Growing Pains

If there isn’t a collective noun for a group of plans and strategies, then City Hall’s output of such documents makes a good case for creating one. (Ideas on a postcard....)

By my reckoning*, the Mayor of London produces strategies on culture, sport, health inequalities, environment, economic development, food, social integration, transport, fire (safety), policing & crime, violence against women and girls, resilience and spatial development (the London Plan). (Note: in an earlier version, I actually forgot some from the list....which kind of makes my point)

Being fair to the Mayor, it’s not all down to him. Most of these have to be produced by law – the Greater London Authority Act 1999 (and subsequent bits of legislation) spell out in excruciating detail what the Mayor must (and must not) do. The Labour Government of the time was paranoid about what an unrestrained Ken Livingstone might do if he made it to City Hall (Spoiler alert: he did make it and the legislation didn’t restrain him).

Being brutal, how many of these strategies have made a dramatic impact on the city and how many have simply collected dust on shelves? I’d split them into two groups – the first being a triumvirate of the most important: the London Plan, transport and housing strategies. These have teeth, placing legal duties on public agencies to confirm with their contents and set the policy framework (such as on planning) for the whole city. The London Plan is the jewel in the crown – it’s little wonder other metro mayors outside the M25 are desperate to get control of their own spatial development plans.

At the other end of the scale are those strategies where the mayors, for all their ambitions, have no way of ensuring compliance and delivery. This is down to either not having control of the levers of delivery or lacking legal powers of enforcement. It’s ridiculous that the Mayor must produce a waste strategy when it’s local councils that empty our bins and City Hall can’t force them to abide by what is in the strategy.

Yesterday, in the learned setting of Imperial College, the latest addition to the family of plans and strategies – the London Growth Plan - was launched. Here at LCA we were delighted that our own new corporate identity colour scheme has been adopted by the plan - imitation the highest form of flattery, and all that.... It was also great to hear that so many of you are avid LDN readers, which we love to hear.

If a measure of success was the size and calibre of those in the audience, then the plan is off to a good start. The hall was packed with some of the biggest names from London’s government, private and voluntary sectors.

And it’s fair to say that the event oozed optimism and energy, and some of those leaving the venue will have been pumped up for the day ahead. But I’ve been around long enough to know that it takes more than a good launch to ensure a strategy succeeds. For a start, it will need ongoing, sustained leadership from the Mayor and London Councils to keep up the energy and drive this forward.

While the plan itself isn’t short of ambition, many of the associated actions feel woolly and lacking in clear, tangible deliverables. Some of this is understandable – the ability to deliver isn’t fully in the gift of London. With so much power and funding still centralised in Whitehall, the Government needs to play ball. This would come in the form of additional funding for big capital projects like new transport schemes, allowing London’s government more flexibility to decide how best to spend existing monies (such as in skills) and new powers to levy and vary taxes to stimulate growth and generate income streams.

I was probably short of confidence that London will get what it wants on this front even before yesterday’s launch event. A Minister - MHCLG’s Alex Norris – spoke at the launch, albeit a very junior minister. I’m sure there is some private frustration a cabinet minister was unable to attend. And despite talking for ten minutes – the first few minutes of which were a love-in with the Mayor – the best we got was the offer of partnership and some “tools”. It’s going to take a lot more than warm words to deliver on this plan.

* I ought to know – it was, after all, once my job to read them all.

This is a slightly edited version of an article from LCA 's LDN Newsletter. To receive LDN direct to your inbox every week along with over 3,500 of London's top decision-makers and opinion formers, then please sign up here.

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