cities, just gets on with life, regardless of politicians and governments. Paul Barker, commenting on a study of the capital’s economy (Buck et al., 2002) stated: ‘London is a beast that’s hard to control. That’s its strength’ (Barker, 2002). But it can be better or worse. Government can impede or encourage. At present, London government is too fragmented, too weak and often incapable. The capital is governable, but only in parts and from time to time. If anything brings down the Greater London Authority, this lack of capacity will surely be it. Londoners continue to survive despite their government, rather than because of it. It will always prove difficult to make London governable.

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Index Key: bold ⫽ extended discussion; f ⫽ figure; t ⫽ table. Abbott, Diane 95 Abercrombie report (1944) 6 accountability 107, 118, 123, 127–30, 134, 146, 179, 201, 209 accumulation of mandates (France) 165 advisory cabinet 94–5 air quality 61, 116 Allen, Richard 81, 82 Amsterdam 158, 163, 173 Anderson, Victor 98, 99 Anwar, Yasmin 93 Arbour, Tony 85, 97, 134 Archer, Lord (Jeffrey) 55, 62, 68–70, 81 architecture and design 121 Architecture Foundation 46 arrondissements 164, 166, 167 arts 184 Asher, Gerry 81 Ashfield, Lord 27 assistant mayors: possible need for 122 Association of London Authorities 31, 39 Association of London Government (ALG, 1994–) 33–4, 39, 53, 62, 84–5, 93, 97, 143, 185 ‘did not oppose creation of GLA’ 64 Atkinson, Sue 148 Anwar, Yasmin 93 Baltic Exchange 152 Banks, Tony 32, 46, 55, 71 Bankside 40 Barcelona 51, 140, 158, 160, 161, 163, 170–2, 180 ‘leadership role of mayor’ 172 Barker, Paul 193, 210

218

Barlow, George 90 Barnes, Richard 85, 97 Barnet 140 Beckton 39 Bellos, Linda 43 Ben-Nathan, Geoffrey 76t Berlin 79, 112, 163, 167–70, 180, 184, 207 financial freedom 168–9 ‘governing mayor’ role 167, 168, 169 key lesson for London 169 ‘ruinous’ finances 169 Best Value 9, 19, 144 Bickerstaff, Mollie 101, 104 Biggs, John 85, 98, 196 Birmingham 17, 23, 24, 33, 99 birth rate 10 Blackman, Bob 69 Blair, Tony 2, 44, 92, 173, 206 appears not to have considered overseas mayoral evidence 159 and civil service 200–1 enthusiasm for directly-elected mayors (1996–7) 46–7 favours directly-elected executive mayors 45–6, 47, 52, 160, 199–200 ‘hugely embarrassed’ by result of Mayoral election (2000) 76, 84 ‘inclusivist style’ 20 mayoral politics ‘engaging and modern’ 68, 74 ‘not an enthusiast for English regional government’ 50 opposition to Livingstone 71, 72–3, 75

Index Blair, Tony – continued ‘service improvement agenda’ 145 Blair government 9, 45, 50, 67, 203 committed (1997) to creating mayor and assembly 1 desire to ‘modernise’ local government 18, 30, 49, 62, 115, 123, 137, 145, 151 introduction of Regional Development Agencies 34 key words 49 public expenditure 12 ‘more sympathetic to local government’ 48 strategy to take pressure off green land 10 Bloom, Louise 98 Bloomberg, Michael 54, 108, 180, 190 Blunkett, David 130, 145 Boff, Andrew 69, 70 Bordeaux 158 borough committees: city-wide (London) 120–1 borough councils: Berlin 168–9 borough leaders 84–5 borough mergers 145 boroughs average number of councillors 99 ‘check and balance’ upon Mayor 144, 184, 209 ‘dominant element in capital’s local government’ 185 housing expenditure 142 impact of SRA 147 joint committees 31 key players 144 Labour-controlled 35, 40 London inner 31, 139 London outer 139, 204 London thirty-two (1965–) xii, 4, 12, 15, 22, 28–31, 32–41, 43, 57, 62–3, 84–6, 94, 96, 102, 115, 128t, 137, 142–3, 149–50, 167, 178, 186–7f, 196, 198, 205, 210 London twenty-seven metropolitan (1899–1965) 21, 25–8 ‘more powerful than GLA’ 198 New York 176, 177

219 re-balancing of power with GLA (required) 207–8 reduction in number 208 reduction in numbers (Berlin) 168, 169 responsibilities 184 sub-regional partnerships 143–6 ‘wide variety of powers’ 137–8, 154 see also Association of London Government Boston (USA) 51, 54, 160 Bracknell/Bracknell Forest 10, 141 Brandenburg 167 Branson, Richard 55 Bray, Angie 96, 196 Brent 44 British National Party 74, 76t, 77t, 78 British Transport Police 147 Bromley 30, 62, 85 Brown, Gordon 71, 72–3, 145 Brown, Patricia 149 Brown, Richard 82, 87 Browner, J. A. 2 budgets 50, 87, 115, 124, 126, 128t, 129, 130, 132–4, 135, 175, 177, 184, 193, 195t, 196, 207 process 178 scrutiny 195 Bundred, Steve 81 Bureau of Leaders 98–9, 135 bus services 112, 116, 119, 190, 191, 198, 207 business 39, 91, 149–54, 161 desiderata 152 Business in the Community 33 Cabinet/Cabinet Office 54, 108, 199, 200 Sub-Committee for London (1992–) 32, 37 cabinets: Barcelona 171 Camden 44, 47 Campaign Against Tube Privatisation 77t Caplan, Melvyn 69 Carvel, John 41 Cassidy, Michael 62, 69, 151 Catalonia 163, 170–1

