2 The London Assembly
The purpose of the Assembly
13. The London Assembly's primary responsibility
is to hold the Mayor of London to account for his policies, decisions
and actions. This function requires scrutiny of a range of areas
over which the Mayor has direct responsibility and substantial
budgets, including housing, transport, economic development, planning
and policing.[19] In
these areas the Mayor is legally obliged to produce strategies
to direct policy making throughout London. He is also obliged
to do so in the policy areas of health, culture, employment and
the environment, but in these areas he has no service delivery
or budgetary powers with which to implement them.[20]
14. The London Assembly has no power to implement
its own policies. It can, however, amend the Mayor's annual budget
or a mayoral strategy, as we have noted, on a two-thirds majority.[21]
It also has the power to hold him, his deputy mayors and senior
advisers to account. It does this through subject-based scrutiny
committees, which gather evidence and publish reports. It also
has a Budget Committee, an Audit Panel and a Confirmation Hearings
Committee. The latter covers key mayoral appointments, set out
in the 2007 Act;
- Chair or deputy chair of Transport for London;
- Chair of the London Fire and Emergency Planning
Authority;
- Chair of the Cultural Strategy Group;
- Chair or deputy chair of the London Pensions
Fund Authority;
- Chair of the London Waste and Recycling Board;
and
- Chair of a Mayoral Development Corporation.[22]
The Committee, however, has no power to reject these
appointments.[23]
THE JOB OF HOLDING THE MAYOR TO ACCOUNT
15. The London Assembly has no direct responsibilities
for strategies or services in London. It has been argued that
it could be abolished, passing responsibility for scrutiny of
the Mayor of London to London's 32 borough councils. All those
whom we asked responded with a similar point. Sir Edward Lister,
himself the former leader of a London borough council, Wandsworth,
and now the Mayor of London's Chief of Staff and Deputy Mayor
for Planning and Policy, explained:
I can understand the argument, and I think I
may have made that argument in the past, but the position has
moved […] The borough leaders are always going to be concerned
about their boroughs and about negotiations for their boroughs,
and they are not going to provide proper scrutiny of the Mayor.
They will only be interested in those things that affect them
[…] Somebody has got to call the Mayor to account. The Assembly
do a good job of that.[24]
Tony Travers, Visiting Professor in the Department
of Government at the London School of Economics, warned of
a risk of what I think Americans call pork-barrelling.
By that I mean the mayor, in order to get a majority to get his
or her budget through, would have to do deals with the Borough
leaders, and that would undoubtedly involve carve-ups of what
was spent where.[25]
16. The London Assembly is made up of 14 members
elected by constituencies and 11 'list Members' representing the
whole capital. Darren Johnson AM, the Chair of the London Assembly,
also pointed to the importance of retaining a scrutiny body that
represented a range of Londoners' opinions:
The Assembly, by being a proportional system
through the additional member system with constituency members
and a top-up list, does provide that diversity of views. We can
probably take a strategic view for the whole of London, not simply
a view for individual boroughs.[26]
17. We conclude that the Mayor has to be held
to account for the substantial powers he exercises and that an
Assembly composed of members able to focus on the same issues
as the Mayor is the correct vehicle. Assembly Members, like the
Mayor, have to be able to take a strategic view of the capital
and its interests. We therefore support the current model in London
for holding to account a mayor with extensive and growing executive
powers, which is an Assembly directly elected by the London electorate.
The corollary of a strong mayor must be a scrutiny body located
at the same, in this case London-wide, level.
THE ROLE OF THE ASSEMBLY
18. As we have noted, the pattern since 2007 has
been for the Mayor to accumulate more powers and responsibilities.
To be effective, the Assembly must keep pace. In 2010 the Mayor
of London himself, when he set out his proposals for transferring
more political responsibilities to London, questioned whether
the GLA's "institutional arrangements" were still fit
for purpose:
The Assembly is part of the GLA. So the executive
function of the Mayor and the scrutiny function of the Assembly
are internalised within the Authority. This is confusing for the
public and blurs accountability. It contrasts with, for example,
the clear separation which exists between Ministers in government
and the scrutiny to which they are subjected by parliamentary
Select Committees.
