Written evidence submitted by City of
London Corporation (L&CG 10)
This letter responds to the recent invitation to submit written
evidence to the above inquiry. It is widely recognised that the
majority of the mechanisms for the delivery of local services
by local authorities are the result of national decision making.
Such mechanisms are not always appropriate for implementation
in the City, especially if, when designing these mechanisms, there
is little or no scope for local flexibility.
As the Committee may be aware, the atypical nature of the administration
of the City of London necessarily means that direct comparison
with practices in the London boroughs, or local government more
generally, is limited. By way of example, spending on education
and social services usually represents the largest component of
a London Borough's budget but in the City of London this element
represents a fraction of the City's "local authority"
spending. In contrast, the largest proportion of government grant
to the Common Council (which exercises the functions of a local
authority and police authority in the City) is for the police,
a function which is not exercised by the boroughs or, for that
matter, local authorities outside the capital.
The distinctiveness of the City Corporation's internal management
and representational basis makes apparent the difficulty of attempting
successfully to shoehorn the City into general internal management
provisions applying to statutory local authorities. For this reason,
the City has been afforded provision in a range of statutes which
allow for the City to achieve the same policy objectives as in
other authorities but in a way most suitable to the City's internal
structures.
The executive arm of the City which undertakes local authority
functions conferred by Parliament is the Court of Common Council.
The Committees of the Common Council deal with particular subject
or policy areas, whether they derive from local authority or other
powers vested in the City. The members of the Common Council's
Committees are not elected on a local government franchise under
the Representation of the People Acts, but by a franchise set
down by a combination of private parliamentary acts and the City's
own legislative instruments, enacted by a procedure somewhat like
Parliament's. Most of the members of the Common Council are elected
on a business franchise which gives incorporated bodies an entitlement
to appoint representatives as business voters based on the number
of people employed. Such an arrangement does not, of course, exist
at all in respect of statutory local authorities. In consequence
the interests which most Committee members represent, and thus
their accountability, is not (as in statutory local authorities)
to residents, but to business. As with the statutory local authorities
therefore, 'local' services in the City of London include those
for the small residential population but, unlike other areas,
most services are geared toward the running of the City as centre
of international business.
30 November 2010
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