220 CDU (Christlich-Demokratische Union) 168 central government xii, 16, 23, 25–6, 28, 35, 48, 78, 94, 100, 118, 145, 148–9, 161–2, 170, 178, 184, 191, 198, 201, 203–7, 209–10 and GLA 142–3, 154 GLA Act (1999) 66 ‘mortal combat’ with Mayor of London 116–17 Netherlands 173 powers 59, 132 strategic planning 139–40 United Kingdom 166 unwillingness to devolve real power 202 Central London Partnership (CLP) 145, 149–50, 153 Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) 91 Chapman, Honor 90 Charleson, Maureen 86, 87 Chilton, Robert 82–3, 100 Chirac, Jacques 165 Christian People’s Alliance 74, 76t, 77t Citizen Ken (Carvel, 1984) 41 City Challenge 12, 36 City Hall 95 City Limits (Peterson, 1981) 14 City of London xii, 21, 22, 24, 26, 31, 35, 36, 58, 62, 90, 95, 144, 150–3, 185, 207 ‘City Pride’ initiative (1994) 33 City Research Project (Corporation of London, 1995) 34 City of Westminster 33, 34 city-regions 156–7 Civil Aviation Authority 147 civil service/bureaucracy 157, 160, 199, 200–1 Scotland and Wales 202 unwillingness to devolve real power 202 Clements, Geoffrey 76t Clifford, Max 70 Clinton, W. J. 20 173 Clos, Joan 172 Cobbett, W. 2

Index Coleman, Brian 85 Coleman, Neale 86, 87, 102 Cologne 160, 161, 169 Communautés Urbaines (France) 158 communes 162, 164, 165, 166 Communist Party of Great Britain 77t community groups/minority organizations 29, 30, 44, 74 ‘community power’ studies (1950s, 1960s) 13–14 commuters/commuting 28, 142, 147, 156, 170, 192, 207 competitiveness 143, 151 Confederation of British Industry (CBI, 1965–) 33, 89, 150, 151, 153 congestion charging 66, 94, 116, 119, 135, 144, 152, 190–3, 195, 202, 210 Conservative Party 6, 18, 43, 44, 47, 84, 97, 100, 150, 191, 196, 203 change of leader (1990) 32 committee stage, GLA Bill 64 control of LCC (1907–34) 26 GLC elections 28–9 London Assembly election (2000) 74, 76, 77t London mayoral election (2000) 74, 75, 76t manifesto commitment to abolish GLC (1983) 30 members of the London Assembly 114 no lack of experience in London government 134 opposition (1997) to proposed creation of GLA 52 selection of candidate for Mayor 69–70 ‘wanted Assembly to consist of borough council leaders’ 197 see also Thatcher government; Major government consultants (external/freelance) 103, 125–6 Corrigan, Professor Paul 160 corruption 25, 123 council officials 199, 200, 201 councillors 44, 49, 199

Index county boroughs 24 county councils 50, 51 County Hall xi, 29, 30, 45, 82, 90, 104, 191 Crawley 10 Crick, Michael 69 crime 7, 96, 115–17, 130, 145, 185, 194–5, 206–7 New York 179, 180 Crime and Community Safety Commission 96 CrossRail 204 Crow, Bob 91 Croydon 27, 43, 85 Croydon Tramlink 145 Cultural Strategy Group 93–4, 95 culture 163, 190, 194t, 195t, 210 cultural identity 156 cultural policy 61 Cunningham, John 44 Cutler, Horace 29 d’Arcy, Mark 41, 68, 71, 72 Dagenham: Ford works 84, 87, 96 Dali, Salvador 82 Davis, John 41 de Gaulle, Charles 162 death rates 7 decentralization 162, 170–1, 172 Defoe, Daniel 2 Delanoë, Bertrand 165 Delivering the Mayor’s Policies (KPMG, 2001) 125, 126 democracy 25, 37, 151, 157, 158, 197, 209 and decentralization (Spain) 170–1 Italian reforms 163 democratic deficit 37, 56, 197–8 départements (counties), 164, 165 Department of Environment 32 Department of Environment, Transport, and Regions (DETR) 51, 52, 53, 63–4, 78, 129, 201, 202 Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) 33, 128t, 130, 186f, 198, 202 Department of Transport 32 Department for Transport, Local Government, and Regions (DLTR):

221 Housing, Urban Policy and Planning Division 51 deputy mayor 59, 64, 88, 95, 118, 120–2, 183 New York 179 see also Gavron DETR see Department of Environment, Transport, and Regions devolution 8–9, 16, 47–50, 162, 166, 170, 199, 202, 209 Diepgen, Eberhard 166 Directory of Services (GOL) 37 Dobson, Frank 20, 47, 52, 71–4, 76t Dowding, K. 15 Duffy, John 86 Duncan Smith, Iain 196 Dunleavy, P. 15, 60 Duvall, Len 85, 90, 98, 100, 115, 117, 195 East England Development Agency (EEDA) 137 East Ham 27 East London 33, 141 East London Partnership (1989-) 149 economic development/growth 61, 86, 91, 140–1, 144–5, 149, 157, 190, 194–5 economic development strategy (EDS) 119, 130–1, 148 Economic and Social Research Foundation xii economies of scale 155, 157 education 28, 141, 145, 148–9, 179, 195 Edward the Confessor 21, 40 elections 25, 128t domestic British political tradition 159 GLC 28–9, 75, 77, 104 London Assembly (2000) 9, 76–8, 116 London borough 43, 62, 77 London mayoral (4 May 2000) 9, 68–76, 77, 105, 116, 122; Conservatives 69–70; Liberal Democrats 68–9; New Labour 70–3;

222 elections: domestic – continued results 73–6; selection of candidates 68–73 London mayoral (2004) 69, 78, 122, 209–10 New Labour gerrymandering (anti-Livingstone) 73 referenda 44, 51, 59, 61, 62–3, 160, 173 turnout 62, 75, 209 UK general (1983) 30 UK general (1992) 32 UK general (1997) 45–7, 48, 51, 52, 55, 58, 78, 160 UK general (2001) 50 overseas Barcelona 171 Berlin 167 Paris 164 electorate (Greater London) 114 Elephant and Castle 40 emergency planning 194 employment 3–4, 10, 94, 139 Employment Zones 13 Enfield 88 ‘enforcers’ 108, 111, 121 see also Kiley England 158 devolution 201–3 regional government 50, 52, 198, 205 ‘urban renaissance’ required 10 England and Wales 3, 115, 118, 138 English Heritage 186f, 209 environment 86, 116, 119, 139, 173, 188, 190, 194–6, 198, 207 Environment Commission 96 equalities 188, 190 Equalities Policy Commission 96 ‘equalities unit’ 133 Ernst and Young 82 Essex 141 Estate Action 12 euro 152 European Union 13, 36, 37, 39, 98 Evans, Roger 85 Evening Standard 46, 69, 73, 92, 193