Consideration should be given to the Assembly
becoming a separate, free-standing and independent scrutiny body
with its functions and staffing clearly distinguishable from the
Mayoralty. This need not preclude preserving the current shared
support services so as to be cost effective.[27]
19. An alternative to this scrutiny model would be
a legislature model. Professor Travers described the system of
government in London as "a compromise between the way we
do things in Westminster and (in) most of British and UK local
government, and a pure American system." He said that, if
London government changed to the "full American version"
there is no doubt that the city council [the
Assembly] will become a legislative body and the mayor would be
the executive: the mayor could propose, but the city council would
have to pass the legislation, budgets and so on for the mayor
then to operate with as the executive.[28]
20. George Jones, Emeritus Professor of Government
at the London School of Economics, and John Stewart, Emeritus
Professor of Local Government at the University of Birmingham,
put the case for such radical change in their evidence to us.
They suggested that, while the Mayor of London's powers of veto
were comparable with those of mayors in United States local government,
the London Assembly's powers were much weaker than those of US
local councils. They said:
Much discussion of US political structures has
ignored the role of the council in mayoral authorities […]
In many American authorities there is provision for legislation
to be adopted by the council which can embody the council's policies
[…] There may be provision for mayoral vetoes, but in New
York the mayor cannot impose legislation […] and has no veto
on reductions in the budget voted by the council.[29]
Professors Jones and Stewart therefore suggested
the London Assembly be empowered to consider mayoral proposals
through the introduction of first and second readings and committee
stages.[30]
21. This view presumes that the powers of the US
mayors and the Mayor of London are comparable. As we noted in
chapter 1, however, the Mayor of London lacks comparable executive
powers and independent sources of revenue. Professor Vernon Bogdanor,
Research Professor at King's College London's Institute for Contemporary
British History, has suggested that the Mayor's role is, instead,
to "set a strategy for London" and that his powers have
been kept in check by two elements: the unwillingness of successive
central Governments to create a rival power base on their doorstep;
and the existence of London's boroughs, every one of which has
more power than the Mayor of London to deliver public services.
In this sense the Mayor of London is weaker than the Mayor of
New York. Professor Bogdanor pointed out:
London is not just a capital but has 32 powerful
boroughs, together with the City Corporation, each of which is
an authority, and
three of the boroughs¯Hackney,
Lewisham, and Newham have their own directly elected majors. This
existence of the powerful boroughs makes the problem of government
in London different in kind from that of other capital cities
[…] You could mention the boroughs of New York, of which
there are five, but they […] are fairly weak units of government,
and they do not deliver services, and nor do they have taxing
powers, but of course the London boroughs do.[31]
We noted that, when Professor Travers was asked by
the Mayor to lead an investigation into London's tax and spending
powers, he found that
barely seven per cent of all the tax paid by
London residents and businesses is retained by the Mayor and the
boroughs. The equivalent figure in New York is over 50 per cent.[32]
22. The points made by Professors Bogdanor and Travers
therefore raise the question of whether the powers of the Mayor
of London are really comparable to those of the Mayor of New York—and
therefore whether the London Assembly really warrants the legislative
powers conferred on city councils in the United States.
23. Indeed in its written submission to us the London
Assembly made no mention of American-style legislative powers.
