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Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Goverment

Part I – Setting the Context

Part II – Leadership and Local Government

Part III – Connecting with People and Communities

Part IV – Wider Connections

Part V – Finance and Ethics

Annexes

The Mayor of London and the London Assembly

Greater London Authority
Established in 2000, the elected Mayor, with the separately elected London Assembly, together make up the Greater London Authority. The GLA administers the 1579 km² of Greater London, covering the 32 London boroughs and the City of London. Around 600 staff assist the Mayor and the 25-member Assembly in their duties.

Functions of the London Mayor
The Mayor is seen as London’s spokesman. He sets budgets for the Greater London Assembly (GLA), Transport for London, the London Development Agency, the Metropolitan Police and London’s fire services. As Mayor, he chairs Transport for London. The responsibilities of the GLA are transport, police, fire, economic development, planning, culture, environment and health.

Term of Office
London voters elect both the Mayor and the London Assembly every four years. The electoral system used is designed to produce a distribution of seats that will always be proportional to the total votes cast across London. Assembly Members elect a Chair and Deputy Chair in May each year.

Powers and Functions of the Greater London Authority
The GLA does not directly provide any services itself. Instead, its work is carried out by four functional bodies, which come under the GLA umbrella, and work under the policy direction of the Mayor and Assembly. These functional bodies are:

  • Transport for London
    Responsible for managing most aspects of London's transport system, including public transport, main roads, and traffic management, and administering the London congestion charge.
  • The Metropolitan Police Authority
    Responsible for overseeing the Metropolitan Police Service, which provides policing throughout Greater London.
  • The London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority
    Administers the London Fire Brigade and co-ordinates emergency planning.
  • London Development Agency
    Promotes development across London.

Planning
The GLA is responsible for coordinating land use planning in Greater London. The mayor produces a strategic plan, the "London Plan". The individual London borough councils are legally bound to comply with the plan. The mayor has the power to over-ride planning decisions made by the London boroughs if they are believed to be against the interests of London as a whole.

London Assembly
The London Assembly comprises 25 members. There are 14 constituencies, each electing one member, with a further 11 members elected from a party list to make the total members from each party proportional to the votes cast for that party across the whole of London.

The Mayor of London is accountable to the Assembly. He must;

  • Consult the Assembly when preparing his strategies, providing reasoned justifications when he is not acting on its advice;
  • Ensure the Assembly is kept informed of all major decisions and the reasons for them;
  • Submit the GLA budget to the Assembly for approval or amendment. The Assembly has the power, with a two-thirds majority, to amend the Mayor's annual budget; and,
  • Attend a minimum of ten question time sessions each year at which the Mayor (and members of the administration) can be questioned by the Assembly.

The Assembly also:

  • Investigates other issues of importance to Londoners, publishes its findings and recommendations, and makes proposals to the Mayor;
  • Appoints key officers of the Greater London Authority in addition to the 12 appointed by the Mayor;
  • Provides some of its members to serve on the Metropolitan Police Authority, the London Fire & Emergency Planning Authority and the London Development Agency;
  • Sets its own budget and publishes an annual report setting out its work and achievements over the previous twelve months; and,
  • Holds confirmation hearings for key appointments the Mayor proposes to make.

The powers devolved to the London Mayor’s office by central government have grown over time, e.g. in areas such as planning. The Mayor has also recently inaugurated a London Skills and Employment Board, which he chairs. The new body will see government, business and the unions sit around the same table to determine London’s strategy to tackle unemployment and skills shortages.

Budget
The cost of the GLA was about Stg£49.9m (€75m) in 2002-3 and it had a total budget of Stg£4.7 billion (€7.2billion). Most of this is met by central government grant, with a small amount coming from the council tax (local taxation).