Index Fabians 26 Fares Fair policy (GLC) 29–30, 62, 85, 146, 191 Featherstone, Lynne 85, 98 federal government 162, 169–70, 174 Ferguson, Anthony 82 Filkin, Geoffrey (Lord Filkin) 160 financial services 7, 131 fire/fire brigade 24, 26, 28, 31, 57, 86, 188, 197, 198 Fire Commissioner (formerly Chief Fire Officer) 93, 131, 185, 208 Fletcher, Simon 74, 84, 86–8, 102 Ford Dagenham 84, 87, 96 Foster, Norman 82 Four World Cities (Department of Environment, 1996) 34 Fowle, Michael 81 fragmentation 156, 157, 205 France/French state 159, 162, 164, 165 Francis, Ted 70 Franco, F. 170–1 Frankfurt 30, 169 Frye, Michael 90 Fuchs, Ester 54, 160 functional boards/bodies 57, 58f, 107, 108, 119, 124, 125, 126–32, 133, 145, 153, 179, 183, 186f, 198 appointments, accountability, budget, policy, scrutiny 128t see also LDA; LFEPA; MPA; TfL funding 12–13, 36, 39, 48, 60–1, 142, 144 Gaebler, T. 19 Garside, Patricia 41 Gatwick Airport 28 Gavron, Nicky 85, 88, 98, 117, 120–2 ‘gearing’ 134 Germany 158, 159, 162, 163 Gidoomal, Ram 74, 76t Giuliani, Rudolph 55, 108, 121, 177, 179–80 GLA see Greater London Authority GLA, Economics 103 Glaister, Stephen xiii, 91–2 GLATT see Greater London Authority Transition Team

Index GLC see Greater London Council Glennerster, Howard xiii global cities 9–10, 131 global competition 157 globalization 13, 34, 152 GOL see Government Office for London Goode, David 101 Gordon, Ian xiii, 7 Gore, Al 20 Gorman, Teresa 70 government definition 20 role 19–20 Government Office for London (GOL) 33, 36, 37–8, 51–4, 58–9, 61, 63–4, 78, 81–3, 96, 142–3, 148, 184–5, 187f, 202 government regional offices 51 Greater London characteristics 5–8 city-wide committees/planning 85, 112, 198 competitive advantage 183 context 1–20 democratic deficit 56, 197–8 demography xi, 5, 22, 139, 157, 190, 191, 192 economic revival (1990–) xi, 157, 190, 191 economic diversity 6–7, 131 employment 4t, 4 global city 9–10 ‘governable, but only in parts, and from time to time’ 210 hybrid system 181 ‘increased awareness’ of 38 metropolitan government 155–8 ‘needs major convention centre’ 204 neighbourhoods versus city as whole xii ‘new politics’ 77 ‘no longer bastion of Middle Britain’ 74 political and economic definitions 147, 157–8 problems xi protean city 182–3

223 reform 51–5 road to reform (1997–2000) 43–79 size 2–5 ‘successful’ 183 ungovernability 182–210 Greater London Assembly xii, 96–100, 104, 137, 138, 141, 143, 150, 154, 178, 185, 186f, 192, 193–7 assessments ‘irrelevant’ 205 ‘lacks sufficient power’ 197 needs greater capacity to hold Mayor to account 210 obstacles to progress 103 public hearings (lacking) 116, 119 research facility needed 120 ‘self-inflicted problems’ 117 shortcomings 193–4, 197 ‘should be given greater veto powers’ 208 election and composition election (2000) 74, 76–8 frequency of meeting (statutory requirement) 96 Labour–Liberal Democrat protocol (2000) 97, 98 New Labour group 88 political composition 76, 97, 99–100, 114, 135 research and support staff 87 voting system 60–1 formation proposed 59 proposed powers and functions (1997 green paper) 56–7 provisions of GLA Act (1999) 65 functions appointments 124, 125, 208 budgetary process 133–4, 208 check and balance on the Mayor 209 committees 114–15 inquiries 194 mayoral question time 116, 120, 194 no appropriate precedents 136 policy-shaping 103–4 powers 65

224 Greater London Assembly: functions – continued role 113–17 scrutiny role 97, 103–4, 116, 117–20, 124, 135, 194–7, 208 subject matter of press notices (2002) 194t subject matter of reports (2000–02) 195t veto powers 126 writing reports 194 Greater London Assembly Committees Appointments 98–100, 106, 115, 123, 125, 194t Budget 98, 100, 116, 195 Economic Development 97, 196 Environment Policy 98 Housing 98 Planning 97, 98 Standing Orders 97 Transport Performance 98, 196 Transport Policy 98, 196 Greater London Assembly members 83, 92, 101, 200 background 84–5 duties 86 Greater London Authority (GLA, May 2000-) 2, 8, 9, 14, 42, 138, 141, 148, 150, 154, 185, 210 assessments devolution of power from Whitehall (required) 206–7 ‘long-term solution’ 206 distinction between strategy and provision ‘blurred’ 146 effectiveness 183–4 further reform 205–9 ‘hamstrung’ 184 ‘hybrid form of government’ 81 limited powers 207 ‘messy territory’ 110 ‘neither local authority, nor regional government’ 201 novelty 86 powers ‘minimal’ 201 re-balancing of power with boroughs (required) 207–8

Index reforms to internal processes (required) 208 senior officials ‘side-lined’ 200 creation 49, 80–105, 122–6 commitment to create 48 Conservative party opposition (1997) to creation of 52 early days 83–6 favoured by business sector 151 green paper (July 1997) 52–5, 56–8, 61, 63, 197 preparation period 85–6 proposed (Labour manifestos, 1987, 1992, 1997) 45 proposed powers 59 ‘virtually no run-in period’ 105 voting system 59–60 financial matters budget 65–6, 80, 105, 132–4, 184 dependence upon central government funding 142 financing arrangements (1998 white paper) 61 funding of election campaigns 60–1 limited tax-raising powers 66, 201, 202 functions core 80 ‘enhancing prosperity’ 197, 198 executive and scrutiny duties 117–20, 124, 128t ‘firm leadership’ 197, 198, 204, 207–8 in practice 106–36 staffing 105, 192; appointment of officials 124, 125, 128t core staff 80, 81, 126 number of staff (GLC comparison) 104 miscellaneous and central government 142–3, 197–9 continuity of membership from GLC 85 headquarters 82

