A brief history of London-wide government

The Greater London Authority, usually abbreviated to GLA, is the administrative body for Greater London. The GLA was launched in 2000, although it has a number of forerunners. In the nineteenth century, the Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW) gradually took on various responsibilities for providing infrastructure to a London which was far smaller to the one we know today. The MBW was appointed rather than elected, making it unpopular with Londoners. The London County Council (LCC) assumed the powers and responsibilities of the MBW when it was launched in 1889, but over its lifetime also had wider authority over matters such as education, planning and council housing. By the 1960s the city had grown so much that the LCC only exercised power over the area which today we understand as inner London, and so the LCC was itself replaced by the Greater London Council in 1965. While the Greater London Council (GLC) administered a much larger area, its powers were limited compared with those of the LCC. Like today’s Greater London Authority, the GLC provided strategic services like the fire brigade and environmental services, but front-line service provision was the responsibility of the London boroughs. Like the LCC before it, the GLC was an elected body, and between 1965 and 1986 control swung between the Conservatives and Labour. It is widely accepted that the Conservative government of the time abolished the GLC because of political contestation and hostility between the two, with the socialist policies of GLC leader Ken Livingstone a particular thorn in the side of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. So ended a succession of London-wide administrative bodies, with the GLC’s powers and responsibilities divided between central government and the London boroughs. When Labour came to power in 1997, it was their policy to reintroduce London-wide government. After a referendum on the establishment of a new authority for London and a directly elected Mayor, the Greater London Authority was established in 2000.