James Hulme, Head of Communications, NLGN
Commentisfree.guardian

While Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson have been slugging it out in community halls and talk radio stations all over London, another election is about to take place to elect 25 members of the London Assembly, a body that scrutinises the mayor. You’ll be forgiven if it hasn’t been the major talking point in your household. Precious few people have paid attention to who will represent them at a constituency level in the assembly. Yet assembly members (AMs) are supposed to have a key role in checking the power and performance of the mayor’s considerable budget and responsibilities. So why is no one taking any notice of them?

The assembly’s primary role is to scrutinise the activities of the elected mayor of London, a role that to be fair it has performed adequately since its inception. By and large, AMs are pretty dedicated and hard working politicians. Whether they deliver value for money is more questionable. Any mayoral system should certainly have an element of scrutiny, but does London really need to employ 25 full-time politicians to fulfill this role?

Being an assembly member shouldn’t be a full-time job. Indeed some members combine it with the role of Member of Parliament. Other than voting on the mayor’s budget and scrutinising his various strategies, much of the assembly’s time is spent investigating issues affecting London - some important, such as the inquiry into the 7/7 attacks, and some more superfluous, such as “The impact of the droit de suite on London’s art market”. This work could easily be performed by a cross-party regional select committee of London MPs.

So if the assembly’s scrutinising role were removed, who would monitor the work of the mayor? I believe that this role would be best served by the 32 elected borough leaders in Greater London. They already offer highly visible leadership and are directly accountable to their local population. Furthermore, through day to day interaction with their local communities, they would be best placed to offer first-hand guidance on the views and aspirations of ordinary Londoners.

At the New Local Government Network, we want to establish a London Leaders’ Council (LLC) of all elected council leaders in London, whose sole role would be to approve the mayor’s budget, to review his strategic plans and documents and to question the mayor, his staff and organisations under his control - namely Transport for London, the London Development Agency, the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority and the Metropolitan Police Authority.

Outer London boroughs often complain that they are overlooked in favour of inner London, which is geographically and politically closer to the current mayor. To prevent this happening, the mayor’s budget could only be passed by the LLC if a clear majority of councils from both inner and outer London endorsed it. This would ensure that any mayor would have to take into account the interests of all areas of London and liaise with all London leaders, regardless of political denomination.

Would this lead to political posturing between council leaders and the mayor? Perhaps, but it would then be up to them to explain to their electorate why they had chosen short-time political gain above agreeing a budget that is right for London.

One advantage of this new system would be that it would be much cheaper to run than the current assembly. Some £6.6m could be saved and either handed back to council taxpayers or used to pay for more than 150 additional police on London transport, or to help the 6,000 homeless people in London to get a place of their own.

By May 2, there is a reasonable chance that the city could be governed by a Conservative mayor and a majority Conservative assembly. Given this possibility, plus the fact that the mayoral election campaign has been dominated by debate over Ken Livingstone’s power and accountability, now is the right time to address how he should be scrutinised.

London’s borough leaders are ready to step up to the plate and offer constructive scrutiny and effective oversight. By bringing them together with the mayor, local people will feel closer to their elected representatives and more able to influence them. Better governance may not be the most scintillating issue in London at the moment, but it remains one of its most pressing.