London’s governance needs a reboot — here is a recipe of four reforms

Is #London ungovernable? That might seem an odd question after the #Mayoral elections saw Sadiq Khan re-elected to a third term. But the #city’s #governance needs an upgrade to cope with upcoming challenges.

Even from the tallest building in central London on a sunny day, it is almost impossible to see the outer edge of the capital. Taking up just over 600 square miles (around 1,600 km2) with a population of 9 million and 33 borough councils, it seems hard for one person to govern.

But that person is Sadiq Khan after May’s elections saw the outcome of the seventh round of polls for the Mayor of London and the Greater London Assembly since Ken Livingstone became the first directly elected mayor in the UK in 2000 as part of the devolution of power to the Greater London Assembly.

While the result is politically significant, coming just months before a general election, it is easy to forget that neither the Mayor nor the assembly members have as much power as their peers in the rest of Europe and north America. London’s governance is a paradox of having a visible leader who does not have as much influence as their voters think.

This conundrum was highlighted by Professor Tony Travers of the London School of Economics 20 years ago in his book The Politics of London: Governing an Ungovernable City. Two decades later he updated his views on the eve of the 2 May polling day at a seminar at Birkbeck College.

Not much has changed, mainly because the limits of the Mayor’s powers are written into statute. Many core issues such as health and public utilities are either run by central government or privately and overseen by Whitehall. Others such as education and social care are the preserve of the boroughs some of which are the same size as some of England’s other cities. Indeed, added together the boroughs spend twice as much as City Hall.

One of the areas where the Mayor has most impact is transport where Transport for London runs the tube and oversees the tendering for the right of private operators to run the city’s 670 bus routes. The Mayor has the power to set the fares, and Khan has frozen them off and on since 2016.

The Mayoralty has pushed through the Ultra Low Emissions Zones to fine polluting vehicles, which

Boris Johnson instigated, and Khan expanded. Mayor Livingstone introduced the Oyster card, Mayor Johnson the use of bank cards for touch-in payment, and Mayor Khan the one-house “hopper” fare. But TfL is a separate body from the Mayor and the GLA and is dependent on funding from the Treasury as emerged when Mayor Khan had to agree new conditions as part of a funding deal in the wake of Covid-19.

The Metropolitan Police is another enormous organisation people might believe the Mayor is personally in charge of. Another paradox: both Khan and Johnson have both succeeded in dismissing the Commissioner, but they have no responsibility for its funding or operations on the ground, such as the policing of pro-Palestinian marches.

Receipt for capital reform

So how could it be improved? First, the UK missed a trick by not following the US model of a directly elected mayor and legislature with the mayor as the executive. Giving London and other cities the sort of devolution that Scotland enjoys would boost the mayor’s legitimacy.

But to make this work, a second reform is needed to give the London mayoralty and assembly more power. There needs to be a much stronger mayor with stronger power to implement policies. And there also needs to be a stronger assembly with greater scrutiny powers to make the mayor more accountable.

Third, devolution should be extended to the boroughs as part of a rebalancing between the greater London authority and the boroughs, which have an equally strong impact in their jurisdictions as the GLA and Mayor.

The fourth element that supports both that extra responsibility and power and a rebalancing is the ability to raise taxes. One example would be a tourist tax that would benefit the hotel-heavy boroughs. The GLA and boroughs should be given the right to set and collect business rates. The NHS could be made more accountable locally alongside some degree of financial fiscal devolution

Local government in the UK suffers from one of the more restrictive financial frameworks, with even the council tax constrained by central government’s caps on the amount they can increase it.

They need access to a larger portion of the tax base. Given the current decline in trust in liberal democracy in the UK and given the relative popularity of local compared with central government, it would boost trust in government if London’s governance was strengthened.

However, that antipathy towards politics may make it harder to push through big strategic visions, which recently have tended to lead to opposition and polarisation (viz. ULEZ). Smaller measures that could be popular would be to bring London’s suburban rail network within TfL and reallocate the subsidies. Another would give them greater responsibility over the planning system that would enable councils to set targets and be judged against them.

London is not ungovernable — it is being governed, but that governance could be much improved. Strategic reform would be welcome but unlikely in the current environment. Therefore, for now, the recipe will likely involve continued muddling through.

Balancing sustainability and privacy to create smarter cities

The #smartcity must be more than a buzzword. Efforts by a UN body to set out guidelines could ensure that city planners deliver #sustainable cities with people’s needs at the core.

In 1991, the UN’s Centre for Human Settlements defined a sustainable city as one “where achievements in social, economic and physical development are made to last”. The definition encapsulated the three pillars that become central to the debate over urban sustainability — people, profit and planet.

Almost 35 years later the body now known as UN-Habitat, which is responsible for sustainable urbanisation, has reached a critical point on its timeline for developing guidlines to build people-centred smart cities. On 19 April it said it had begun the drafting work that it is scheduled to complete in May 2025, with a final version of the guidelines.

The process kicked off at the second United Nations Habitat Assembly in June 2023 in Nairobi, Kenya, where UN-Habitat assembled a global experts working group comprised of 31 experts nominated by Member States. The guidelines aim to be a voluntary framework for drawing up smart city regulations, plans and strategies to ensure that digital urban infrastructure and data contribute to making cities sustainable, inclusive and prosperous.

It might seem like classic talking-shop bureaucratese. But the need for coherent urban development is strong. Globally, over 50% of the population lives in urban areas today, according to the World Bank. By 2050, the urban population will more than double by which point almost 70% of humans will live in cities. Smart cities will also need to be climate-smart as a forecast 2.5 deg C to 2.9 deg C rise in temperatures by 2100 will hit cities hard.