Index Greater London Authority: miscellaneous – continued implications for British government 199–205 lessons from other countries 180–1 separation of powers 67, 110 see also functional bodies; Greater London Assembly; Mayor of London Greater London Authority Act (1999) 8, 61, 63–8, 86, 92–3, 107, 110, 161, 184–5, 188, 201–2, 208 appointment of deputy mayor 120 appointment of LDA chiefs 131 change required (appointment of GLA staff) 126 functional bodies 127, 128t functions of Assembly 96, 118 functions of Mayor 118 London business ‘broadly got what it wanted’ 152 Mayor’s powers over functional bodies 124, 129 provisions 65 spatial development 121 ‘systemic difficulties’ 125 Whitehall efforts to limit powers of proposed Mayor 129 Greater London Authority officers 100–4, 185 background 100–1 Chief Executive 88, 100, 183, 185 Director of Administration 101 Director of Communications 101 Director of Strategy 101 Head of Governance 100–1 provision of effective services for mayor/assembly 102 senior directors 100 Greater London Authority Transition Team (GLATT) 80–3, 84, 87, 102, 104, 105, 122 Greater London Council (GLC, 1965–86) xi, 1, 12, 21, 22, 28–31, 204 abolition (1986) 8, 9, 22, 29, 30–1, 36, 38, 85, 104–5, 149, 153, 166, 197, 198

225 aftermath 35 creation (1965) 64, 158 ‘Labour Effect’ 43–4 lessons for the GLA 65–6 members (1964) 85–6, 101 ‘ten thousand officials’ 58, 104 Greater London Development Plan (GLDP, 1965-) 29 Greater London governance 11–18, 137–54 ‘balkanized’/fragmented 182, 205 bi-partisanship (1986-) 38 democratic deficit 37 ‘eccentric approach’ 42 economic competitiveness and social cohesion 11–12, 17, 19 foreign influences 159–61 further reform 205–9, 210 governing without a centre: benefits 38–9 governing without a centre: costs 36–8 history 21–42 international comparisons 155–81 interregnum (1986–2000) 31–5, 138, 145 key statutory bodies 186–7f long-term realities 205–6 new pragmatism 35–9 origins 21–3 pessimism xi, 14 regional aspect 138–42 spatial mismatch (between economic and political regions) 3–5 ‘special case’ 8 steering, rowing, drowning, waving 18–20 systemic instability xi, 1, 42, 181 ‘too fragmented, too weak, and often incapable’ 210 ‘272 appointed bodies’ (1993) 36 ‘weak’ 154, 182, 205, 210 see also GLC, LCC, MBW Greater South East 3, 4t, 138–42, 157–8, 203 Green, Pauline 71 Green Belt 2, 10, 28

226 green paper: proposed creation of GLA (July 1997) 52–5, 56–8, 61, 63, 101, 197 Green Party 60, 73–4, 84, 88, 95, 97, 114, 134, 173, 196 London elections (2000) 75–8 Greenwich 44, 85, 98 growth coalitions 16, 161 growth machines 14 Gummer, John 34, 46 Hackney 62, 204 Hague, William 20, 52 Hall, John 35, 149 Hall, Sir Peter 3 Hammersmith and Fulham 44 Hamwee, Baroness (Sally) 85, 97, 98, 117, 135–6, 195–6 Hanham, Baroness (Joan) 70 Hargreaves, David 81 Haringey 62, 85, 88 Harris, Lord (Toby) 33, 62, 71, 85, 93, 97, 98, 115, 117, 118, 130, 196 Harrow 43 Harty, Bernard 81 Hastings, Max 69 Havering 62 Hayward, David 87 Hayward, Isaac 27 health 28, 29, 61, 96, 145, 147–8, 194t, 195t, 195 health authorities 127, 149, 187f Health Commission 95 Health and Education Action Zones 13 Heath, Samantha 85, 98 Heathrow Airport 9–10, 40, 112, 141, 149 Hebbert, Michael 38, 150 Herbert Commission 28, 30 Heron Tower 152 Heseltine, Michael 46, 91, 140 higher education 127, 148, 207 Highways Agency 131, 133, 147, 187f Hill, David 53 Hill, Keith 52 Hillier, Meg 85, 98, 99 Hillingdon 62 Hobbes, T. 21

Index Hockney, Damian 76t Hodgkinson, Mike 91–2 Holmes, Chris 95 Holtham, Gerry 81 Home Office 53, 54, 61, 64, 78, 93, 129, 131–2, 186f, 201, 202 Home Secretary 22, 63, 93, 127, 128t, 130, 131, 198, 206 homelessness 35, 39, 185, 207 hospitals 210 housing 11, 23, 26, 27–8, 29, 33, 35, 37, 39, 96, 112, 116, 119, 139, 142, 144–5, 148–9, 184, 210 Housing Commission 95, 96 Housing Corporation 100, 148, 186f, 209 Howlett, Elizabeth 85 Hughes, Robert 62 Hughes, Simon 55, 62, 64, 68–9, 81 hundred-mile city (Sudjic) 3, 139 ideology 40, 44 Île de France 164, 166 India Act (1935) 65 inequality 7, 11, 35, 152 infrastructure 142, 149, 170, 176, 178, 182, 192 Inner London 21, 38, 164, 205 Inner London Education Authority 22, 31, 32 Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) 81 interview material 109–13, 130, 143, 147–9, 153–4 investment xi, xii, 6, 16, 33, 58, 143, 152, 157, 171, 190 Isle of Dogs 40 Italy 158, 159, 163 Jackson, Glenda 64, 71–3, 95 James I, King 2 Jasper, Lee 86, 93, 96 Jenkins, Simon xiii, 46, 159, 193 John Smith Memorial Lecture 46 Johnson, Darren 73, 75, 76t, 88, 97, 196 Johnson, Joy 101

Index Jones, George xiii, 37 Jones Lang LaSalle (surveyors)

