Greater London Authority

The GLA is responsible for the strategic administration of the 1579 km² (610 sq. miles) of Greater London. It shares local government powers with the councils of 32 London boroughs and the City of London Corporation. It was created to improve the co-ordination between the local authorities in Greater London, and the Mayor of London's role is to give London a single person to represent it. The Mayor proposes policy and the GLA's budget, and makes appointments to the capital's strategic executive such as Transport for London. The primary purpose of the London Assembly is to hold the Mayor of London to account by scrutiny of his or her actions and decisions. The assembly must also accept or amend the mayor's budget on an annual basis.[1] The GLA is based at City Hall in the London Borough of Newham, situated next to the redeveloped Royal Victoria Dock in Canning Town. The GLA moved to this building from the previous City Hall, in Southwark, in January 2022.

The GLA is different from the corporation of the City of London with its largely ceremonial lord mayors, which controls only the square mile of the city, London's chief financial centre.

In 1986, the Greater London Council was abolished by the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher. Many people have surmised that the decision to abolish the GLC was made because of the existence of a high-spending left-wing Labour administration under Ken Livingstone, although pressure for the abolition of the GLC had arisen before Livingstone took over, and was largely driven by the belief among the outer London borough councils that they could perform the functions of the GLC just as well.

On abolition, the strategic functions of the GLC were transferred to bodies controlled by central government or joint boards nominated by the London borough councils. Some of the service delivery functions were transferred down to the councils themselves. For the next 14 years there was no single elected body for the whole of London. The Labour Party never supported the abolition of the GLC and made it a policy to re-establish some form of citywide elected authority.

The Labour party adopted a policy of a single, directly elected mayor (a policy first suggested by Tony Banks in 1990), together with an elected assembly watching over the mayor; this model, based on the mayor–council government of many American cities, was partly aimed at making sure the new body resembled the erstwhile GLC as little as possible. After the Labour party won the 1997 general election, the policy was outlined in a white paper entitled A Mayor and Assembly for London (March 1998).

Simultaneously with the elections to the London Borough councils, a referendum was held on the establishment of the GLA in May 1998, which was approved with 72% of the vote. The Greater London Authority Act 1999 passed through Parliament, receiving royal assent in October 1999. In a controversial election campaign, the then prime minister, Tony Blair, attempted to block Livingstone's nomination and imposed his own candidate. In reaction, Livingstone stood as an independent candidate, resulting in his expulsion from the Labour Party and in March 2000, was elected as Mayor of London. Following an interim period in which the mayor and assembly had been elected but had no powers, the GLA was formally established on 3 July 2000.

City Hall in Southwark served as the headquarters of the Greater London Authority between July 2002 and December 2021.

For the first two years of its existence, the Greater London Authority was based at Romney House, 47 Marsham Street in Westminster.[2] Meetings of the London Assembly took place at Emmanuel Centre, also on Marsham Street.[3]

Between July 2002 and December 2021, the Greater London Authority was based at a building known as City Hall in Southwark, on the banks of the River Thames, close to Tower Bridge. City Hall was designed by Norman Foster and constructed at a cost of £43 million[4] on a site formerly occupied by wharves serving the Pool of London. This building did not belong to the GLA but was leased under a 25-year rental agreement from the Kuwait Investment Authority.[5]

In November 2020, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan announced plans to vacate City Hall at the end of 2021 and relocate to The Crystal in the Canning Town area of East London. The Crystal building is owned by the Greater London Authority and is currently under-occupied. City Hall was not owned by the authority itself and the proposed move would save the Greater London Authority £12.6 million a year in rental costs.[6][7][8] The decision was confirmed on 3 November 2020. Newham Borough Council gave permission for a change of use for the building in December 2020.[9][10] The authority vacated City Hall on 2 December 2021 and the move is due to completed in the first week of January 2022.[8][11] The Crystal was renamed "City Hall" in December 2021.[12][13]

In addition to City Hall, staff of the Greater London Authority are also based at Palestra House on Blackfriars Road and at the London Fire Brigade headquarters on Union Street, both in Southwark.[14]

The predecessors of the Greater London Authority, the Greater London Council and the London County Council, had their headquarters at County Hall, upstream on the South Bank. Although County Hall's old council chamber is still intact, the building is unavailable for use by the GLA because of its conversion into, among other things, a luxury hotel, amusement arcade and aquarium.[15]

After the 2021 elections, Labour has the largest representation on the GLA with the mayor as well as eleven assembly members, followed by nine from the Conservatives, three Greens, and two from the Liberal Democrats.[27]

• 2000 London Assembly election
  • 2000 London mayoral election
• 2004 London Assembly election
  • 2004 London mayoral election
• 2008 London Assembly election
  • 2008 London mayoral election
• 2012 London Assembly election
  • 2012 London mayoral election
• 2016 London Assembly election
  • 2016 London mayoral election
• 2021 London Assembly election
  • 2021 London mayoral election

• History of local government in London
• Scotland Yard
• Lord Mayor of the City of London
• City of London Corporation
• London boroughs
• Foreign relations of the Mayor of London
• Boundary map

• Official website
• About the GLA – Website detailing the powers of the GLA
• House of Commons Library Briefing Note, June 2018
• Greater London Authority Review, 2005–06 – House of Commons Library Standard Note
• Wikisource – Referendum Results