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.