227 90

Kensington and Chelsea 43, 144 Kent 141 Kessler, George 90 Kiley, Bob 67, 92, 111–12, 130, 191 King’s Cross railway lands 204 Kinnock, Neil 43, 44, 45 Kleinman, Mark xii Knapp, Jimmy 91 Knight, Ted 43 Koch, Ed 193 KPMG 81–2, 101, 125–6 Kramer, Susan 68–9, 73, 75–6, 91–2 labour market 142, 156 labour relations 133 Labour Party (Old Labour) 12, 32, 37, 150 control of LCC (1934–65) 26–7 GLC elections 29 ‘Loony’ Labour 71 see also New Labour; Blair government Lambeth 43, 44, 62, 85, 177 Lambirth, Mark 53 land use 33, 37, 198 Lane, Rob 91 Lastman, Mel 175 Latham, Charles 27 LDA see London Development Agency Leach, Matt 53 Learning and Skills Councils 127, 148, 187f, 207, 209 Leeds 23, 24 Leguina, Joaquin 172–3 Lewisham 44 LFEPA see London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority Liberal Democrat Party 32, 40, 43, 44, 47, 60, 84, 85, 95, 97, 196 ‘against Tube sell-off’ 77t committee stage, GLA Bill 64 London Assembly elections (2000) 74, 77t, 78 London mayoral election (2000) 75, 76t

members of the London Assembly 114 no lack of experience in London government 134 opposed concept of London Mayor 64 selection of candidate for Mayor 68–9 Liberal Party: control of LCC (1889–1907) 26 Liberty of Norton Folgate (Spitalfields) 24–5 Lille 158 Lister, Edward 69 Liverpool 10, 24, 43, 44 Livingstone, Ken 27, 91–6, 98, 102–5, 114, 120–2, 124, 130, 132–5, 145–6, 152, 169, 173, 175, 178, 196 assessment (as Mayor) achievements (‘limited’) 188–93, 210 ‘effective at making case for London’ 199 ‘failures’ in use of mayoral power 112–13 ‘incapable of co-ordinating institutions and resources’ 204 ‘inclusivist style’ 20 Jenkins’s jibe (‘where is the Mayor?’) 193 relationship with business ‘mainly positive’ 151–3 ‘well-known’ 136 GLC era ‘committed to abolition of City’ (1980s) 90 enrages Thatcher 30–1 GLC leader (1981–6) 43, 46, 65–6, 90, 133, 135, 191 GLC member (1973–86) 84, 134 policies as Mayor compared to policies as GLC leader 90 replaces Macintosh (1981) 29 views on Irish politics 30 as Mayor of London aides/advisers 84, 86–8, 106–10, 121–2, 124, 126, 201

228 Livingstone, Ken: as Mayor – continued development strategies (spatial and economic) 11 favours reduction in number of boroughs 169, 208 former GLC allies (as Mayor) 90, 91 international nature of London economy 152 interviewed 110, 149 man and office 113 mayoral style 89–90 opposition to PPP 67, 192 patronage powers 89 political independence 113 pro-growth policies 11 relations with the assembly 195, 201 style of government 107 transport 111–12 use of powers 183, 185 Mayoral election (2000) campaign workers 84 candidacy 55, 62, 67, 68, 69, 71–4 delivers Blair ‘lesson in democracy’ 84 elected Mayor (4 May 2000) 75 fails to win Labour Party nomination 73 independent candidate 73 manifesto 190 opposition to idea of directly-elected mayor 71, 200 personal manifesto (August 1998) 71 votes received 76t remains expelled from Labour Party (2002) 122 see also Mayor of London; Mayor’s Office local authorities 134, 159, 160 ‘cabinet-style’ leadership 160 county, district, unitary 140 development plans 140 France 166 ‘increasingly moribund’ 160

Index strategic planning 139, 141 unitary 140, 141, 145 local government 16, 105, 199, 200 funding from central government 48 grant regime 162 loss of esteem and power 48 ‘problem, not the solution’ 12 ‘weak politically and fiscally’ (UK) 162 Local Government Acts 49, 115, 144 Local Government Association 160 Lomax, Greg 101 London see Greater London London: East End 25 London: West End 25 London Arts 93, 149 London Assembly see Greater London Assembly London Boroughs’ Association 31, 39 London Business Board (proposed by LCCI) 150, 151 London Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) 33, 150, 151, 153 London County Council (LCC, 1889–1965) 21–2, 25–8, 72, 85, 86, 104, 204 health service 48 opposition to creation of 64 political control 26–7 London Development Agency (LDA) 33, 50, 57, 58f, 63, 65, 80, 89–91, 95, 102–3, 127, 130–2, 148, 150–1, 184–5, 186f, 195, 198, 208 board 89–90 budget 129 London Development Partnership (LDP, 1998-) 34, 90, 150 London Docklands 6, 39–41, 140 London Docklands Development Corporation (LDCC) 33, 39–40, 144 London Ecology Unit (LEU) 82–3, 101 London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA) 54, 58f, 59, 63, 65, 80, 89, 92, 93, 95, 100, 115, 127, 130–3, 186f, 194, 196, 198 budget 129

Index London First 33, 34, 149–50, 151, 153 London First Centre 33 London Housing Board 148 London Industrial Strategy (1984) 90–1 London Plan (2002) 11, 142, 145, 191 London Planning Advisory Committee (LPAC) 33, 34, 36, 38, 82, 85, 88, 101 London Policy Unit 53 London Pride Partnership 34, 149 London Pride Prospectus (1995) 34 London region 137, 138–42 London Regional Transport 32 London Research Centre (LRC) 82, 101 London Residuary Body 31, 32, 35, 105 London School Board 25, 26 London School of Economics (LSE) xii–xiii London Socialist Alliance 77t London Transport (LT) 29, 109, 131, 133 London Transport Authority 57 re-named ‘Transport for London’ 59 London Underground 54, 64, 66–7, 72, 78, 88, 91, 92, 96, 111–12, 115–17, 129–31, 133, 142, 170, 184, 185, 191–2, 198, 204, 206–7 battle over financing 67 London Voluntary Service Council 34 London Weekend Television 38 London weighting 116 London World City (LPAC, 1991) 34 Lyon 158 Macintosh, Andrew 29 MacLean, G. 2 MacLean, Rory 41, 68, 71, 72 Madrid 140, 163, 172–3, 180 Major government (1990–7) 6, 12, 16, 18, 32, 36, 41, 48, 49, 162 Manchester 10, 17, 23, 24, 33, 43, 44, 91 Mandelson, Peter 54