At the same there is likely to be a continued explosion in digital technologies on top of the flow[KI1]  of ICT apps, devices and platforms. While artificial intelligence and its potential is the most obvious example, specific technologies have emerged such as LED lighting connected to a city-wide intelligent infrastructure, surveillance devices, digital twins that create online versions of the physical city, Internet of Things sensors, and drones to name five.

Each has the potential to bring great benefits in terms of smoother operations, greater efficiency and shared knowledge, but at the same time they threaten to negatively impact citizens’ lives through the loss of privacy or the feeling that decisions are being taken out of their hands. Thes concerns have become more live amid the debate over the activities of the global media companies such as Google, Microsoft and Elon Musk’s xAI.

UN-Habitat says that the guidelines will define how to achieve an “open, free and secure digital future of all” in the context of cities, and describes the guidelines as key to ensuring that smart city development is “people-centred”. However, there is a danger that this term — smart cities — can become just a buzzword. The guidelines must avert that by showing a route towards making genuinely beneficial changes to the design of cities.

Public participation

The good news is that UN-Habitat program made that agenda clear in its 2020 flagship strategic programme, People-Centred Smart Cities (PCSC) by acknowledging that “digital technologies in cities, depending on their use, can be a force that widens social gaps or reduces them”. The PCSC expanded the definition of smart city to include themes such as public participation, education, public health, data governance and digital inclusion. That is important because it focuses on the quality of services rather than the infrastructure per se, and highlight’s the need for the technology to enhance citizens’ wellbeing and engagement rather than just deliver clever applications.

If smart sustainable cities are to benefit citizens and drive inclusion rather than exclusion, then there are two steps that policymakers should take. The first is to raise the general level of digital literacy skills and ensure everyone can use these smart tools and services accessibility of the technology. The goal is genuine digital inclusion.

Second, while data are crucial to get a better understanding about how the city works as a dynamic entity, they must not be used in a way that breaches people’s privacy. For example, cities such as Amsterdam have used data showing tourists’ movements to change the services they offer and design ways to move visitors away from congested areas. But if smart cities collect huge amounts of personal, financial or biometric data on their citizens, it could create fears of vulnerability to a data breach or create a feeling of Big Brother-type surveillance.

If policymakers can find the balance between improving the quality of life for citizens and making them feel uncomfortable, then technology has the potential to help create sustainable cities in social and economic as well as environmental terms.

 [KI1]What does this mean?

Impacts of climate change are local, but power to act is still held centrally

All but one UK local #councils surveyed reported a #climate hazard such as extreme heat or flooding in their area last year. While towns and #cities are working to adapt to and mitigate the impacts, austerity has severely restricted their ability to respond.

Voters in 107 English authorities go to the polls on 2 May in the wake of a report by the charity CDP showing that 99% of UK local authorities reported a climate change-related impact in their areas. The most cited among the 68 councils that responded were extreme heat, urban and river flooding, drought and coastal flooding.

Over time, More than 300 authorities have declared a climate emergency since 2018 out of 382 UK councils, many of whom are in the process of developing plans to deliver against “ambitious” net zero targets, according to the independent statutory Climate Change Committee.

Many are taking action to mitigate climate change by reducing emissions or adapting its impacts by seeking to protect its citizens. Examples cited by CDP included many by #cities aiming to increase sustainability.

For example the Bee Network Project in Greater Manchester that aims to integrate bus, cycling and walking has seen 500,000 km ridden since the launch of a cycle hire scheme in 2021, likely reducing car journeys. On the adaptation front, Welsh government funding has supported the construction of the Crindau flood management scheme along 2.6 km of the river to protect the city of Newport from flooding risk.

Voters could express their views in the polling booths but recently turnout in non-general election years has fallen to below one in three, which is likely to be a reflection of the limited powers and resources they have. The impacts of climate change may fall locally but the strategies to tackle it are formulated in and funded from Whitehall and Westminster.

Indeed, local councils have a diminishing financial pool to dip into. Local government suffered the deepest impact of the austerity programme under the 2010-2015 coalition government. According to the House of Commons library, council’s core spending power — a central government measure — for 2024/25 will be around 11% below its 2010/11 level in real terms.

No more begging bowl

Analysis by The Guardian based on Institute for Government figures shows that real terms spending has fallen in every area bar social care. The areas most related to climate change are environmental & regulatory and highways & transport, where more than nine in 10 areas made budget cuts to the latter’s services in the last 13 years.

Unsurprisingly, three out of five council’s in the CDP survey cited a lack of budgetary capacity as the “most challenging factor” in terms of adapting to climate change and tackling the impacts of a warning planet. As its global director of cities, states and regions, Maia Kutner, puts it, local councils need a “step change” in support from national governments.

That seems unlikely. The Conservatives are certain to use their last set-piece fiscal event, the autumn statement, to offer more tax rises rather than an increase in spending. Labour has indicated it will prioritise balancing the budget over immediate demands for extra cash to tackle issues such as an under resourced local government sector.

The issue of district, county and city council funding is not a vote-winner in an election year. Thus, Labour’s “plan to power up Britain” majors on structural and organisation change such as devolution, better rights for workers, innovation and industrial strategy.

For local government, the plan is strong on critique and silent on likely future funding. It rightly points out that huge chunks of local council funding has had to be used on items such as temporary accommodation to “to plaster over the government’s mismanagement”.

However, it does offer some positive reforms. It commits to provide “longer-term funding settlements” to give more certainty. Labour would bring to an end  the “begging bowl culture” and “wasteful” competitive bidding that it said has cost councils millions in failed bids.

These will not directly affect climate change projects but to the extent that it enables councils to plan ahead and see a shorter gap between proposal and grant, then will hopefully increase their ability to take measures to adapt to and mitigate climate change. One test may be how many councils are reporting a climate hazard in four years’ time.