It took a different view:
Given that Parliament has three times given its
support to the basic tenets of the strong executive mayor model
operating at City Hall through legislation in 1999, 2007 and 2011,
the Assembly does not seek to undermine the Mayor's ability to
exercise the authority they have been given.[33]
Pursuing this approach, the Chair of the Assembly,
Darren Johnson AM, explained in oral evidence to us that, aside
from its ability to amend mayoral budgets and strategies by a
two-thirds majority, the Assembly was there to scrutinise and
recommend, rather than to act as a legislature:
The strong Mayor model is in place and is part
of the political landscape. That is not going to change, but we
can enhance the ability of the Assembly to hold the Mayor to account
without unravelling that strong Mayor model.[34]
24. In his evidence, Sir Edward Lister, the Mayor's
Chief of Staff and Deputy Mayor for Planning, echoed Darren Johnson:
The model is a very strong mayor. That is what
has been put before the electorate. Are you going to then say
an Assembly is going to prevent the wishes of that Mayor, having
been elected by over 1 million people?[35]
In later questioning Sir Edward summed up his point,
stating: "The principle is for the Assembly to be a scrutinising
body, and it should be that."[36]
The scrutiny role
25. To emphasise its role as a scrutiny body, the
London Assembly included in its submission several examples of
what it considered to be successful scrutiny.[37]
On its general powers it said:
Often the work of individual Assembly Members,
committee investigations and plenary sessions of the Assembly
complement each other in holding the mayoral administration as
a whole to account.[38]
In oral evidence Darren Johnson drew our attention
to the achievements of its various committees:
The Assembly has had very significant influence
in terms of the investigations we have done, the recommendations
that have been taken on board, and the way that we have been able
to shape both mayoral administrations on a number of issues and
get a number of our recommendations taken on board.[39]
Mr Johnson also noted how recommendations in Assembly
reports had contributed to improvements in the running of London's
buses during bad weather; how, in the wake of an Assembly investigation
into the emergency response to the 7 July 2005 bombings, its "detailed
recommendations […] were overwhelmingly taken on board"
by the police, the fire service and Transport for London; and
how "even private companies like Thames Water took on board
some key recommendations from the Assembly."[40]
26. Martin Hoscik, editor of MayorWatch, an
independent website that follows the GLA's work, told us in his
submission that in recent years the Assembly had made
great progress in stepping out of the Mayor's
shadow and increasing public awareness of its work. Some of this
success has been achieved through investigations into issues affecting
a diverse range of groups including cyclists, residents affected
by airport noise and mobility impaired transport users.
He added:
It is increasingly common to see [media] reports
concerning the Assembly where there is no reference to the Mayor
or where the narrative is driven by the Assembly's work rather
than its response to a Mayoral policy or announcement.[41]
27. In our view the future of the London Assembly
can go in one of two directions—either towards becoming
a legislature as in the United States of America or developing
its role as a scrutinising body. While the London Mayors since
2000 have enjoyed high profiles, they do not exercise the range
of powers and responsibilities of their US counterparts which
would justify giving the Assembly US-style legislative authority.
Indeed, the Assembly itself has not sought to become a legislature.
The primary function of the Assembly is to scrutinise the Mayor.
We have heard how effective the Assembly and its committees have
been at doing so. In our view the route to follow is that the
Assembly develop as a separate, independent body, clearly distinguishable
from the mayoralty, and concentrating on scrutiny. Its focus should
be on the Mayor and those issues affecting Londoners, such as
transport, housing and economic development, where the Mayor has
considerable spending powers. In turn this would maximise the
impact of the Assembly's work.
19 "The Greater London Authority", Library
Standard Note SN 05817, pp 3 to 8; see also Greater London Authority
website: www.london.gov.uk/mayor-assembly/mayor. Back
20
See para 6. Back
21
See para 3. Back
22
Greater London Authority website: www.london.gov.uk/moderngov/mgCommitteeDetails.aspx?ID=135 Back
23
"The Greater London Authority", Library Standard Note
SN 05817, pp 4-8 Back
24
Q 31 Back
25
Q 7; for related arguments see also Q 74, Mayor of Hackney, Jules
Pipe, and Q 106, Darren Johnson AM. Back
26
Q 106 Back
27
Greater London Authority, "The Mayor of London's proposals
for devolution", June 2010 Back
28
Q10 Back
29
Ev 50, paras 8 and 10 Back
30
Ev 51, para 18, Ev 52, para 20 Back
31
Professor Vernon Bogdanor, lecture delivered to symposium on 'The
future of London government', 24 May 2010, www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-future-of-london-government
(accessed 21/08/2013) Back
32
The London Finance Commission, "Raising the capital: the
report of the London Finance Commission", May 2013, p 4 Back
33
Ev 43, para 6 Back
34
Q 102 Back
35
Q 25; under the supplementary vote system in 2000 Ken Livingstone
won in total 776,427 votes; in 2004 Ken Livingstone won 828,380;
in 2008 Boris Johnson won 1,168,738; and in 2012 Boris Johnson
won 1,054,811; source: www.ukpolitical.info Back
36
Q 45 Back
37
See Ev 43, para 4. Back
38
Ev 43, para 5 Back
39
Q 102 Back
40
Qq 103, 105 Back
41
Ev 35 Back
|