229 Maragall, Pasqual 171–3 Margetts, Helen 60 Marshall of Knightsbridge, Lord 150 Massow, Ivan 70 Mayer, Anthony 100, 101 Mayhew, Judith 90, 95, 151, 152 Mayor of London xii, 14, 123, 137, 138, 143, 150, 154, 184–8 assessment ‘can simply ignore the assembly’ 194 ‘difficult to achieve quick results’ 135 needs greater financial autonomy 210 needs more powers 210 powers of appointment (need for reform) 201, 208 ‘should be allowed to rule’ 201 weakness 205 origins election (4 May 2000) 68–76 proposed powers and functions (1997 green paper) 56–7 proposed powers (1998 white paper) 59 provisions of GLA Act (1999) 65 voting system 59, 60–1 powers and responsibilities accountability (varying degrees of) 129, 131, 184 depends upon boroughs 143–6 education and housing outside responsibilities of 148 functions 118 implementing major projects 203–5 limitations on powers 78–9, 192 ‘limited financial freedom’ 132 mismatch between planning cycle and political cycle 141–2, 146 no mandate for wider London region 141 patronage 89 policy and budget decisions 122–3, 124, 132–4, 135 powers 68, 179, 209

230 Mayor of London: powers – continued press notices 189t pressure to deliver 142 publication of strategies (statutory requirements) 61 responsibilities 65, 86, 88–9, 146, 198, 206–7 transport responsibilities 206–7 ‘voice’ for the capital 192–3, 197, 198–9, 204 staffing advisers 106–9, 127, 179, 185, 208 advisory cabinet 94–5 appointment of functional bodies 127, 128t see also Livingstone Mayor and Assembly for London (white paper, March 1998) 54, 58–61, 63, 101, 110, 113–14, 117, 118 Mayor’s Office 80, 86–8, 102, 106–13, 184–8, 192, 197, 200 budgetary process 102 core advisors 86–8, 95, 102–3 ‘far larger than legislation had envisaged’ 119 ‘lack of real powers and resources’ 111 management board 88 ‘need to build an administration from scratch’ 113, 122, 183 published policy statements 119, 192, 199 ‘should be strengthened’ 126 staffing permitted under statute 86 mayoral appointments 88–94 failure of scrutiny by Assembly 197 mayoral commissions 95–6 mayoral press conference (monthly) 120 mayors: directly-elected 44, 49, 51–2, 123, 144, 159–61, 164, 181, 199, 200; Blair’s enthusiasm 46–7; Germany 169; Italian cities 173; Toronto 174–5; New York 177, 178, 180; not directly elected:

Index Barcelona 171; Berlin 167; Paris 164; media 29, 30, 38, 55, 88, 94, 99, 102, 104–5, 114, 116, 119, 136, 173, 191, 194–6 left-wing 74 news stories 111 press 44, 133, 188 press notices: London and New York 190 press office (mayoral) 106 press officers 86 radio 38, 74 right-wing 75 television 74 McDonnell, John 95 McFadden, Pat 54, 81 McMeel, Anne 134 Meek, Liz 53, 54, 63, 81, 82 Melville, Andrew 82 Members of Parliament (Westminster) 95 meso-level government 16, 162 metropolitan authorities/counties 30, 158 Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW, 1855–88) 21, 23–5 metropolitan government 155–8 overseas 164–80 Metropolitan London (Young and Garside, 1982) 41 Metropolitan Police (1829–) 22, 32, 80, 109, 112, 130–1, 179, 184, 186f, 198, 206 additional one thousand officers 190, 191 budget 127, 129, 132, 133 limitation on GLA powers over 201–2 Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) 54, 57–9, 61, 63–5, 89, 92, 95, 100, 111, 115, 117, 118, 127, 129–32, 134, 194, 196, 198, 206 Metropolitan Police Commissioner 64, 93, 127, 130, 131, 185, 198, 208 Middlesex 27

Index Middlesex County Council 85 migration 5, 6, 10, 170, 192 Milan 163 Millennium Dome 112 Miller, Baroness (Doreen) 70 Minister for London 33, 34, 37 see also Gummer; Raynsford Minister for Transport in London 33, 37 Mitterrand, F. 37, 166 Moore, Paul 91 Morrison, Herbert 27 Mowlam, Mo 71 MPA see Metropolitan Police Authority Murshid, Kumar 86, 90 Naples 163 nation-states: loss of sovereignty 13 National Health Service (NHS) 47, 52, 127, 147–8, 184, 207 National Lottery 36 nationalization 48, 162 Natural Law Party 76, 77t Neill, Bob 85, 97, 134, 196 neo-Marxism 14 nepotism 123 Netherlands 158, 163, 173 network governance 138, 154 functional factors 138 organizational, institutional factors 138 political/personal factors 138 Network Rail 141, 147 New Deal for Communities 13 New Jersey 176, 177 New Labour 16, 18, 30, 57, 85, 90, 95, 97, 100 ‘botched approach to mayoral election’ 74, 76t devolution programme 162 general election (1997) 45–7 GLA Act (1999) 66 legacy of 1980s 43–5 London Assembly election (2000) 74, 76, 77t members of the London Assembly 114

231 no lack of experience in London government 134 process of reforming London (1997-) 48–51 proposals for reform of London government (1997) 41 selection of candidate for Mayor 70–3 working with Mayor Livingstone ‘very awkward’ 114 see also Blair government; Gavron New Leadership for London (DETR green paper, 1997) 52–5, 56–8, 197 New Left 12, 14, 29, 35 New Local Government Network (NLGN, 1998–) 160 New Public Management 17, 19 New Right 12, 14 New York 1, 11, 30, 34, 51, 54, 55, 64, 68, 79, 99, 105, 108, 112, 113, 121, 160, 163, 164, 176–80, 184, 207 ‘best read-across for London’ 178 mayor and deputies 123 press notices 189t ‘strong mayor’ model 176, 179–80 weak city council 176 New York: Board of Education 179 New York: Metropolitan Transportation Authority 92 New York State legislature (Albany) 176 Newcastle 10, 43 Newham 39, 40, 44, 143 Newland, Michael 76t Newman, P. 36 News of World 70 Nightmare! (d’Arcy and MacLean, 2000) 41, 68, 71 Nolan, Lord (standards in public life) 89, 105, 122, 123 Nord-Pas de Calais 141 Norris, Steven 55, 62, 69, 70, 72–4, 76, 76t, 81, 91–2 North East England 45, 50 North West England 203

232 Northern Ireland 3, 8, 50, 114, 115, 201 Notting Hill Carnival 96 Number Ten Policy Unit 200 O’Brien, John 81 O’Neill, Redmond 86, 87, 102 Old Labour 45, 49 Ollerenshaw, Eric 85, 97, 99, 196 Olympic Games 112, 170, 171, 173 Ontario 174 opinion polls 47, 115, 116, 129, 159–60, 182, 194 Osborne, D. 19 Ottaway, Richard 52, 64 outer London 38, 205 Outer Metropolitan Area 4t, 4, 139 Outer South East 4t, 4 Ovid 183 Oxford English Dictionary 20 Parchment, Murzeline 82 Paris 30, 34, 113, 163, 164–7, 180 four tiers of government 164 Paris City Council 99, 164–6 parishes and vestries 24, 25, 26 Park Royal industrial estate 149 Parliament 21, 22, 23, 41, 48, 101 Berlin 168, 169 House of Commons 21 House of Lords 64, 151, 196 Palace of Westminster 23, 124, 159, 200, 201, 205, 207 ‘Westminster politics’ 29 partnership ‘key concept’ 12 partnerships 138, 148, 154, 204–5 sub-regional 143–6 party politics: absent 175 patronage 68, 110–11, 160–1, 185, 200 Patten, Chris 69 Pelling, Andrew 85 Pelling, Tony 32 People’s Party (Spain) 173 People’s Question Time 135 persuasion 68, 185 Peterson, Paul 14 Phillips, Ruth 87

Index Phillips, Trevor 62, 71, 72, 97, 135–6, 196 Picketts Lock (Enfield) 204 Pilgrim, Martin 81, 143 Pimlott, Ben 193 planning 27, 28, 29, 36, 166, 194t, 195t planning/spatial development 81 planning policy 104 Plummer, Desmond 29 police (nationally) 132 police 66, 86, 96 policing 53, 86, 127, 146, 179, 180, 184, 196, 197 policy regime (concept) 15 political parties 159, 164, 171, 188 politics of identity 158 pollution 39 Port of London Authority 187f, 209 Portillo, Michael 69 poverty 50, 152 PPP see public–private partnership prefects (France) 165 Prescott, John 50, 52, 54, 57 PricewaterhouseCoopers 92 Prime Minister 13, 107–8, 159, 199 Prisons Service 127 private sector 17, 19, 32, 33, 83, 89 privatization 12, 17, 48 Pro-Motorist and Small Shop Party 76, 77t property 39, 139, 149 proportional representation 9, 59–60, 78, 114 Additional Member System 60 Alternative Vote system 59 Berlin 167 de Hondt formula 76 second preference votes 75, 76t, 122 Supplementary Vote (SV) system 59 PSL (private sector lending) scheme 39 ‘public choice’ (New Right) critique 14, 157 public expenditure/spending 12, 193 France 166 local 16 public sector 32, 140, 154 public service delivery 137 public service workers 139

Index public services 17, 19, 26, 35, 43, 48, 50, 53, 78, 89, 104, 123, 124, 126, 155, 157, 182, 188, 191, 195t, 198, 210 Berlin 168 France 165–6 ‘free rider’ problems 155 improvements 44 public–private partnership (PPP) 17, 48, 54, 66–7, 72, 88, 111, 117, 153, 184, 192 publicity 68, 185 Puttman, Steve 53 quality of life 35 quality of politicians 181 quangos 36, 37, 51, 83, 100, 144, 146–9, 184, 208 Quarmby, David 91–2 quasi-markets 48 Queen in Parliament 13 race relations 86, 96 ethnic minorities 8, 11, 44, 74, 89–90, 178 see also community groups railways 111, 147, 170, 192, 206, 207, 210 see also bus services; commuting; London Underground Randall, Simon 62 Rao, Nirmala 193 Rassemblement pour la République (RPR) 165 Raynsford, Nick 52, 53–4, 62, 63–4, 66, 71, 72, 82, 87, 143, 160 Reading 10 Redbridge 43 redistribution 17, 156 Reforming London (Davis, 1988) 41 regeneration funds/projects 33, 37, 98, 116 regional development agencies (RDAs) (England, 1999–) 34, 50, 57, 65, 89, 127, 128t, 129, 132, 137, 140, 142, 144, 150 regional offices 149

233 ‘regulation’ school (France) 17 Rendall, Gill 53, 82 research organizations 139 residents’ groups 191 Richards, Martin 119 Ritchie, Tony 93 RMT (trade union) 91 roads 27, 29, 185, 207, 210 car users 191 congestion 149 parking 39, 66, 143, 202 Motorway M25 38, 139 ringways or motorway box 29 traffic 39 see also congestion charging Robertson, Alex xii Robinson, Brian 131 Robson, William 28 Rogers, Lord (Richard) 10, 95, 121 Rome 163, 173 Romney House (Westminster) 80, 83, 84, 95, 101, 108, 109, 118, 132, 135 Ross, John 84, 86, 87, 89, 102, 103, 152 Rotterdam 158 Rowe, Charlotte 101 Royal Commission on the City Corporation 23 Royal Commission on Municipal Corporations (1837) 23 Ruiz Gallardon, Alberto 172–3 Rutelli, Francesco 173 St Giles, Emma 86 Salisbury, Lord 26 Savas, E. S. 19 Scargill, Arthur 77t schools 5, 44, 148, 210 Scotland 8–9, 16, 48, 79, 101, 105, 115, 122, 126–7, 133–4, 162, 183, 199, 205, 207 Scottish Office 83, 199 Scottish Parliament 49–50, 56, 60, 67, 76, 94, 114, 199, 201, 202 Labour–Liberal Democrat coalition 114 SDS see Spatial Development Strategy

234 Secretary of State for the Environment 142 Secretary of State’s Regional Planning Guidance for the South East 139–40 SERPLAN (South East Regional Planning Conference (1962–) 28, 137, 140, 142 Serra, Narcis 172 sewage systems 23, 24 Shakespeare, Stephan 69 Shakespeare, William 30 Shawcross, Valerie 85, 93, 115, 117, 196 Sheppard, Lord 33 Simmons, Martin 101 Single Regeneration Budget 13, 36 skilled employees 139 skills gaps 7 Slough 141 Smith, John 45 Smithfield meat traders 191 social exclusion 7, 41 social security 184 social segregation 156 Socialist Labour Party 77t Socialists 171, 173 Soley, Clive 72 Sorenson, Eric 40, 150 South Bank Arts Complex 149, 185, 204 South East England 3, 4t, 176, 203 South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) 137 South East region 6–7, 28, 43, 138, 147 migration from London 10 South East Regional Planning Conference (SERPLAN, 1962-) 28, 137, 140, 142 South Wales 45 Southwark 22, 39, 40, 44 Spain 158 spatial development 61, 121 Spatial Development Strategy (SDS) 66, 101, 119, 131, 140, 148, 191 SPD (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands) 168

Index Spending Review 2000 (central government) 132 sport 190, 195t Standards Committees 9 State of London 152 Stevens, Sir John 93, 130 Stoker, Professor Gerry (Lord Stoker) 160 Storey, Michael 44 Strasbourg 158 strategic planning 31, 139, 142, 149 Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) 141, 146, 147, 187f, 204, 209 Straw, Jack 50, 130 ‘Streamlining the Cities’ (consultative paper) 30 streets 24, 44 Strength Through Diversity (LDA, 2001) 91 structuralism 14 ‘Study of Options’ 81–2 suburbs 38, 113, 156 Sudjic, Deyan 3 supra-municipality 158 Surrey Quays 40 Sutton 85 tall buildings 184 Tanna, Ashwin Kumar 76t Tatchell, Peter 77t Tate 93 taxation 10, 17, 22, 152, 201, 203 general centralization 204 council tax 66, 132 devolution of powers 209 GLA powers 132 income tax 49, 202 local 16, 162 rates/rate-capping 16, 24, 35, 44, 202 places Barcelona 171 Berlin 168–9 France 166 London 178 New York 177, 178 Toronto 174–5

Index taxis 190, 198 terrorism/anti-terrorism 112, 189–90, 196 TfL see Transport for London Thames Gateway 40, 140, 141, 145 Thames River 23–4 Thatcher, Margaret 2, 6, 9, 21, 75 abolition of GLC 74, 79 enraged by Livingstone 30–1 ‘visible dislike’ for local democracy 43 Thatcher government 6, 12, 16, 18, 32, 35, 36, 44, 48, 49, 162 British manufacturing 90 success of policies in Docklands 203 Thornley, A. xiii, 36 Thurrock 141 Tiberi, Jean 165 Tokyo 30, 34, 79 Tope, Lord (Graham) 85, 97–9, 196 Toronto 122, 158, 164, 174–6 key lesson for London 175 tourism 61, 152, 195t Tower Hamlets 39, 40, 78, 85 Trades Union Congress (TUC) 89 trade unions 72–3, 90, 91, 196 training 184 Training and Enterprise Councils 33–4 training and enterprise functions 142 tram services 204 transparency/openness 94, 107, 121, 123, 133, 151, 179, 209 freedom of information 94 transport 27, 29, 31, 36, 47, 61, 66, 88, 91, 129, 146–7, 149, 166, 194–5, 206–7 Berlin 170 Paris 165 planning 141–2 policy 104 services 198 spending 132 Transport Commissioner 92, 102, 111, 185 Transport for London (TfL) 9, 58f, 59, 63, 65, 89, 91–2, 94, 96, 100, 102–3, 109, 119, 127,

235 130–4, 144, 145, 146, 147, 190, 191, 208 budget 129 Treasury 53, 203, 204 trust/distrust 124, 155, 199 trusts and commissions 24 Tuffrey, Mike 85 Turner, Derek 191 Turton, Genie 38, 51, 52, 81 Ullswater Commission reports (1923) 27–8 unemployment 7, 8, 11, 29 Unitary Development Plan 36 United Kingdom 105, 124, 133, 163 anti-London planning 5–6, 11 centralization 161, 204 constitution 151 cultural position 162–3 decentralization of economic activity (1945-) 5 fiscal arrangements 162 North–South divide 9 political elite 159 role of London 8–11 United Kingdom Independence Party 74, 76t United States of America 107, 108, 159, 161, 163, 196 consolidated city government 157 fiscal arrangements 162 legislative bodies 116 power (national-level) of New York Mayor 178 president and cabinet 123 urban policy regimes 15–17 Urban Development Corporations 12 urban flight 10 urban governance 11–18 urban policy regimes 14, 15–17 urban redevelopment 161 Urban Task Force (1998–) 10 Voice for London (Labour Party document, 1996) 37, 46 voluntary sector 31, 33, 96

236 Waits, Tom 66 Wales 8–9, 16, 48, 79, 101, 105, 115, 122, 126–7, 133–4, 162, 183, 199, 205, 207 Wales, Robin 143 Wandsworth 43 Wapping 40 Ward, Michael 90–1, 103 Washington, DC 51, 160, 163 waste 31, 61 water 23, 28 Watford 10, 140 Watts, Mark 74, 84, 86, 87, 102 Watts, Steve 53, 54, 63, 82, 100–1 Webb, Beatrice 26 Webb, Sidney 26 Weimar, Jeroen 81, 82 welfare state 16, 48, 162 Welsh Assembly 49–50, 56, 60, 67, 76, 94, 199, 201, 202 Labour minority administration 114 powers and responsibilities 203 Welsh Office 83, 199 Wembley Stadium 112, 132, 204 West Ham 27 West London Leadership 149 West Midlands 45, 203 West Yorkshire 45 Westminster 21, 22, 43, 144 Edward the Confessor’s palace at 21, 40 Wetzel, Dave 91

Index white papers 10, 49 English regional government (May 2002) 51, 198, 202 proposed creation of GLA (March 1998) 54, 58–61, 63, 101, 110, 113–14, 117, 118 Whitehall xii, 2, 31, 48, 52, 61, 63, 64, 78, 101, 105, 129, 133, 143, 147–9, 184, 200, 202, 204 financial control 166 ‘more powerful than GLA’ 198 proposed powers of GLA 59 resistance to devolution 205 restrictions on powers (required) 207 ‘should be devolution of power to GLA’ 206–7, 210 Whitehead, Christine xiii Wilkinson, John 70 Williams, Geth 53, 82 Williams, John 160 Wokingham 141 Wong, Ansel 95 World Trade Organization 13 Wowereit, Klaus 166 Wycombe 140 Yass, Irving 32 Young, Ken 41 Young, Robin 38, 51, 54 Your Region Your Choice (white paper, May 2002) 51, 198, 202